|
|
Pug
The Movie Geek
|
|
|
Joined: 21 Aug 2003
Posts: 8924
|
| Back to top
|
|
 Posted: 11/12/03 - 10:43 Post subject: Movie Review: The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
A film by the Wachowski Brothers
I had thought that the Matrix trilogy was actually going somewhere, that there would be some sort of resolution, some real change in the world we are presented. Unfortunately, there was not, and my disappointment in the conclusion to the trilogy magnifies any other flaw in Revolutions which I would normally have overlooked with a more satisfying ending. I walked out of the theater thinking, “that was it?”. The promise of the Matrix was a big payoff to the hype and a big payoff to the story. Neither was delivered.
When the movie begins, we know that we are closing in on the end to the final chapter of the Matrix. The machines are only hours away from Zion and the final battle of the war is at hand. Neo (Keanu Reeves) is unconscious and is lost between the Matrix and the real world. When we last saw Neo, he was in the real world but was able to stop sentinels with the force of his will (as he is able to do with bullets when he is in the matrix). The energy required to do this is the reason why he is unconscious now. Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) fight to free Neo from this odd in between area which resembles a train station, a train station from which Neo cannot free himself. Eventually Neo is freed and we enter the final stages of the war. Neo decides to personally take the fight to the Machine City while the freed humans fight to keep Zion free.
What more do you really need to know? We have scenes with the Oracle (Mary Alice, replacing the recently deceased Gloria Foster), and Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) is also back. Surprisingly, the character with the most humanity is Agent Smith. Smith is, of course, a program in the Matrix. He is less real than most of the other characters in the movie, but yet he is more compelling and he felt more human. The fight sequences are, of course, well done. Neo’s battle with Agent Smith near the end of the movie is probably their best fight since the first movie (the subway scene), and this may be because, in part, the end is uncertain. Because of the overwhelming odds stacked up against the humans, and because of how powerful Agent Smith has become, all of Neo’s vaunted powers no longer seem to be enough. Part of my complaint against the second movie was that we never believed that Neo could lose. This is no longer true, and I feel the movie is stronger because of that.
I have heard complaints about various things throughout the movie, but even though I wasn’t blown away, I had no problem with the first 90% of the movie. I wasn’t overly impressed, but I had no problem with it. Unfortunately, in my view, the entire movie was undermined by the ending. Sure, the action was good and I even enjoyed the big battle scene in Zion, but the ending left me unsatisfied. With all of the questions raised by the first two movies (especially the first movie), the ending didn’t really answer any of them. The ending also didn’t resolve anything. The third movie of a trilogy has somewhat of a storytelling obligation to end the story. Maybe the point the Wachowski’s were trying to make was that there is no end to the story, but if that’s the case it feels like more of a cop-out than a success. All of the time and energy expended in three movies gets us to a point that is not significantly different than that from which we began the journey. This is a movie which the more I think about it, the less impressed I am with what I saw. It was just a very unsatisfying ending to a trilogy that had such potential and that promised so much. Ultimately, the Matrix Revolutions did not deliver.
I give this movie a rating of 2 1/2 pugs out of 5.
|
