end of the original Matrix trilogy, but it didn't do the job all that well.

A fourth franchise movie has now been made, with 2021's The Matrix Resurrections serving as a legacy sequel to the first three films. The every The Matrix movie will be part of an even larger narrative. Hopefully, when the sequel is released, it will hopefully avoid what made The Matrix Revolutions stand out from the previous two movies for all the wrong reasons.

The Matrix Revolutions' Story Happens Almost Entirely In The Real World

The third Matrix movie mostly avoids the franchise's titular setting

The entire franchise is built on the concept of a complex computer simulation made to keep the human mind occupied while the Machines harvest electricity from everyone's dormant body. The first Matrix movie goes hard on the worldbuilding in this respect, showing how those aware they're not in the Real World can manipulate the rules of the movie's titular simulation. These scenes are what the movies quickly became known more, but Revolutions turned its back on the Matrix and focused almost entirely on what was happening in the Real World instead.

Revolutions' immediate predecessor, The Matrix Reloaded, was also lighter on the simulation scenes than the 1999 franchise starter, but it struck a much better balance than Revolutions did. The movie that ended the original trilogy paid far too much attention to defending Zion from the Machines. It was an interesting part of the plot for a little while, but after so long watching new characters who are difficult to root for endlessly shooting hunks of metal out of the sky, it quickly grows monotonous. All the while, scenes in the Matrix are, at best, sparse - and infinitely more intriguing.

Neo Vs. Agent Smith Is The Matrix Revolutions' Best Scene For A Reason

The Matrix Revolutions' most rewarding moment happens in the digital world

Keanu Reeves' character facing off against Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith creates a brilliant finale for The Matrix Revolutions, but part of that could be because the audience has been made to wait so long to step back into the digital world. There are other fight scenes in Revolutions that take place inside the Matrix, but by the time of Neo and Smith's showdown, it feels so long that it could almost have happened in another movie entirely.

Neo Vs. "Bane" is also a rare moment of greatness in The Matrix Revolutions, meaning Reeves' character fighting Smith steals the show twice.

The complex fight choreography that's perfectly augmented with CGI lets viewers know what has been missing for almost the entire movie, and the cool battle between the saga's protagonist and main villain easily becomes the best scene of the final movie in The Matrix's original trilogy. Arguably, the plot of The Matrix Revolutions could easily have been folded into the movie that came before it, as the third movie is almost all action sequences - despite them largely being the worst parts of the film.