Cut to the next morning when the crew who's been ambushed by Smith hand Neo the message they received from the Oracle. The Crew decides to board the Nebuchadnezzar when Bane attempts to murder Neo when his assassination attempt is foiled by Kid running up to Neo calling for his attention from behind Bane and you know what, back up, I'm sorry but despite how much I like this plot device, you can't excuse this major plothole; when Smith assimilated Bane, wouldn't the operator have noticed some radical changes in Bane's coding in the Matrix? Even if that were overlooked, don't tell me that Bane's fellow crew members haven't noticed the bizarre and sudden changes in Bane's personality, even if Smith can assimilate all the memories of the people he assimilates, you never really do get to see him act like Bane, to which I mean to say that he never really makes an effort to conceal his true identity. Hell, you even get to watch him compulsively gut into his own hand with the same knife he tries to use to kill Neo with and later it's noted that he's covered in these kind of self inflicted wounds, where'd he find the time and the privacy to that? How would he have gone about concealing the fact that he's bleeding basically all the time? He almost gets caught when he shakes Neo's hand while his own hand is still swamped with his own blood, and when he wishes Neo good luck, he refers to himself as "we", so you see, he's deliberately hinting toward the fact that he's fucking Smith. He's obviously too consumed with the experience of being human to pull any of this off without being noticed, yet simultaneously he manages to drift beneath the radar the whole time. Bullshit. Well in any case, when Kid addresses Neo and the Nebuchadnezzar crew, they turn around to see Bane, they ask him what he's doing, he responds by wishing them good luck and walking off as Kid approaches them. It sure is a good thing that Kid is such an attention grabber, otherwise Neo might have realized that his hand is covered in Bane's blood. Seriously, that fact is never addressed. I guess it just dries on his hands and when he finally does notice it he thinks nothing of it and assumes he was too sloppy with the pasta he ate, or some shit.

In the next scene, it turns out that Commander Lock is pissed that Councilor Homann gave the green light to let Morpheus and the rest of the Nebuchadnezzar crew enter the sewers and try to contact the Oracle again. Lock then begs the question as to whether or not his authority actually amounts to anything, to which Homann says "sure.", to which Lock says "Okay, so why are you sipping mah Kool-aid?", to which Homann responds "Because your authority does amount to something; shit."

In the next scene, Neo is injected into the Matrix to meet with the Oracle, whom of which has a new bodyguard named Seraph who unlike all the other programs, has gold coding instead of green, indicating that he's been created with a different programming language and no, this has no relevance or bearing to the plot whatsoever. I've actually heard theories that Seraph is the immortalized consciousness of a previous "One" and his gold coding is the reason for that, meaning to say that Gold coding indicates a human mind having been turned into a program. But no, Seraph's existence goes on unexplained all throughout both movies he's present in, so that hypothesis is mere fan speculation. All we know is that Seraph kicks ass and he acts as a PC login screen who only allows people in with the proper credentials, in this case, those credentials are verified through your fighting ability, if you're anything short of the "One" in terms of fighting capabilities, then access denied. Neo wins and Seraph escorts him into a backdoor, which is Matrix speak for quick referencing in coding.

