By now, the "Matrix" series seems high on the heroin of its own coolness. What was groundbreaking, even breathtaking, in
the first entry feels like beating a dead horse in the third. Now there are guys who can shoot guns while standing on the ceiling, and Trinity does a flip while performing the simple task of jumping over a subway turnstile. Show off much? But maybe too much is never enough. "The Matrix Revolutions" is better than "The Matrix Reloaded," having gotten most of the philosophical mumbo-jumbo out of its system in that middle chapter. It doesn't have the gee-whiz factor of Vol. I, nor the original's mind-bending ideas, which now are familiar to us. What it is, is a fairly straightforward futuristic action-adventure flick, and a good one at that. If Larry and Andy, the Wachowski Brothers who wrote and directed it, sometimes lay the bravado on a bit thick ("Look! We can still slow down time!"), it's a pardonable offense. Once again, there is no recap; if you haven't seen the first two films, don't bother with this one. Neo (Keanu Reeves) is stuck between the machine world and the matrix, in a realm run by the Merovingian (Lambert Wilson), that French information-trader with the hot wife (Monica Bellucci). Neo's girlfriend Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), the biggest believer in Neo's messianic potential, are back in the underground Zion, preparing to fight the onslaught of sentinels burrowing toward them.
To read the rest of this review, click on the relevant link below.