This is how we discover Neo at the start of "The Matrix Revolutions," the hyperkinetic, hyper-silly finale in the Wachowski brothers' geekishly popular trilogy. He lies there in that ratty sweater, those fraught cables running from his head. Neo's exploits have left him in a deep coma, which is what I was left in after the last movie.

Neo's girlfriend Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne, husky and stolid as a hibernating bear) are back, and they fret. Evidently their palsied gestures and pious, uninflected whispers are meant to convey utmost concern about the whereabouts of Neo's mind.

Is he back in the Matrix? They must know, because Neo, of course, is the Christ figure in this sophomoric sci-fi allegory, and only the kung-fu-fighting messiah can save Zion. Trinity and Morpheus embark on their quest. Suddenly we're watching "Finding Neo."

Oh, the tedium. The plot is at once convoluted and clichéd, an exhausting morass of backflips and claptrap telling the oldest story in the world with the newest computer effects. It galvanizes as it narcotizes, drones as it dazzles.

The Wachowskis organize this dense mess within two clean halves. The first hour is the hot-cold mix of pinwheeling fights and floods of futuristic data delivered with the peppy verve of a tree stump. The second hour is action pandemonium that is almost entirely computer generated. What both halves share is a deep creative bankruptcy.

Logic, too, is scarce. Neo wakes up in a sterile white subway station between the worlds he straddles. He meets a sweet little girl whose purpose I still haven't unriddled. The girl mentions the big bad Trainman (who?). Turns out the Trainman is a Tom Waits lookalike who refuses to take Neo to the Matrix. That's it for the Trainman, despite the time spent building him up.

"I do not understand," says Neo, his glassy doll's eyes unblinking. We nod.

Who knew The Oracle (Mary Alice) could bake? There she is with the little girl making cookies when Neo drops by to "find the answer." The Oracle, who is more like an earthy, Marlboro-smoking soul mother, tells Neo the future of both worlds is "in your hands." His quest begins.

The patented "Matrix" action that has been aped and parodied to irrelevance takes a bow, a cartwheel, a spin and superheroic flight. Guys run upside-down on the ceiling and flung bodies are implanted into walls. At this point it feels like obligatory filler, which the Wachowskis try to outdo with a massive battle episode that could make George Lucas weep — or call his copyright attorneys.

Reeves exits the screen for a full 30 minutes — the sacrificial lamb is off completing his final mission — as the Zion army battles the Sentinel invasion, which looks like a really big swarm of flying squids. The sequence shows its debts all over the place, from the buggy violence of "Starship Troopers" and "Aliens" to the killer machinery of "The Empire Strikes Back" and "RoboCop." Add every war-film cliché and stir.

"Revolutions" finds rote means to a rote end. Whatever was special about the original "Matrix" has curdled into tired convention. The narrative vigilance and visual elegance of the first "Matrix" has been bargained away. The new movie glistens with the sweat of filmmakers whose sole goal is to top their previous enchantments. But they have nowhere to go that hasn't been visited by them or their acolytes.

Perhaps more than its predecessors, "Revelations" is a young man's movie in thrall to the notion of applying serious ideas to action genres. The series' dime-store philosophy is a gloss on religious mythology groping hopelessly at profundity. The Wachowskis seem to believe that filling their live-action comic book with gaseous gravity — all those stilted gestures and lifeless cadences — will lend it credibility rather than drain the fun out of it. (To their credit, they poke at romantic love here with enough passion that you almost care.)

Leaving this final "Matrix," you can at least go with a single consolation: It's over.