Finally we get to see the Oracle and she exposits that she knows the reason why Neo is having nightmares of people dying and that she'll elaborate after they get the obvious shit out of the way; she's a program who could be working in the best interests of the machine empire and not the people of Zion, so how could Neo trust her? She outright tells him that there's no way of knowing that and it's completely up to him, she then hands him some hard candy that's totally not encrypted to rewrite Neo's brain chemistry, something of which is a prevalent note later on in the film. He states that there's no point in merely offering it to him since she already knows that he'll take it, so she may as well just smash into his mouth because he very basically has no choice in the matter to which the Oracle rebukes by saying that he's not here to make a choice, he's already made it, he's here now to understand it, to which Neo accepts by taking the candy. Well, that's horseshit, Neo didn't make the choice, if he did then that would mean that the candy would already have been in his hands, but he's yet to take it, which means he's contemplating whether he should or shouldn't take it. Fact is, the choice isn't made until the action that follows is complete. He then proceeds to ask why the Oracle is here and why she's helping them, I know the reason but since that doesn't become apparent until Revolutions I'll keep it under my belt for now, so she responds, rather hamfistedly I might add, that "We're all here to fulfill our destiny" or some shit. She elaborates to explain she has a much less contrived and suspicious motive than "We're all here to fulfill our destiny", but rather that she believes that the machines cannot advance forward without humanity and vice versa and so it's in her best interest to get the two to come together in peace and make sweet, sweaty, oily, teeth-grindingly painful technophilia porn. Neo then asks if there are other programs like her, to which she replies "Yeah, but they're not nearly as awesome as me" and she goes on to explain that what constitutes paranormal activity such as vampires, ghosts, werewolves and demons are earlier programs that became obsolete and after their escape from termination they became famous for their specific techniques and weaknesses. She also goes on to explain that whenever these programs escape termination the Matrix will conjure up stories about them as an explanation to any given human who might come across them. She has Neo explain to her the nature of his nightmares and this is the part where she gives an explanation that actually raises more questions than it answers; she exposits that "You have the sight now, Neo". Okay, what is the "sight"? How does he have it? Where did it come from? How is it that he can use it outside and only ever use it outside the Matrix? All we get for an answer is "You are looking at the world without time", okay, what the Hell does that mean? Are you saying that he's looking at a version of the world that's devoid of time and he can view the future through that world because it's not bound by a linear structure and therefore events from different time periods can be seen at any given time regardless of when or where you live? Are you saying that he himself has become devoid of time and can therefore see the future because he partly exists outside the limitations of the universe? Or was it that hash brownie you fed him to rewrite his brain chemistry to let him in on the fact that you've been manipulating everyone up to the point where what happens is undeniable and unavoidable? Neo asks why he can only see fractions of the vision and not see it in it's entirety so that he can rest on or expect a conclusion, to which the Oracle replies by regurgitating the same "You've already made the choice" bullshit in a format that tells him that "We can never see past the choices we can't understand" even though if he made the choice that would therefore mean he had to have conceived the choice and the motives behind it prior to making the choice, therefore meaning that her cryptic and confusing explanation is horseshit. Oh cut it with this "choice" crap, you've been manipulating everything from the very beginning. You feed the freedom fighters programmed food items that were created with the specific purpose of rewriting their brain chemistry so that they'll follow you like the sheep they are, your specific purpose for existing is having an expertise over human psychology, don't you dare tell me for one second that this shit wasn't preordained and they ever had a choice in the matter you manipulative sack of shit. That right there is the reason why Neo can see visions of Trinity dying, if only he got a useful vision, like the one of Bane going on a killing spree and proceeding to blind him by cauterizing his eyes.

Finally she says something that's worth hearing, she tells Neo that he can save Zion if he gets another program called the Keymaker to help him get to "the source", but he'll need to retrieve the Keymaker from another dangerous rogue program called the Merovingian who's so dangerous that not even the new agents can take him down by means of gangraping him, which makes no sense when you think about it. I mean, the Merovingian is outdated, meaning that all the new programs supersede him in power which means that if he's one of the oldest then he, just like the Oracle, should amount to being only a little more than everybody's bitch. That's the reason why the Oracle needs somebody like Seraph, because she's virtually defenseless. But then again, I live in a world where Windows XP was made to be replaced by a failure called Windows Vista, so I guess it goes without saying that newer doesn't always = better.

Speaking of which, after the Oracle and Seraph depart from Neo, Neo is confronted with a renewed Smith who claims that he's no longer tied to the restraints of his fellow agents for reasons that are oblivious to everyone, even himself. And no, this doesn't explain why he only chose to possess a hacker now, his exposition implies that he's merely no longer obligated to serve the system, not that he's gained new capabilities. He exposits that even though he's no longer obligated to serve the system, he thinks that he's able to do the things that he's done and is going to do only because he's allowed to do it and he's fulfilling his purpose by doing it because if he weren't allowed to do it, he'd be deleted. Smith also believes that similarly, Neo is only allowed to do what he's doing because it serves the agenda of a higher being and that whether they want to or not, they have to fight. Interesting, it's a lie, but still interesting. Smith then attempts at assimilating Neo, which Neo repels. You know, I wonder if Neo couldn't copy his own consciousness by using a copy of Smith as a catalyst by means of reverse assimilation. Meh. Then another one of my favorite scenes in the movie happens. These action scenes are basically my favorite because they're not self contradictory or just plain cryptic, they're easily the only enjoyable part of the movie and by God they are fun to watch. If only Dragon Ball Z fight scenes were this articulated and structured. Neo eventually gets weighed down by the mass number of Smith clones that he's having to fight and it makes me wonder, is he creating these clones of himself from scratch or is he having to overwrite lots and lots of people to do it? I know that his primary method is by assimilating other people and programs but they just pour into the fight scene from nowhere like they were copy/pasta'd a bunch of times. Speaking of which, what's preventing him from doing just that? Couldn't you theoretically build an entire army just on that one principle? I mean, the concept of copying a file is not uncommon or even new for that matter. Another agent pops in seeing the action and ends up getting assimilated by Smith, which raises another in a long line of questions; how has Smith remained under the radar after assimilating so many people and programs? You'd think that every agent would be aware of his presence and go on a mass rampage against the self building Smith army to suppress growth and eventually delete the original. I mean, with programs like the Oracle, Seraph, the Keymaker and the Merovingian, it's understandable because there's only one of each and even then it's hard to not get caught, but here, there's hundreds of Smith clones. I would agree that what Smith said was right, but the agent was surprised to see him, as in the "I thought you were dead" kind of surprised.

