I think I finally watched that at some point within the last year or two. I only watched it the one time. I can see why it received negative reviews. I remember it was a mixture of lots of references to the original movie(s) but with a twist. As far as esoteric symbolism goes, I'm thinking that the original Matrix is the big kahuna. I thing it performed really well and then the artists/writers were asked for more. I think art created by artists because they were inspired tends to be of higher quality than art created by artists because someone demanded/commissioned it and that was the case with the step down in quality from 1 to 2 and 3. I'd have to re watch 4. I could imagine that it is better than 2 or 3 but I don't think I would be willing to say it was better than 1. The original was a masterpiece.