by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

The band They Might Be Giants once had a little ditty that went, "Only two songs in me/And I just wrote the third." They could have dedicated that one to über-fanboys the Wachowski Brothers, had they seen the pair's latest flick. Matrix Revolutions is the final act in the trilogy that has now officially overstayed its welcome.

It's not out of courtesy that I'll refrain from announcing any of the major plot twists that transpire in Matrix Revolutions. It's simply a matter of conserving energy, seeing as how a small child or perhaps even a goat could call them a mile ahead.

To be fair, I figure a little birdy told the Wachowskis to lay off all the weed-addled college-dorm philoso-phosizerizing. The postmodern om-shanti yadda-yadda drained almost as much energy out of the second Matrix film as the awful "rave" sequence near the beginning. No raves in Revolutions either, though there is a corny, clichéd fetish-club bit that could have been done without.

On the other hand, there's precious little kung fu this time as well, the cornerstone of the series' appeal. Roughly half the film is devoted exclusively to people going "Nyaaaargh!" while firing off endless rounds of ammo at seething masses of robot octopi. These extended battle scenes quickly become an indecipherably dense barrage of blinking, blue-grey mechanical junk. No sense of accelerated excitement here, just migraine fuel.

The final showdown between Keanu Reeves' Neo and Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith should have been the money shot of the whole trilogy. The big, orgasmic payoff. But it too comes off limp and soggy - literally, as it takes place in the rain.

Come to think of it, at no point does Revolutions out-wow its predecessor, or even the first Matrix movie. I thought the idea was for the Wachowskis and their team to outdo themselves each time, at least in terms of insane set pieces, mind-blowing effects and awesome new characters - e.g. the highway battle in Reloaded. But they only had two Matrix movies in them, and I had to sit through the third.

Matrix Revolutions is now playing

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