I waited a while before I wrote this review. I knew I couldn't review it right after it ended, as I needed to let it percolate a bit. Now that it's been a week, I have a better sense of what I thought.

The one thing I definitely know is that my final thoughts on this movie won't be finalized until I see the third film. Matrix: Revolutions managed to open as many doors as it closed and, as another person put it, this is the middle act of a three act movie. With that said, I really enjoyed the film. It was much better than most movies out there right now and lived up to my own hype.

The fight scenes were all amazing. A lot of people have complained that you could see that Neo had been digitized, but I didn't notice this nor would I have cared. This is the one movie--one that is partially set within a computer program--where this shouldn't be a problem. I especially enjoyed the fight scene in the entryway of the mansion. Cinematographically, it was beautiful. Woo-ping Yuen, the fight choreographer, is certainly one of the best in the world as the fights were fluid and realistic enough to be believable.

The plot, another terribly contentious portion of the movie, was just fine with me. [Warning: some spoilers are coming up] Like I said earlier, not every question was answered and some new ones were posed, but the plot stayed within the reality of the film. The biggest question mark comes when Neo is able to stop the creatures that look like mechanical squids while in the real world. So if he can do that outside of the Matrix, what does that say about Zion and the "real world?" Some have thought that the Matrix is inside another Matrix, which to me seems unrealistic, mostly because I have more faith in the Wachowski brothers. It's like ending a short story with, "and then I woke up." Also, there is the question of the version of Agent Smith who made it out of the Matrix into the real world via Bane, a man living in Zion (the one who tried to kill Neo while in Zion). How did Agent Smith leave the Matrix and what does that mean? The answer could either be completely amazing or utterly disappointing.

That is where my grade comes in. The film itself is really something wonderful but there is a chance it could be ruined by a bad end to the story in Matrix: Revolutions. And so, my grade could easily go up to an A or down to a C depending on how the next film ends. So, in six months I will change the grade accordingly.

In the meantime, if you're interested in figuring out more of the plot for yourself, I recommend wading through this Kottke thread or browse critical reviews at MetaCritic if that's your preference. Either way, let me know what you thought.