The Matrix sequels were inevitable. Seeing as how the Wachowski brothers saw how much money spawned from the first installment.
But, the sequels should've been as thought-provoking as the first. There wasn't anything to boggle the ming in Reloaded/Revolutions. Mostly just a lot of dialogue and eye candy effects to keep you hooked into the Matrix(no pun intended), so you would buy the soundtrack, The Animatrix, and Enter the Matrix.
That is where you are wrong DirectorFitz. The Matrix was always conceived as a trilogy. the Wachowski Bros, had written The Matrix, Matrix Reloaded, and Matrix Revolutions years before they were made into movies. They wrote all three stories on yellow notepads. When the Wachowski's pitched the trilogy to the WB, they liked it and they wanted to do the whole trilgoy, but they were unsure if it would be successful. So they told them that if the Matrix was a hit, they would greenlight Reloaded and Revloutions. I think the reason the sequals were not well received is because of the marketing of the sequals, and the loss of Lorenzo Di Boniventura, the man in charge of the WB at the time the first matrix movie was made. When the WB fired him, they made a big mistake.