There's 2 hours I'll never get back again.
To begin the parade of annoyances, Cornel West got way too many lines this time and I couldn't help thinking that the limp, deadpan performance by the Crown Prince of Academia was actually one of the best in the film.
I have to give some kudos, though. The second best part of the film (you always have to give props to the CG department) was the acting by the traitor guy who does a dead-on impersonation of Hugo Weaving. It took me about 90 seconds to know he was channelling Smith. It took Neo 4 "Mr. Anderson"s and 2 roundhouse kicks to the head to figure it out. In his case, the acting was too good. Whoda thought?
If Neo and Trinity never told you they were in love, would you believe them? I thought from the beginning that their love was only because Trinity was the only chick on the ship. Neo would have fallen in love with Morpheus if Trinity weren't there. Her death scene was eternally long and too long in coming.
OK, explain this to me: A rag-tag bunch of humans living underground and having their civilization wiped out every few generations manage to build highly sophisticated robot-suits???
The special effects were breathtaking, but I found myself not caring a whit as to how they related to the story. If there was a story. Oh, and the Oracle had to re-form herself. I get it. It wasn't because the actress that played her last time died. It was all part of the story. Riiiiiight.
But to top it all off, here we have some sort of Messiah, a chosen one who sacrifices his sight, his lover and (probably) himself for . . . detente.
What the hell is that? No great revival of the human race. No revolution against the machines. No revelation that the real world was just another level of the Matrix and Neo's journey was pointless. Nothing interesting, just a promise by the architect to leave Zion alone and to release the humans if they manage to one day become self-aware and want to leave the Matrix. (I suppose they'd have to go through that red pill/blue pill nonsense.)
What a rip-off! These idiots were celebrating because they get to live in squalor cowering from the all-powerful (and all-benevolent, apparently) machine.
Of course, if the Whatchamacallit brothers actually intended that, it would be a brilliant and highly cynical take on the nature of man and God.
Somehow, I don't think so.
Oh, well, at least one of the villains was French.
"Everything that has a beginning, has an end." Mercifully.