11.10.03
The Matrix Revolutions is the final movie in the Matrix trilogy, following the hugely successful The Matrix (1999) and The Matrix Reloaded (2003). I'm now looking forward to The Matrix Restitutions, in which the Wachowski Brothers return $9.50 to everyone who rushed out to see the movie on its opening weekend.
The first Matrix is really great. I have the DVD and I've seen it about four thousand times. The second one is pretty good. It's ridiculously full of action and even surpasses the technical wonder of the first movie, which pretty much changed action movies forever. Four years after the first Matrix, however, things are getting ridiculous. In an effort to top every big, loud, fierce and firey action flick, each new action movie produced is like one giant fireball (example: 30 minute opening car chase in T3). Seriously, what's next? Reloaded, while it had the coolest action scenes one had most likely seen to date, suffered from odd timing and overly long sequences. At the time I thought, maybe the Wachowski Brothers are trying to challenge my preconceived notions of how long scenes should last, but in retrospect, those scenes are simply too damn long.
Anyway, if you have forgotten the complex storyline of Reloaded, as I have, you're going to have a pretty tough time in Revolutions. I think it went something like this: Neo and company must save the last real city on Earth, Zion, from an attack of sentinels. Neo and Trinity go into the Matrix (a construct of the real world) for some reason, and fight these twin guys and meet a bunch of weird folks that I guess are really programs. Neo fights about four gazillion Agent Smiths and I think overcomes them? Anyway, I can't really remember, and what I especially didn't remember was that Neo is in a coma by the end of the movie with some other guy (I have NO idea who he is) and the other guy is really Agent Smith! Point is, Revolutions really could have benefited from a Buffy the Vampire -style-"Previously-on-The-Matrix..."
So, Revolutions begins with Neo and this other guy in comas, and they both have wonky brain waves, like they're in the Matrix, only they're not. The whole gang (Morpheus, Trinity, Jada Pinkett Smith) is out in the ruins of the real world somewhere and they need to head back to Zion to save it from sentinel attacks. Neo and the other guy wake up, and they're all like, "Neo, thank God you're awake!" and he's like, "Yeah, I need to go think about some stuff" because he hasn't had very much time to sit around and think while he was in the coma. He wanders off, and then the rest of the gang decides they need to get moving, and then Neo comes back and says, "I'm gonna need one of your ships." And they're like, "You're crazy" but they give him a ship anyway.
Minus Neo and Trinity (and, it turns out, that other guy), the gang heads out to save Zion, and they have this huge battle. And about an hour into the battle, you might start thinking, "Hey, where's Neo?" and about 15 minutes later, cut to Neo. He's run into some trouble with that other guy. And for the rest of the movie, he's got really nothin' but trouble to deal with until eventually it is all over.
Aside from being nearly incomprehensible, Revolutions suffers from a lack of a few things that made the previous two movies really fun and interesting. First of all - scenes in the Matrix (that is, the constructed world). There's really only one scene which takes place in the Matrix - Trinity, Morpheus and this Seraph guy burst into a private club to do some "negotiating". That scene is super hot, with amazing choreography and quick gun play and banter. Alas, it's the only scene that calls back to the glory of the first movie. Secondly, there's really too much of this Oracle and Architect business. Nobody cares, and it doesn't make any sense! Also, I was getting pretty sick of everybodies' screwball names. It's like Lord of the Rings meets X-Men with the Mifune and the Zee and the Link.
Maybe in 15 years we'll see a re-release of all the Matrix movies with digital re-remastering and additional scenes, and the Wachowski Brothers will say that the technology of 2003 really held them back from making the movie they really wanted to make. If that happens, you won't find me in the theatre, but I will hang on to my original Matrix DVD and watch it a few more times at home.
if you must see it.