Well, in any case, Neo breaks free from the mob and escapes to an exit where he tells his fellow crew members that he felt as though he was about to die. Cut to Commander Lock pleading his counter attack plan to the Council, stating that the sentinels are likely to attack specific areas of their sewer complex and that they should use the explosively pumped flux compression generators on their ships to fry the living Hell out the impending invasion of sentinels. The council gives him the go ahead to do so, but only under the condition that he find the Nebuchadnezzar first. This guy just can't catch a break can he? They even tell him to fraction off ships required for his plan to work to go find the Nebuchadnezzar, a task of which could take days even though it's likely they won't survive the following morning. Of course, his girlfriend, Captain Niobe answers the Council's call because she's a fickle bitch who still wants Morpheus despite the fact that she broke it off with him and is with someone else. Poor Lock, you gotta wonder why this poor schlup even exists, he's probably wondering why he even exists. Oh right, we're supposed to hate him in favor of Morpheus, but again, I don't.

In the next scene Trinity, Morpheus and Neo are seen entering a French restaurant where the Merovingian lives, where it's revealed that he's a program trafficker and when they meet the Merovingian he goes on a rant of cause and effect. To those of you who don't understand what he's saying, he's basically saying that humans are basically of the same ilk as programs; both are devoid of actual free will and can't truly think outside of their parameters but have to select from a list of psychologically preordained responses by systematically deducting which one is the most logically appropriate in the current circumstance, which confirms my findings in the Oracle's manipulation and her method of doing it being the various junk food she crams into everyone's mouth, especially when the Merovingian outright explains that food in the Matrix can be programmed to brainwash someone with a demonstration of orgasmicake. He promptly tells the trio to go fuck themselves and gets up from his chair to follow the human woman to the bathroom. Why a program would be sexually interested in a human being considering how programs are all devoid of a libido, much less a bladder to make up excuses with, is beyond me.

After the trio are kicked out of the restaurant, they meet the Merovingian's wife. Yeah he, and by "he" I mean a genderless program who's avatar is designed to appear as though he's male, has a wife. Look, I understand the necessitation of having the agents and programs look like humans to blend into their environment so as to not cause a mass revelation thus causing everyone to wake up in their incubators, but why do they identify themselves as men and women when they clearly aren't? Why are they interested in sex despite the fact that nothing necessitates that an agent require a libido that needs to be regularly satisfied? Why are they interested in romance? At least with the Oracle, you could explain her personality traits by the fact that she's designed specifically for the purpose of understanding human psychology and therefore acts like a human as per her purpose, but here it's just complete nonsense. In any case, she says that if they ever want to find the Keymaker, Neo has to smooch her up, in front of Trinity no less, to satisfy her need to feel loved or some shit. Makes no sense to me but fine, whatever. Neo complies and everybody fucking loathes this bitch.

She brings the trio to the Keymaker where they're eventually found out by the Merovingian. Yeah, long story short, she told one of the guards to tell him about it, because pissing off your sole protector from termination is way more important than self preservation. As you can imagine, Neo topples the entirety of the Merovingian's gang while Trinity, Morpheus and the Keymaker outrun two other programs who have the ability to become ghosts. This chase scene is full of awesome but sadly there's just not much to talk about here so I'll move on to the point where they make their way to the "source".

