Revolutions... Here today, history tomorrow

Will The Matrix Revolutions leave a mark in the cinegoer's mind - this question is as hard to answer as the ones that buzzed through my head through the major portion of the Matrix Revolutions experience this morning at 9am. Would I be doing justice to the movie if I said that the Starbucks cup sitting by my seat was what helped me get through the first couple of reels, maybe not. Don't be fooled here, it's an above average flick but then again, so is the batting of Sachin Tendulkar or the tennis of Andre Agassi or ... What a Matrix geek like myself expects to see when he dishes out his ticket admission is so much more than "average" fare that it can be hard to satiate my appetite for "MATRIX"ness. I came out of the hall pretty sated and excited to see the flick again with my team tomorrow afternoon (after lunch at some local silly carb-laden restaurant). So here's my summary...

First up, dress down your expectations. In my opinion, there can never be another movie like the original Matrix - Revolutions neither has the philosophical insights that made you sit back and say "Wohh" of the original nor does it have the breath-taking action sequences (which I personally thought were prosaic) of Reloaded. What it does have though is a mix of action, character development and story progression that provides a sense of closure to the trilogy. Most every scene taking the movie to it's eventual climax except of course the protracted battle between the humans and the sentinels (I'm all for blood and gore but come on, this wasn't even in bullet time!). There are some intriguing aspects though, especially the presence of Monica Bellucci, the point of the whole "why are humans driven by emotion" and the elaborate explanation given to the new appearance of the Oracle. But the most poignant concept of the movie for me was the end-game: sometimes one must embrace evil in order to vanquish it. Alas, whither can Neo fly, the awful thought still follows me that even Kings must die...