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An improvement on the woeful second part, though that isn’t really saying much, this is pretty much a straight-up war film – still, at least they tie everything up nicely.

After the crushing disappointment of The Matrix: Reloaded earlier this year, the pressure is really on The Matrix: Revolutions to deliver the goods and make everything alright again, particularly after Warner Brothers made us wait a whole six months to find out what happened after their (frankly, rubbish) cliff-hanger.

Much Better Effort

Well, the good news is that The Matrix: Revolutions is a damn sight better than The Matrix: Reloaded, although that isn’t really saying much. It’s still not a patch on the original film though.

The plot picks up straight from the point that Reloaded finished, without even a “Previously…on The Matrix: Reloaded” recap to refresh our memories. Neo (Keanu Reeves) is in a coma, apparently trapped between the ‘real’ world and the Matrix in a train station under the control of the mysterious ‘Train Man’ (Bruce Spence).

Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss) and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) realise that to rescue him they have to confront ‘the Frenchman’, Merovingian (Lambert Wilson), which at least means that a) we get another hilarious club scene, this time a bizarre leather fetish club and b) we at least get to see Monica Bellucci in a revealing, low-cut, red skin-tight leather number, even though she’s only in it for 3 minutes.

Once Neo has been rescued, he gets a few Wise Words from the Oracle (Mary Alice, replacing Gloria Foster, who sadly died after shooting her Reloaded scenes) and then the stage is set for two climactic battles: man versus the machines in the heart of Zion and Neo versus Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) in the Matrix. However, pesky Agent Smith has also infiltrated the real world by taking over the body of Bane (Ian Bliss) and is biding his time, waiting to attack…

A Fitting Conclusion

Though the first 20 minutes or so of Revolutions recall everything that was irritating about Reloaded (people speaking in riddles, no action) the film really picks up once The Attack Of The Machines starts, becoming, essentially, a straight-up war movie. The most enjoyable set-piece of the film is Captain Niobe’s (Jada Pinkett-Smith) race against time back to Zion, piloting the spaceship at high speeds through what appears to be some sort of pipe.

The CGI is, for the most part, as impressive as ever, particularly the ‘Clouds Of Squid’ effects, used brilliantly during the sustained attack sequence at the depot. Keanu is still as wooden as ever (his love scenes are particularly painful) but the other actors are good – thankfully, this time, Morpheus takes something of a back seat, meaning that Pinkett-Smith has much more to do this time round. As such, she’s probably the best thing in the film, next to Weaving, whose multiple-Smith routine steals the show again.

Overall, the film is a fitting conclusion to the trilogy, though you can’t escape a vague feeling of lost opportunity and it’s a shame they didn’t have any final mind-blowing twists up their sleeves. Still, at least they wrap everything up properly and this time the action scenes outweigh the sillier bits, unlike the last time round. Now, do they really promise not to make any more?