It actually turned out to be a good thing to see "the Matrix Revolutions" a couple of weeks after it opened because after having my expectations completely lowered, it turns out that it wasn't as bad as I thought. Keep in mind, though, that by saying it wasn't as bad as I thought, I meant I thought it would blow. There are some pretty cool fight scenes and battle scenes in there that make great eye-candy, especially all Imaxed up like I saw it today, although I do have to say the best part of seeing it all Imaxed up was Monica Belluci's twenty-foot breasts.

The best criticism I read about why the two Matrix sequels sucked so badly came from Slate, which pointed out that the fun of the first Matrix was all in the through the looking glass fake/real world part of it- that the world that we think is reality turns out not to be. Because that's the reality we think is the reality, we care more about it and are brought into it. The two sequels take place mostly in the non-fake world, the world of Zion and, frankly, yawn. The battle sequence is pretty spectacular but kind of boring all at the same time.

I also think the problem was that, as the old adage goes about James Bond flicks- the movies are only as good as the villains are and the villains in the Matrix trilogy aren't that villainous. There's no Darth Vader, no Khan, no Cobra Kai, no Big Bad to make you really want to root for the hero (but also think that the bad guy is kind of cool at the same time.) Let's face it, having machine's as bad guys never really works because machines are kind of boring- no personality or motivation. They don't even have a face to associate them with or, at least, a face that doesn't look like a souped up version of Wizard in "the Wizard of Oz" like this flick had (something that makes me wonder about "The Return of the King" because so far the bad guy is just a floating eyeball. Not exactly scary. But who am I kidding? The movie is so gonna rock/ so nevermind). So while seeing a thousand squiddies beset Zion and almost destroy it is kind of exciting, you also don't really care. My hunch is that's why Mr. Smith is made to be the ultimate bad guy, because the Wachowski brothers realized that the machine's really weren't that excitingly evil. While Mr. Smith was creepily evil in "The Matrix" he's not evil enough to have the ultimate showdown be against him.

So, in other words, if anyone asks, there's only one "Matrix" movie and that's the first one. Kind of like "The Phantom Menace" or "Attack of the Clones" don't really count as "Star Wars" flicks. And don't get me started on the last season of "Buffy."