Review of The Matrix Revolutions (2003) by Bill M — 23 Feb 2014

Wow...... just what the fuck happened here? the year of the matrix crashes and burns with the matrix revolutions, a truly disastrous end to what could have been one of the greatest film trilogies in film history, there was a collective feeling not just in the cinema but around the world of, "is that it"??! it's a bizarrely misguided and even dull movie, the first sign that thing are not going good is the baffling extended scene of neo stuck in a computer generated tube station purgatory with an indian family talking about, well, im not really sure, it goes on forfuckingever! it's like the film gets stuck or something, most of the film is set in the real world, the bullet bending action is all but gone and what action there is is dull and uninspired (the lobby shootout from the first film, "but upside down"! not anywhere near as cool as it sounds) the woman playing the oracle from the fisrt two films sadly died after shooting reloaded, and she is replaced by a lisping, deeply annoying actress who looks nothing like her, they explain this hilariously as the oracle having changed her "shell", frankly they should have written the character out of the movie because it just doesn't work, and is really distracting.

The main trio of neo, trinity and morpheous suddenly become supporting characters in their own movie, with much of the screen time hogged by one dimensional characters introduced in the second movie (jada smiths character and the little dude who loves neo especially) who you don't give a shit about but get their own heroic moments and subplots within the action, what do I care for captain fucking muffony, or whatever his fucking name was? "who the fuck was captain muffony for that matter!!! and the kid who neo saved getting his hero moment in a big robo suit (neo, I believe!) is just moronic, the wochowskis try to convince us these are characters who are really important and who we should care about, and im not sure why.

Also the film has a wierd, downbeat non-ending were the machines just stop attacking and decide to give it in (the war is over!!!) and things kind of go on like they were before except without the aggressio, neo dies, the machines keep the matrix going and we end with a wired wizard of oz type scene of fake oracle and the architect having a chat, confusingly awful, is the only way to describe it.

There is some merit in the film, the attack on Zion is huge and crazy, but even that goes on too long and becomes a big mess of cgi, the realization of the world is often amazing especially the machine city at the end, which is a triumph of production design and visual craft, and generally there are images that are like a graphic novel come to life in their vivid richness and detail, and it has a much grittier more violent and bloody edge than the other two, but this is really a big, sad, odd mess.

A failure. Follow up, what a difference ten years can make to a film, now that all the hubbub about the films has died down, and with distance between that horribly, crushingly disappointing first viewing and now, I can now say I have finally found peace with this film, it's still a mess, it's still a massive, strange let down, but it's also, considerable flaws aside, a really fascinating film, incredibly well crafted in a way that newer blockbusters arnt, featuring impressively ambitious world building and often astonishing action, there is so much to admire here, it's even grittier and more violent than the other two, also is this actually the ballsiest conclusion for a popular trilogy ever? a dark downbeat ending were the heros realize that they could never completely defeat the system, just come to a shaky co- existence with it, our hero's compromise, which could either be as terrible as everyone thinks the ending to be or actually, possibly, kinda brilliant.

The movie takes a surprising live and let live stance, and the matrix and it's makers continues on, Neo dies, watching again, I found this to be a ambiguous and slightly haunting final, not the sort of thing your average big budget film dares to do anymore, the way I see it the wokowskis saw their vision through, they got the story they wanted comepletly up there o screen with out compromise to vision, content or scale, which, warts and all, is to be admired.