Matrix Revolutions
Boy, am I glad this series is over.
This is not a terrible movie. The new ideas and mind-bending introspection of “Reloaded” have been jettisoned in favor of streamlined action throughout. It’s not a bad thing to make a movie that doesn’t have to be accompanied by a study guide. But with all the rich source material of the “Matrix” universe (including the cool “Animatrix” shorts), it’s too bad they couldn’t cap off the series with something a little more complex.
The biggest disappointment for me was watching Mary Alice replace Gloria Foster as The Oracle. Not a good trade, in my opinion, although to be fair, the dialogue they gave to Mary Alice was markedly inferior to The Oracle’s parts in the other two films.
Everything about this movie seemed less like a fantastic capper for the trilogy and more like fan fiction set in the “Matrix” universe – a watered-down, simplified version of the real thing.
Still, it moves along well, and the stupid parts (like the Neo/Trinity “love story”) are overshadowed by smack-you-in-the-face action. Which would be OK, if this wasn’t “The Matrix.”
The worst thing of all is how these ham-handed sequels have, rather than deepened and enriched the original, cheapened it a little. And that’s a fate a modern classic like “The Matrix” doesn’t deserve.
For the sake of argument, what made the Trinity/Neo “love story” stupid?
I think it was stupid because there was no chemistry between the actors, and the scripts didn’t even try to establish their relationship. There’s a lot of weepy “love” in Revolutions that seems ludicrous because it’s so unearned.
The movie worked for me as a matinee, as an action flick. I loved the swarms of Sentinals flying through Zion. I was hoping for a more mindblowing revelation to answer some of the questions of Reloaded.
Why could Neo stop the Sentinals, and what the f&*k was the Architect talking about in Reloaded? Watching the Architect scene on DVD, they gave some hints of some really interesting stories going on beyond Neo. For instance, they hinted that Neo was not a human but a program. If he’s a program, the humans he’s been interacting with might also not be humans but part of a simulation, or a matrix within the matrix. If that’s true, maybe the human/computer war is not even over in real life. Maybe the computers are planning for after the war (an unheard of concept for the current White House). Maybe they are running simulations to see if a matrix would work, and they are experimenting with Neo as a variable.
That would be a revelation more worthy of the Matrix series. Like this film, it would have left the door open for more sequels but with a richer choice of storylines.
What should I say in my comment about this entry?
You will know what to say when the time is right.
How will I know when the time is right?
When you know when the time is right, then you will know when the time is right.
But what if the time is right and I still don’t know what to say?
You already know what to say.
But is the time right?
The right time will be when you choose for it to be.
But what if I make the wrong choice?
You will make the right choice when the time is right.
What if I just fucking blow my head off now???
You’ve already blown your head off.
I thought it was a great romantic comedy. I’ll never look at race relations in the same way again.