The Matrix Revolutions

Lana and Lilly Wachowski close the trilogy with a film that splits into two stories barely touching. The siege at the Zion dock runs almost entirely without Neo, while he and Trinity travel to the Machine City on a separate track. For a long stretch of the 129 minutes the trilogy’s protagonist is off screen and a defensive battle plays instead. The fight design that made the series is gone. One confrontation remains, staged as two figures colliding in a downpour rather than as readable choreography. Jet Li was offered the part of Seraph and turned it down, unwilling to have his martial arts moves recorded digitally. Two deaths marked production. Gloria Foster, the Oracle of the earlier films, died before her scenes were finished and Mary Alice took the role; the interesting decision is to write the changed appearance into the plot rather than conceal it. Aaliyah, first cast as Zee, had died in a plane crash in 2001 and her scenes were reshot with Nona Gaye. It opened in 108 territories at once, at 1400 GMT on 5 November 2003, the first live-action feature to reach ordinary and IMAX theatres simultaneously. Worth it if a close that arrives as a truce rather than a victory sounds right. Not worth it if you want Neo kept at the centre.