The Matrix: Revolutions

reviewed by Dave

First, three little notes: 1. The first Matrix film is one of my favorite movies. While I don’t think Reloaded was as good (I’m looking at you, Rave Scene), it was still mostly enjoyable and thought-provoking. 2. If you try to watch Revolutions without seeing Reloaded, you will be completely lost. 3. I will attempt to write a spoiler-free review. I will not reveal any specifics about the movie that you couldn’t figure out from the trailers. I have set up another page where you can read further about my problems with Revolutions, as well as my explanation of the ending. Don’t go to that page unless you’ve already seen the movie, or you don’t care if you read every major plot point of Revolutions.

Not since Phantom Menace has there been a movie I’ve been this eager to see. Not since Phantom Menace have I been this let down by a movie.

Sadly, there are major, major problems with Revolutions. Any fan of the last two movies has probably spent some time speculating about how Revolutions would play out. I certainly have. Revolutions was nothing like what I expected – in and of itself, that’s good. I’d rather be surprised about what happens with these characters I’ve come to care about.

The first big problem I have with Revolutions, however, is that these very characters are barely in the film. For most of Revolutions, Neo, Trinity and Morpheus are background characters for people like Zee, Niobe, Kid, and other people we don’t particularly know or are interested in. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

Revolutions starts exactly where Reloaded left off. Neo and Bane are both unconscious. Neo is trapped in a place between The Matrix and the machine world – a limbo or purgatory of sorts. The first half hour of Revolutions deals with Trinity, Morpheus and Seraph trying to rescue Neo. In the process of doing that they engage in a firefight that is a complete retread of the lobby scene in the first film, then they go to an S&M club to meet up with the Merovingian, who guards the place where Neo is trapped.

Brief rant: It’s at this point where I looked over to see if the guy who brought his 10-year-old son to the movie was at all uncomfortable during this scene. He didn’t seem to be. I can’t imagine taking a kid to see this movie – there aren’t any scenes in Revolutions that wouldn’t bore, scare, or scar a kid. Way to go, Mr. Parent-of-the-Year.

Anyway, after a brief scene that reminds us how cool Trinity is, they get Neo out and after a visit to the Oracle he says he needs time alone to think about what he must do. That pretty much ends the first act of Revolutions. What major problems have we seen thus far?

The acting somehow feels worse in Revolutions than in Reloaded – even though they were both shot at the same time. Keanu Reeves seems more wooden than usual, though I still can’t picture anyone other than him playing the role. He and Carrie Ann Moss have pretty much no chemistry. There is some key information imparted, but it all seems a little boring.

So begins act two. Neo and Trinity depart from Morpheus and the rest of the ship’s crew on a journey of their own. The rest resolve to try to get to Zion – if possible, getting there before the machine army. This is where the film completely disintegrates.

Remember all those great scenes in Reloaded that took place at Zion? That’s right, there weren’t any. There’s a little thing in the first and second Matrix films called, ironically enough, the matrix. It’s here that people do wire-fu, stop bullets, defy the laws of physics, and look cool. The great majority of Revolutions takes place in Zion and the real, machine-ruled world. It’s here that people don’t know kung fu, die if they are hit by bullets, are easily killed, and wear potato sacks.

Still, if this large majority of the movie had actually followed established characters we care about, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad. But Neo and Trinity are effectively written out of half the movie. Instead we get people like Niobe, Zee, and Kid. Morpheus is with that group, but he is relegated to being Niobe’s co-pilot. For the rest of the film, he’s pretty much Chewbacca.

Their ships races to Zion as the Zionites themselves do their best to prepare for war. As they rush to get ready, I couldn’t help but remember the giant rave scene from Reloaded. In that scene the people find out a giant machine army is coming to destroy their city. Do they start getting ready for the conflict? No, they act like it’s spring break. I don’t want Revolutions to be Aesop’s Fable, but aren’t these people being the grasshoppers to the machines’ ants?

From here, Revolutions turns into a war movie. Not a good war movie, a clichéd war movie. Sure, the special effects are, for the most part, incredible. But after 15 minutes of watching nothing but these war scenes, I was no longer impressed – I was bored. There’s also a pretty gory scene here. I wonder how that kid slept last night.

It’s near the end of the film that Neo has the big fight with Agent Smith that has appeared in the trailers. Parts of this fight are pretty cool, but parts are overdone and a little silly. I won’t spoil anything, but starting at the end of this fight and going to the rest of the movie (which is pretty brief), Revolutions switches back to End-of-Reloaded mode, and it’s the first time in the entire trilogy that I have to confess I was a little confused.

As I’ve thought about it some more and read about the ending in some message boards, I’ve become a little less bothered about some aspects of the end. The emphasis is on little. You’re going to be disappointed if you come to this movie looking for resolution – more is left unanswered than answered. While that may be intentional, even somewhat expected to a degree, the ending of the first Matrix was much more concrete than this ending, and this is supposed to be the last Matrix film.

As a fan of the series, I really wanted this movie to be good. Instead, Reloaded and Revolutions could have easily been trimmed down to one three-hour (or maybe even shorter) movie that focused on just the interesting characters, and it would have been a significantly better experience.