Four years down the line and we're about to find out whether Keanu's Reeves' Neo is either the new Messiah - or just a very naughty boy.

When we left him at the end of Matrix Reloaded he had vanished back into cyberspace and was cast adrift in a no man's land between The Matrix and The Machine World.

However, it's not long before the lovelorn Trinity (Anne Moss) and Morpheus (Fishburne) have hitched a ride on a cyber-subway train and brought him back.

In truth, the amount of times the time-traveling trio slip back between their home city of Zion and the other side, it's a shame they're not collecting air miles.

This time round the net-nerd gobbledegook that marred Matrix Reloaded is reined in and Neo's Gazza-chats-to-Dr Stephen Hawking-style philosophy treatises are kept to a minimum.

Instead, the Wachowski brothers do what they do best - nerve shredding action sequences beautifully rendered by state-of-the-art special effects.

Sci-fi nuts who waited in vain for the non-existent "Rise of the Machines" in T3 will be amply rewarded with some of the best sci-fi battle scenes rendered on celluloid.

Swarming like armies of angry killer bees, the swooping metallic squids trail thrashing coils as they launch a battle to the death for Zion.

Repulsing them using a souped-up version of the sort of glorified fork-lift truck Sigourney Weaver fought off the Alien, are the remnants of mankind.

Purists will be pleased to note the reappearance of Neo's nemesis Agent Smith (actually a whole city of Smiths) and a frisson is added by traitor in Zion's ranks.

OK, so the love affair between Neo and Trinity may have all the sensual resonance of a broken PlayStation, but that's not really why we're here.

We're here to watch superhumans in long, black macs and shades break wall-fulls of tiles when they're not recreating a sci-fi 633 Squadron in the derelict tunnels of the subterranean world.

Gawp open-mouthed at the cutting edge effects, swoon at some of the most beautiful computer-generated imagery committed to film¿and snigger at the dialogue.

It's slick, it's fast and it's furious - but not as furious as you'll be if you miss it.

Tim Evans