"But 'The Matrix Trilogy' didn't end the way I thought it would. 'Reloaded' sucked, and 'Revolutions' blew," quoth the Whiner.

So what, who cares. You suck, you blow. You were obviously wrong, dude. Crack a philosophy tome from Castaneda, Cayce, Lynn V Andrews, any shamanistic thing you can get into your boxed mind. There is no box. Oh, and "there is no spoon", which means there is no boxed you.

Or get a complete boxed set of the "Xena: Warrior Princess" series when available. You'll get all these concepts and the Matrix ones all in a pretty and violently fun package--who am I, how can I redeem myself, where do I fit in, love, friendship, culture versus anticulture, heaven, hell, gods, demons, good, bad, ugly, beautiful, and sacrifice. And more.

Simplest: you're used to the long, twenty minute, American film battle coming at the end of "Die Hard", "Terminator", and the like; but, the Wachowskis, Keanu Reeves, and the good rest gave it to us in the middle of "The Matrix: Reloaded", confusing you whiners terribly. Wait for it. In a week, a year, a decade you'll finally go, "Ah, I get it."

Simplest: you're used to the American, white, male hero kicking ass, wisecracking, being cocky and surviving to leave with the trophy girl of his convenience for implied celebration sex after the FADE OUT. Wrong. Neo's not so American, not so Anglo, nonwise-acre, uncocky [especially out of the Matrix], who doesn't leave with the girl ... unless you count meeting her again on the flipside. He's very male hero but in a softer, understanding, hesitant manner.

Simplest: whether turning the other cheek for Christ, loving your enemy as you would love yourself, or pulling a full Christlike, Taoist "Art of War" and welcoming your enemy to overrun you. And, of course, the greedy bastard will, and did. When Smith overtakes Neo, our hero is winning by accepting, conquering by attrition, as Old Testament and feminine as giving the appearance of being defenseless in order to accept and welcome your enemy into your tent to feed and succor him, and then putting a spike through his lulled and sleeping brain. [Yep, that's in your local "Holy Bible"]

That's the final battle, the final stroke of the Wachowski/Reeves/Neo genius, the scene so many think is anticlimactic, after the overwhelming shoot-em-up.

The machines / human war in Zion couldn't be the final conflict, because it was plainly always Custer dead at the Little Big Horn, the English out-warred at Roarke's Bluff in Zulu land.

Only a full connection and peace treaty between enemies to rid themselves of an outside aberational imbalance, Smith, that one connection and peace treaty made only by and controlled by Neo, the one Tank and other said is "a machine" HAS THE POWER AND CONTROL to end the war. Not thousands of dead men de-activated machines. Not you lose and we win. Morpheus didn't foresee it and neither do the whiners see it still. One person facing the ugliness he made and re-embracing it into himself, becoming it but being stronger than it. [Agent Smith had been already changing but Neo inadvertently made him into just Smith, who became out of control]

"But that's middle of the road talk!"

No, that is balance. To Walk In Beauty. The Tao. Yin. Yang. Female. Male. No. Yes. All. Walking upright and strong and seeing all around, from ground to sky, not crawling on your weak belly unable to see anything but mud and worms.

Oh, and never make the mistake as I've heard many say, that because since they don't get it then Mr. Keanu Reeves doesn't. The guy, who brought to life sweet Ted "Theodore", the enlightened Buddha, the willful devil's lawyer, insecure and violent Donnie Barksdale, the two-faced prince in Idaho, and so many more spiritual cinema heroes and villains gets it. He gets it big time. The question is what does KCR know that you don't, if you're supposedly more brilliant than he?