I simply cannot golf clap that hard enough.

I actually agree with you about the Architect scene. It’s so easy to ridicule how the scene unfolds, but it’s a great scene almost because the fact that it lays the entire plot bare while being incomprehensible for folks lacking the vocabulary to parse what’s being said. I think the failure of the second and third films come primarily from the “up to 11” factor you point out, but moreso because the philosophies that are being put out there are not just unanswered (which is fine) but ultimately fairly empty. After all..you introduce a character like the Merovingian (who, let’s face it, is really spouting off some first-year “I just realized this” self-rationalizations wrapped in pretty language), and then utterly fail to use him to any lasting effect beyond that one (albeit engrossing) scene. He’s completely wasted in Revolutions, when the story clearly goes out of its way to imply that the Merovingian may very well be one of Neo’s predecessors who made the choice Neo refused to make.

Honestly if I were to sum the sequels in full it’d be two films filled with the germs of good ideas that are ultimately discarded in favor of wholly unsatisfying moralizing. Also: While I know he’s a nod to the Animatrix, The Kid almost made me long for Mouse; he was that annoying.