WHEN a film is a sequel, it's very hard to judge it outside of its franchise.

And holding The Matrix Revolutions up next to The Matrix for comparison, the words that spring to mind are 'huge disappointment'.

Revolutions has less the feel of a sequel than that of an extremely poor spin-off. The familiar characters are there, but the events, atmosphere and look of the film are completely different to what so many people knew and loved from The Matrix.

Furthermore, Revolutions doesn't work as a stand-alone movie. If you saw this without watching the preceding two films, I doubt you'd understand what was happening, or particularly care.

Indeed, Reloaded, the second Matrix film, and Revolutions feel like two halves of the same movie and, while Reloaded didn't end properly, as you watch the beginning of Revolutions you feel that you've walked into a film part of the way through.

Strangely, though, while Reloaded really overdid it with the impenetrable philosophy, Revolutions jettisons this 'deep' side, in favour of lots of shooting.

The sad thing is, if Reloaded and Revolutions had been made as one film it would probably be pretty decent.

As it is, Matrix fans may well feel a strong urge to erase the memory of Revolutions to prevent if from sullying their memory of the first film.

The Wachowski brothers have managed to come up with one of the most tedious film openings in history - even fans of the previous Matrix movies may well find themselves drifting off for the first half hour or so.

The bulk of the film is set in the real world, below the earth's surface, in Zion. Unfortunately, while The Matrix featured stunning, cutting-edge cinematography, much of the action in the real world looks as if it was lifted from a cheap 80s bog-standard sci-fi film. It has worrying Star Trek leanings and lots of action scenes that look embarrassingly unreal. These scenes also feature some decidedly shoddy acting of the 'brave heroes in battle' variety, that feels as if it was lifted from Aliens outtakes. Even the scenes in the Matrix are a disappointment. Neo's big battle with Agent Smith is too cartoony and lacks the exciting martial arts action of the first two films.

As sci-fi films go, this isn't that bad but, considering its origins, that's just not good enough.

Rating: 5/10