With “The Matrix Revolutions”, the Wachowski Brothers have gotten back to what they’re best at: delivering a big, crowd-pleasing action confection glazed with a thick patina of super-technology.  Because most of the film is a dizzying battle sequence, the never-say-die warriors of Zion offer the sort of exhilaration so painfully absent from the long-winded “Reloaded”.  If that film was a philosophy lecture at heart, this one’s a war movie.

There’s the typical roster of war heroes: the dour commander, the fiery field sergeant, the improvisational soldier, and the young recruit who lies about his age because he wants so badly to fight for the cause. It’s a lot of fun. The film evokes the best moments of previous futuristic battles like “Terminator” and “Aliens” while adding its own thrilling aesthetic.  Unforgettable moments include the rolling waves of squids beneath the dock’s smoky canopy, the streams of tracer fire blasting out of manga-style uber-robots, and the good ship Hammer fleeing droves of pursuers down a narrow tunnel.  Most affecting are the frightened teenagers rushing to their deaths to reload the city defenders like squires aiding bloodied knights.

The surprising thing about “Revolutions”, in fact, is just how enjoyable the fight for Zion is, and how little we miss the principle characters.  Following a short daisychain of expository scenes, Neo and Trinity disappear as the film turns its attention to the siege.  Jada Pinkett Smith as Niobe, Nathaniel Lees as Captain Mifume, and Chris Kirby as Mauser carry the film as well as any of the leads.  The fight is one of those terrifying end-of-the-world affairs whose breadth and scope is simply amazing.

After this mesmerizing sequence of humans fighting an overwhelming armada of machines in an act of doomed resistance, it’s almost a disappointment when the surfer-dude blankness of Keanu Reeves makes it back onscreen. By now his po-faced sense of cosmic responsibility is as tedious as Luke Skywalker’s in “Return Of The Jedi”, and the Wachowskis were wise not to dwell on him. Morpheus is mostly relegated to the background, which means Laurence Fishburne has fewer opportunities to stick his granite jaw front and center to offer up another cryptic affirmation of the hero’s quest.  The face cards in the Matrix—the Oracle, Merovingian, and Trainman—are on hand merely to spur Neo through the plot already set in motion in “Reloaded”.

Besides the battle, the other jolt of energy in film is Hugo Weaving’s perfidious Agent Smith. With “Revolutions” Weaving has secured his place as one of the great villains in film history. There isn’t a single scene he doesn’t steal, even when he is simply a voice in Bane’s body. His cadence is unforgettable, every word slathered in disdain.  Agent Smith has always been the wittiest joke in the Matrix, for with his bald head, suit and tie, and complete incomprehension of human emotions, he is really the straight guy in a world that’s far too cool for him. He’s the high school vice-principal who takes joy in busting the “hipsters” who make trouble in the hallways; when he says “You humans with your love” you can almost hear him saying “You young people nowadays with your rock and roll...”. His speech to the Oracle (“You put this plate of cookies here deliberately!”) and some of his quips to Neo (“You like what I’ve done with the place?”) are the funniest lines in the movie.  All but omnipotent, yet nagged by a shadow of a doubt, Agent Smith is a richly poetic avatar of all-consuming nihilism.

The question at the end of “Reloaded” was how, exactly, Neo was able to use his powers outside the Matrix to destroy the sentinels.  “Revolutions” offers the answer.  Film-nerd message boards are probably already ablaze with explanations of how Neo stops the sentinels, but all that need be said is that Neo, it turns out, is the equivalent of Christ.  Everything in the series has been leading to it, of course, but some of the philosophical jabber tended to obscure that fact.

But no, Neo’s journey mirrors Christ’s chapter and verse.  The Wachowski Brothers, who could learn a thing or two about subtlety, didn’t fail to punctuate the point by having a starburst in the distinct shape of a cross appear just as Neo meets his destiny.  At the end, the Oracle even says they will see Neo again.  Of course they will.  It will be in a sequel called “The Matrix: The Second Coming”, and wait until you see the battle in that flick. Some day soon, when they wise up to its barely concealed message, Christian groups will be showing “The Matrix” series as hip missionary films to recruit a new generation of believers. Nothing like a dish of half-baked Savior.

Even though the last words of the movie are “because I believed”, the trilogy does not boil down to a simple profession of faith. The spiritual world of “The Matrix” is a relatively sophisticated dramatization of Christian existentialism that has a number of sources, resting on (most prominently) the three stages of existence as formulated by Kierkegaard—aesthetic, ethical, religious—with each stage loosely corresponding to one of the films.

None of it adds up to a coherent philosophy, really, because the demands of the drama continually disrupt the overarching philosophical argument. For example, the chance event in “Reloaded”, the collapsing scaffolding which causes Trinity to enter the Matrix, is a glaring anomaly. The Oracle, a supernatural guide who helps Neo make his choices, is a no-no. And the alternate reality coinciding with ‘the real world’ becomes too convoluted when Neo and Agent Smith’s movement between them violates its metaphorical purity.

Still, there are lots of nice moments along the way.  The often mystifying talk about choices in “Reloaded” builds to the answer Neo gives Agent Smith when the malignant virus asks Neo why he continues to fight back in spite of his illusory causes: “Because I choose to”. Looking back on the films, the story’s saving factor is that its ending was not pre-ordained but did, indeed, come about as the culmination of a set of moral and spiritual choices. One can reject the numinous in the movies and still find Neo’s evolution interesting.

Also, in their comic book world, the Wachowskis succeeded in conveying a real sense of mortality (despite dialogue like “You can’t die”, “Yes I can.”). As corny as they are, Trinity’s last words to Neo are a surprisingly effective reminder about the value of love in the face of death. The talk of karma in the train station also goes down smoothly. Ultimately “The Matrix” films are a melange of ideas thrown together just skillfully enough to warrant, if nothing else, lots of late-night dorm room conversations conducted in a haze of marijuana smoke. First and foremost they are action films, though, and “Revolutions” restores some of the zip and charm of the original and goes out with a mighty bang.