Today a couple of colleagues and I went to the movies to see the premiere of Matrix 3. I loved the first part but was severely disappointed by the second. The third part…

… is equally dissappointing. The ‘coolness’ of the actors is gone, they appear to be more like frightened game.  Read more or go read the (German) review on this movie in the Spiegel.

What I loved about the first part is that the story was not easy to grip, but once you’ve got it everything made sense and was consistent in itself. The second and third part definitly lack this consistency leaving too many questions open. The ‘oracle’ is an annoying character, she’s still a cookie baking woman telling nothing really and we still don’t really get who or what she is.

The deal Neo cuts with the machine ‘Godness’ sounds like Neo was bamboozled, paying with his life for a temporary peace. Anybody noticed that he merely saved the lifes of his remaining co-‘Zionists’? What’s with all the millions of people still grown by the machines to feed their energy hunger? Wasn’t it the vision to free them? Now the majority of mankind is still doomed to a life at the needle. Darn, seems like mankind should have send another negotiator!

A nice aspect is agent Smith (intruding the real world) which appears a lot cooler than all others. And even he is not really a success (we’ve already seen in the second part that he can multiplicate and is able to overtake people so nothing too new here). The only nice twist is the irony that by taking over Neo, the machine Godess was able to kill Agent Smith through killing Neo. But heck, what virus can be destroyed by destroying a mere copy of it. That would mean the end of anti-virus-software companies!

The camera is nice but not as innovative as in the first movie. I would even dare to say that things look a lot more artificial and you can tell that it comes straight out of the rendering computer.

I also wonder what the creators mean by the more or less subtle allusions to Christian and Jewish (+ some Hindu in this film ?) religion? I mean, calling the city ‘Zion’ would even give the dimmest person a hint, wouldn’t it? And when Neo walks in the robot city, blinded yet still seeing everything in a golden light, his steps ripple on the surface like if he would walk on water. Man, doesn’t remind me of somebody I’ve heard of?