Hey, wouldn't you know it, the movie's almost over! I love that chase scene on so many levels. In the next scene we see Commander Lock briefly discussing the circumstances with his crew. In the next scene the Keymaker exposits to Neo, Morpheus and the other two crews that were sent after them earlier that there's a room inside the building they're in that can only be accessed under special circumstances, if they can trigger all the right sequences during the right times, they can access the source. This requires them to shut down a power station and a backup generator. In the process, one of two of the other crew's are destroyed and the team needed to disable the emergency grid are killed when, get this, one of the crew members with a broken leg missteps across a bridge installed in the ship and the bridge breaks in half not just hurting the crippled guy but also killing the other operator when the bridge impales him. That is so ridiculous and nonsensical, that I just have to ask, does anybody maintain these fucking ships? Maybe they oughta make sure that their ships are structurally sound considering how they're decades old. This death scene isn't even necessary because the sentinels proceed to blow up the ship immediately after by flinging a bomb at it. They could've had that happen without the ship breaking apart and killing the conscious members of the crew first. Furthermore, why is there a man with a busted leg managing a warship? I'd imagine that the last person I'd want to manage a ship for me while I sleep would be a guy who can't even walk without depending entirely on the railings to aid him as he does it.

Regardless of how stupid that was, it's up to Trinity to shut down the emergency grid herself, which she does in the exact way that Neo had envisioned in his sleep. I've already addressed how utterly impossible this is already, if I go on another tangent regarding the matter, this review will never end and I want to stop hurting. On their way to the source, Neo and Morpheus run into, yet again, Smith. How he even got here is beyond me, it takes a special set of circumstances for anybody to end up here, how he and his entire army of clones even got here without following directly behind Neo, Morpheus and the Keymaker is beyond me and don't tell me that was how it happened because Smith appears from in front of them as though he were waiting there the whole time, not behind. Trinity shuts down the emergency grid just in time for Neo, Morpheus and the Keymaker to make it to their destination, but not before the Keymaker is shot to shits and giggles. During his death scene, he points to two different doors in the room, one that Morpheus can exit through one door and Neo can go see the source through the other. Now hang on a minute, why should Morpheus have to go home? He's been through this more than anybody and he came through to the end risking life, limb and assimilation. He deserves to see the source more than anybody, so why doesn't he get to? Bullshit. The conversation that transpires later on would have been so much more interesting if it were Morpheus in Neo's place, because at least, unlike Neo, Morpheus has an actual personality and identity to him, Neo's just as much of the blank slate that he's always been so he's willing to accept whatever comes his way without challenge; if you don't believe in something, you'll be fooled by anything. Morpheus would have at least debated with the Architect a little, he has beliefs, denials and expectations. The conversation that Neo and the Architect share is completely one sided and it's just empty.

Speaking of which, during that conversation, I wonder what would've happened if Neo just started beating up on the Architect. I mean, think about it, what would happen if you deleted the thing which designed and created the Matrix? Whatever, I'm so done with this movie. Neo decides to ask the Architect "who are you", although I personally would have had him answer all the questions I asked all throughout these three reviews first and foremost, those answers are long overdue. The Architect explains that he created the Matrix and it was good, perfect in fact. Well, it was as perfect as it could ever get; you see, the reason why his system regurgitates some people is because people have the natural ability to adapt to their environment, ergo, people were able to easily defect from the original version of the Matrix and escape which is where the first inhabitance of Zion came from. However, although it is irritating, the regurgitation appears to be systematic and therefore it is not beyond regulation. So the Matrix was recreated in the image of 1999 to seem more realistic to the people who were grown in tubes, were never conscious a day in their lives and therefore couldn't possibly have a predetermined standard over reality and therefore lack the ability to recognize their reality as being false and therefore it would be impossible for them to escape their reality. Ludicrous, I know. He then goes on to elaborate that the Matrix is far older than he knows and that there were five other "Ones" before him which comes as a shock to Neo. As it turns out, the regurgitation process is indeed regulated with intense and complicated measures of manipulation and rewriting brain chemistry with spiked booze, only on a much grander scale than merely putting people back into the Matrix and erasing their memories for every time they wake up, and the reason why they don't just do that all the time instead of allowing for a full scale cold war break loose is beyond me. That's what they did with Dan Davis, so why not everybody else? I mean, this is so dumb on so many levels. You mean to tell me that there have been six cold wars all of which are, predetermined by design and constantly managed to go just their way despite their knowledge and acknowledgement of the fact that it's because of human adaptability that their system failed to begin with, identical to each other and they each ended up the same way with having the "One" admit defeat and selecting 23 people to not just live in Zion, not just rebuild the ruins of Zion but to also kickstart the rebellion all over again? I agree with Neo, "Bullshit!". Here's an idea, every time there's an anomaly who rejects the Matrix and wakes up from it, kill them. Don't bother with letting them set up an entire civilization and starting a rebellion against you that you intend to crush anyway, just kill them.

