I could probably sum up this movie as an unneccessary sequel. Like, Highlander had unneccessary sequels, and jurassic park had unneccessary sequels. Not to say this was as ad as any of those sequels; on the contrary, this movie was good. The thing is, it wasn't better then the original. Or, for that matter, as good as the original.
In the original, our 'Woah' saying hero, clad in black leather and sunglasses, progressed from a wimpy, follow orders type of character to a take initiative, understands the world type of character. His character developed in the span of the movie and reached it's goal. At that point he could see the matrix as the background image of this page, and he could kill agents with no problem, stop bullets, fly, come back from the dead, and so on and so forth.
In Matrix RELOA, he was basically a finished character. No need for any real development. Sure, he could fight Agent Smith well into the next six sequels, but lets be realistic, of what interest is a character with no internal conflicts to deal with? I really didn't see any other characters have any issues to deal with either, save that dreadlocked black guy whose name I forgot. That guy finished his conflict in one scene. Oh boy.
Yes. Fight scenes are cool. But no. Ten minute fight scenes are not cool. I can't help but feel I was watching a movie that wasn't made to appeal to me. I have the feeling that the movie was made to appeal to everyone else in the theater but me. Definately, I heard a lot of "YO SON," and "WORD, NEO IS THE MAD BOMB." The scary thing about that is I was in Yonkers, which if you know the layout of the New York City area, you'll know what I'm talking about. In the original, each fight had a purpose. Morpheus teaching Neo how to expand his mind, Neo learning to dodge bullets, and so on. This movie, it was more of a playing-the-audience type of thing. NEO VERSUS DOZENS OF THE SAME GUY!!!1 They definately had a cool thing or two in each fight scene, but that doesn't warrant it going on for ever.
While on the time subject, the Zion-Rave-and-Neo-Trinity-Love scene was WAY too long. And a bit pointless. Flash us with breasts and Keanu Reeves' ass crack (which is still burned in my mind, thank you very much Wachowski brothers). And then that leaves the interesting question of racial distribution. Zion seemed to have a lot of black people as it's population and a white guy as it's savior. OHH NOO, CONTROVERSIAL!!!!!1
Starting after that highway chase scene, the movie seemed to jump into a PREVIEW-OF-UPCOMING-EPISODES mode. They flashed scenes here and there, showed characters die who I didn't care about, rushed through some fighting, worked against a deadline, and then ended with a Coma and a wasted Zion. I guess they did this so the movie didn't go for three hours... But hold on, didn't I just complain about the fight scenes being too long? The movie's time budget was poorly distributed.
I didn't totally dislike the film mind you. I really liked the Six Neos, Six Zions plot thing. That was great. That was like Metal Gear Solid 2. The Oracle being part of the conspiracy came out of left field though. The Movie's plot tie-ins with the Animatrix stuff was sorta nifty. The highway chase scene was nice. Agent Smith's thing... I'm not quite to sure about whats going on there, I guess the third movie will handle that. All in all, it was better then most sequels go, but it didn't quite touch the supreme divinity that Empire Strikes Back and Terminator 2 hold.