Like any other science fiction movie fan, the original Matrix movie left me in awe. And unlike most who saw it, I was even more impressed by the second movie. It seems to me that those who were less impressed by Reloaded had unfair expectations for it. After all, the premise of the movie was already given away by the first movie. It wasn't a sequel, it was a continuation.
As a continuation of the story in the first movie, I don't see how the second movie could have been made significantly better. It had more action, more suspense, many more interesting characters, more mystery, more love, more philosophy, more everything. The anticipation for release of the third Matrix movie rivals that of any movie ever released in history, thanks to the mysterious and totally unpredictable twists found in Reloaded. These twists and mysteries created intense anticipation for the third movie among all Matrix fans, in hopes of getting these twists and mysteries resolved.
When I first watched Matrix Revolutions in the theater, my hopes of getting answers were shattered. Not only were the questions from Reloaded still lingering, Revolutions seemed to create even more unanswered questions for me than I began with. I remember thinking, "That must be why it's called Revolutions and not Resolutions."
I was also extremely disappointed that the Matrix story seemed to do a complete 180-degree turn, leaving the realm of science fiction, where logical explanations can be found for everything, and entering the realm of religion, where miracles can be used as a way to make any desired plot line happen, no matter how impossible. It seemed the Wachowski brothers were given a science fiction movie-making gift that they promptly flushed down the toilet with the third movie.
However, as I watched all three movies in sequence several times and thought more about them, I noticed little pieces of the puzzle scattered throughout the entire trilogy. Every time I watched the movies, I was able to fit more of these pieces together, and my previously unanswered questions made more and more science fictional sense to me. Now, the third movie no longer leaves me feeling unsatisfied like it used to. In fact, at first, the third movie did absolutely nothing for me emotionally at the end, and now I know why: my mind was too occupied and bothered by unanswered questions to "get into" the ending. But now that my mind is able to relax since the issues are resolved, I have found the ending to the third movie to be very powerfully moving.
If you want to feel the same about the movies, read this site. I can't change your personal taste, so if you didn't like the cyberpunk theme, if you couldn't stand Keanu Reeves, if you don't like black trench coats, etc., then this website probably won't change any of that. But if you think the third movie was worse than the other two movies, I guarantee that you are gravely mistaken. Read this site.
I truly believe the Wachowski brothers have produced perhaps the best set of movies ever made. The trilogy, judged by standards within the movie genre, is easily analagous to the greatness of any Beethoven sonata judged by standards within the music genre. I say that with the perspective of a concert pianist.
Of course, the Matrix trilogy may not be quite as timeless as Beethoven. I believe mathematics of tonality causes us to enjoy a Beethoven sonata just as much as someone a thousand years from now will. (Some musicians might disagree with this, but I can make an extremely strong case for this statement based on the mathematics of sound, which will never change.) The Matrix movies, on the other hand, will always rely on the speech and cultural upbringing of the audience. A thousand years from now, the English language might have evolved so much that people will not understand what the movies say.
Having said that, the Wachowski brothers did a very good job at avoiding any reference to our current time except for what is represented in the actual Matrix simulation, which doesn't matter since it represents a "historical" period of time from the perspective of the characters in the movie anyway (the Matrix simulation models the 20th century when in fact it's many centuries beyond that in the real world). I believe the Wachowski brothers made these movies as timeless as any movies can be.
To further appreciate each movie, realize that each one satisfies a different part of our cinematic cravings:
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