Matrix Revolutions
Directed by the Wachowski Brothers
2003 UK 15 USA R
Review by Eadon
Matrix Revolutions is the final (one hopes) third of the Matrix Trilogy. It is peculiar how this trilogy decayed with each helping. There's more of the same, furrow-browed "oracles" spouting inane cookie nonsense; bullet-dodging cartwheels on walls and ceilings (oh and a subway ticket barrier) and lots of pillars being shot to debris (is this
deja vu supposed to be ironic?). Not to mention more squiddie machines, zillions more, and, Lordy help us, more fucking zion. It's more of the same, and more of the bad stuff. What we didn't get is much character development, which is surely not too much to expect of an epic. I ended up not giving a damn about any of the main characters, where as after the
first Matrix, I gave a bloody decent damn. Well, oh, a diminutive damn, but at least it
was a damn!
If you thought Zion was shit, then unfortunately there is loads of Zion in
Matrix Revolutions. As you'll know from
Matrix Reloaded, Zion is a dark, horrible, grotty cross between a cave and a ghetto. I was cheering on the machines to put the rats out of their misery.
Special effects are be irksome when poorly lit, but they are presumably much easier to render convincingly if they lurk in gloom. But the dismal bladerunner look is a depressing cliche.
I didn't really care about Neo, Trinity, Morpheus (Messiah/Holy Ghost/erm... Prophet/God?) or any of the Zion characters. Even Agent Smith I have long stopped caring about, and he was a fab villain in the first movie, it's prime asset. Neo seems not to really exist in this movie. He's almost a bit player in a movie full of bit players.
There are lots of effects and noise and explosions here. But little of the things I really yearned for, i.e. Cool Matrix Theory is lacking in a movie in which I was expecting revelations. The plot is more linear than a first-person-shoot'em-up , which it exactly resembles. Boring stuff indeed. (Playing first person shooters, on the other hand is often exhilarating, because you are the interacting with the action, not the passive third-person onlooker).
The problem I have with the Matrix Trilogy, which gradually became more problematic as it progressed, is that machines are mindless, (I know they try to convince us that their machines are emotional), but to me they are mindless machines. When they kill a squddie (oops, sentinel) it is no more meaningful psychologically than taking an axe to your computer. (Less gratifying, I imagine).
There is overflowing religious symbolism, as usual, and basically the message is patronisingly screamed at you, "
believe!",
have faith! But this is unfortunate, because of Neo's terrorist-like tactics (ok, we're on
his side, so we don't think of it as terrorism, but it
is) are not dissimilar in concept to the mayhem caused by the Islamic attacks of sept 11. Neo, Trinity, Morpheus and the foul Sept 11 terrorists all "believed" in a cause
unquestioningly. That is faith. And it is a Bad Idea. Yeah, believe in yourself, but don't believe in the supernatural! Always beware of believing just for the liberty of being too lazy to figure it out for yourself.
Matrix Revolutions says the opposite, and it sucks camels' bollocks.
Did I mention Zion? The *real* Zion (The Holy city of Jerusalem) was invaded by the Muslims, and the Jews and Christians want it back, and this seems to be on the agenda of The Matrix trilogy. But I can imagine the Matrix Trilogy, which seems to be some kind of part Christian/part Jewish/part Islamic/part Greek/part geek/part movie-fu fantasy in drag, might ignite further evil in some of the Islamic Terrorists out there. I don't mind offending groups per se, there is enough pandering to evil groups as it is, and both sides are propaganda mad in accord with warfare.
However, Hollywood routinely rewrites English history to make the English look like total wankers, and see how they currently love to make the French (who do admittedly have their faults, bash, bash) look ridiculous (Movies like "Slap Me, I'm French" - though, I must admit, that's a funny title) after the French rightly pointed out the folly (but understandable, and in some ways justifiable folly) of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq. Many Hollywood movies are designed to exaggerate the Americans' role in the Second World War, despite staying out of it for the most part. (They were badly needed, so it's fortunate that they did join, eventually). I don't see how our friends in the States can expect the world to love them, when they export this drivel, and yet so many Americans genuinely do believe the world loves them.
Sorry, got a bit carried away there.
