10 Most Disappointing Endings In Movie History
7. The Matrix Revolutions
Everyone loves The Matrix 1, right? It’s that rare mix of awesome action and hardcore sci-fi philosophy that has only really been duplicated since by Mad Max: Fury Road, and it’s since become a pop culture staple, lending its name to one of the unanswerable questions of the universe - are we living in a simulation?
The Matrix sequels, on the other hand, are a bit more divisive. As it turned out, the Wachowskis wanted to flex their philosophy muscles a little harder, and made the films a lot slower and more about choice and consequence.
As they delved deeper into postmodernist theory and strayed away from action, fans were left a little disappointed, and all of it comes to a head in the trilogy’s finale, where Neo is absorbed by Agent Smith, and the leader of the machines surges energy into Neo’s real body. This destroys Smith, kills Neo, and Zion and the Matrix are restored.
It takes a lot of extended reading to be truly satisfied with the final chapter of the Matrix, and one would hope that the Wachowskis would have stuck with the thoughtful but comprehensible style of the first movie. But Matrix Revolutions' ending does not deliver, and a lot of the that extended reading is Baudrillard - meaning it’s pretty esoteric.
The best advice is to take the ending at face value, that Neo saw that believing what is real is all that matters, and so it does not matter if the Matrix exists or not. But that may not be enough to satisfy everyone, and that's fair enough.