You know, I might have accepted the idea of them doing this if it weren't for their motive; I was half expecting the Architect to tell Neo that the only reason they even allow for a human rebellion to even exist to begin with is because they want to use the anomalies as a seqway to advance themselves in their own personal pursuit of self advancement, after all, it would have only made sense considering how Smith made a point of saying that their circumstance was all about evolution in the first movie by comparing humans to dinosaurs. Neo only ever fights the upgraded versions of the agents after he killed one and in "The Second Renaissance" the machines didn't really start improving upon their own technology until it was necessitated by war. In the words of a good friend of mine, "Peace stagnates, war progresses". But no, that might have actually made some fucking sense. I hate the Matrix, I really do.

Well in any case, the Architect threatens Neo by saying that if Neo doesn't comply with his demands to rebuild Zion and select 23 other people to rebuild Zion with, the machine mainframe will result in, for unexplained reasons, a cataclysmic system crash killing every human being still injected into the Matrix through the incubation system which while being coupled with the loss of Zion will result in the extinction of the entire human race. Neo states that to let such a monumentally stupid thing to happen would result in them losing their primary source of electricity to which the Architect rebukes by saying that there are measures of survival that they're willing to resort to. Wait, what? Really? Well if that's the case, then why use humans at all then? He's not lying either, he actually eggs Neo on to not save Zion and take the alternative to save Trinity; he wants Neo to crush his own species. Jesus Christ, you're pretty much just keeping your one enemy alive for literally no good reason. What's the point? This is so fucking stupid and to think, I'm not even to the worst of the bunch yet.

Okay, so the Architect explains that Trinity is about to be killed and Neo has a choice between two doors, one to save Trinity and bring about the extinction of the human species and the other to save Zion and the human species. Of course, not being a believer in the Architects horseshit, but still skeptical nonetheless, Neo decides to go Smith on his ass and copies himself so that he can take both choices. Nah, that would have been awesome and it would have made way more sense for later on when Neo is able to control sentinels outside the Matrix. Of course he goes to save Trinity, pulls the bullet out of her chest and heals her because, why not, they did it in the first movie so why not here. Hey, at least it makes leaps and bounds more sense here than it did in the first movie where Neo was brought back through a kiss and not literal healing.

After Neo and Trinity find an exit point, Neo tells Morpheus the truth about their reason to exist, which is followed by an ambush by some sentinels throwing a bomb at the Nebuchadnezzar and the way they do it is so stupid. Basically put, instead of just shooting the damn thing, the sentinels spin around as fast as they can and fling the bomb at their target. Not only does that give time for your target to move the fuck out of the way, but it also gives them enough time to repel the attack, which they don't. Seriously, why don't they just drive the Nebuchadnezzar toward the sentinel and activate their electromagnetic pulse mechanism once they're in range? Hell, even if you couldn't do it to the sentinels themselves, why not use it for just the bomb once it comes into range? Even if you had to abandon ship after the fact, your ship wouldn't be completely trashed and you could in theory go back to it and make an escape. I guess we can just chalk that up to the list of things that make no fucking sense in these movies.

So they evacuate, watch as the Nebuchadnezzar burns to the ground and when the sentinels come after them, Neo holds out his palm to the group and they all drop to the ground like they had just been hit with a blast from an explosively pumped flux compression generator and Neo drops to the ground, indicating that he did it. You see, this new super power of his is never explained in either this movie or Revolutions. They're soon discovered by another ship called the Hammer who's captain notes that the counter attack planned by Lock had failed due to the fact that someone triggered the EMP mechanism prematurely and downed all five ships, causing them to basically get eaten alive by sentinels leaving only one survivor behind, who just so happens to be Bane. See, this is all Morpheus' fault, if he hadn't goaded that crew into staying behind to wait for the Oracle, Bane wouldn't have been put at risk, Smith wouldn't be walking around in his body and the counter attack would have gone swimmingly and the war could have been prevented. Fuck the Oracle. Also, question, how would the sentinels have known that Bane was actually Smith? I don't think the machines could have or would have distinguished him from the others with all things considered, you know, like flesh and bone for example? Fuck it, the movie's over. Now I can move on to Matrix Revolutions.