Matrix Revolutions is a slop of ill-conceived, nauseating romances that slow things down and no one cares about; cute kids that no one cares about; deaths that no one cares about; an enemy that no one cares about; and heroes that no one cares about. I was yawning though the noise. All bark and no bite. Oh, and with few exceptions, get some decent actors next time, if, god forbid, there is a 4th. And don't get them them to ham it like a high school play. Only the French guy, Merovingian, the Architect and to a lesser degree, Morpheus, had any presence in this movie, but even the latter was reduced to being some kind of superfluous turkey in
Revolutions.
Even on a purely blockbusting entertainment level, this movie did not impress, the effects will date quickly and then nothing will be left. It's a great shame, because a lot of mythology went into the original. Even the philosophy was not as shallow as some would think. But all of this was wasted and squandered on a shithole called Zion. Ah, now I understand!
Nevertheless, I was expecting more than a dumbed down Matrix-for-retarded-15-yo's. Perhaps the original Matrix would not be made today - even
The Matrix would be considered to intelligent for the favoured demographic.
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Spoilers!!!!
Warning: this box contains a movie post-mortem analysis that freely gives away important plot twists and details. If you have not yet seen this movie and intend seeing it, avoid this spoilers box until afterwards. Bookmark the page, see the movie, see if you agree with my review then write an arsy comment saying I am talking total b*ll*cks :-)
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The characters that interested me most were the French guy and the Architect, and we saw bugger all of either, such a shame. I suspect there was a disaster in the editing room, and they cut out the good stuff just to leave in all the tiresome sfx. Morpheus was reduced to the role of cheerleader in this movie, the side kick of some cliché spunky pilot babe with attitude. How a great character is fallen.
The final fight took place during a dark and stormy night. OK, this gave some cool, if implausible splashy effects, and some nice bullet-time fist slicing through raindrops novelties. But all that dreariness dragged this movie down to a level as stimulating as waiting for a bus on a soggy Monday morning. The Matrix special effects crew are rubbish. George Lucas doesn't hide his Star Wars universe under cheating blankets of darkness and lousy weather.
Regarding matrix Reloaded, scenes set outside of the matrix were poor, whilst within the Matrix life was reasonably entertaining. Unfortunately, in Matrix Revolutions we are mostly stuck outside the Matrix. These scenes sucked. The scenes inside the Matrix were underachieving in this movie too, so there was little relief from the Zion tedium.
The only perishing character I felt sorry for was the doctor/scientist chick that the Agent-Smith-in-Bane-form stabbed. Mind you, a stab to the stomach brought about a remarkably rapid agricultural-production-facility-procuring, when in reality she would have slowly bled to death, but never mind.
Oh and that crater at the end would have been rather hot, but, hey! This is The Matrix, right? So physics sometimes applies, and sometimes it can be discarded like an old mattress.
A mistake of the Matrix trilogy was making Keanu tougher than Agent Smith, and then trying to have Agent Smith be authoritatively threatening again. It doesn't work, Smith was humiliated in the second installment, and at that point he lost the fearsome, enigmatic persona with which he owned the original. All we are left with is an anticlimactic Smith-Neo battle that ended similarly, though rather less satisfyingly, than the first Matrix.
We did not learn how Keanu got to the portal world between the "real world" and the matrix. We did not discover why Trinity could be saved the first time she died, but not the second (but who cares?). We did not learn more about the Frenchie, and his missus, Persephone, the architect or the Twins: I was expecting these tantalising Reloaded characters to be important to solving the riddle: perhaps they ended up on the cutting room floor, as earlier speculated. Shame. We did not learn how Neo stopped the squiddies at the end of Reloaded. We were not told if the real world, (Zion in this case) was really real. Zion is soooooo implausible that it is sensible to assume that it too is a Matrix - it certainly *looks* CGI;). But nothing was said explicitly, that I could tell. An admission of the Matrixness of the *real world* would perhaps upset the average obese test-screen retard. We didn't really get into the heart of what the Matrix really is. And that's what I wanted from this movie: I did not want preachy love triumphs (ambiguously) over hate morality bullshit, I wanted a metaphysical mind fuck.
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A good old crucifixion, the old fashioned way, that's a proper way to croak for a real messiah!
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