The Matrix series was never about ridiculously long action scenes that entailed humans piloting battle suits with guns the size of houses. If that's what fans of the original (and arguably the second) film wanted, then they'd all migrate to Michael Bay's Transformers franchise. No, the reason why the first Matrix has become so iconic, historical and revered is because it explores a huge amount of themes and is layered so thick with concepts, analogies, metaphors and allegories that critics today are still dissecting its many meanings. Sure, even the first film had its fair share of action scenes (who could forget the shoot-out in the lobby), but they were stylistic, not over-long and crucial in forwarding the film's narrative. Reloaded upped the amount of action by quite a large margin in this regard, but still managed to somewhat keep its head in telling a story. By the time Revolutions rolled around, action became just another screen-filler, eschewing interesting imagery and dialogue in favour of watching an hour-long scene of bullets and exploding robots. If Matrix 4 is to happen, the Wachowski's need to return to the roots of what made the series so great in the first place. Sure, have some action, but please give it meaning, and don't make it boring and unnecessarily long.
Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.
