Matrix Revolutions
-Harrison Ford commenting on George Lucas’s penchant
for writing clunky dialogue during the Star Wars shoot
There was a huge crowd outside the theaters last night. We saw at least 4 theaters screening Matrix Revolutions and from all indications, all of them were at full capacity.
No Major Spoilers section
Matrix Revolutions is for most part, a sci-fi movie. And I liked it. I wouldn’t mind watching it again and just soak it all up. It had a lot of indelible cinematic moments as it should. Truth to tell, even if the critics would pan it, I’d still go out and watch just to know how the story turns out.
Revolutions jettisons the philosophical hoo-haa that slowed down Reloaded. It was however, the same hoo-haa in moderate amount which tantalized us in the first Matrix and lifted it beyond a mere action flick.
I was prepared to be disappointed with Revolutions. Reloaded had some boring parts (eg Morpheus’ cheesy speech at Zion and the Architect’s very long monologue) that I felt didn’t serve the story as effectively as it should.
Reloaded also relied too much on the Burly Brawl to hype up that the next Matrix movie would be as visual edgy as the first one. They should’ve harped on the highway chase scene instead. Revolutions also had two huge action sequences. Both, IMHO, were satisfactorily done and paced just right.
With that said, Revolutions actually helped in making some sense of the events in Reloaded. The story did resolve the main issues of the Matrix trilogy and left some of minor points dangling. Surprisingly the Animatrix hinted a lot on what will happen in Revolutions.
(Oy! Kottke’s Matrix Revolutions comments page is growing fast!)
Revolutions Pros :
* The APUs and the Dock scene. You have Captain Mifune (a nod perhaps to Toshiro Mifune who played some noble samurais in Akira Kurosawa’s movies) as the leader of the Infantry given the seemingly impossible task of defending Zion from the Sentinels, and the boy who kept bugging Neo in Reloaded (and whose story was explored in Animatrix).
* Niobe finally getting some action with Morpheus (no not that kind of action! get yer mind out of the gutter…)
* Monica Bellucci who…uhm…filled the screen with her presence.
* Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith.
* Bruce Spence as the Trainman. Loved him in Mad Max (as the Mosquito helicopter pilot), and it was a treat seeing him here.
* Merovingian as a deliciously dastardly villain who wasn’t given much to do unfortunately. But still, his and Persephone’s scene were fun.
* Keanu! Displays! Some! Emotion! Unfortunately, it was in the dark.
* The family which Neo encounters in the first part of the film was memorable…
* …and so was the dialogue between two major characters towards the end of the movie.
* Kung-fu action taken to…uhm…new heights.
* I’m glad I read Joseph Campbell in college. (Or at least parts of it…)
* No Ewoks.
Revolutions Cons:
* Neo calling Trinity - ‘Trin’. What the?! When did that happen? Is that short for Trina or Trining? Never in the first two movies did I hear him call her ‘Trin.’
* Come to think of it, the dialogue in general were cheesy in places that it had the whole theater chuckling. That’s not good if you’re trying to be an IMPORTANT SERIOUS MOVIE.
* I thought the guy who played the captain of the Hammer would get a heart attack or an aneurysm at any moment. He was in one mood throughout the movie: grumpy.
* They didn’t quite answer if there is a spoon.
Spoilers written in magic pixels here: (highlight to view)
Revolutions opens where Reloaded left off: Neo is in a coma and he is stuck between the Matrix and the real-world of Zion. Beside him is Bane, the sole survivor of an attack which destroyed the rest of Zion’s ships. Meanwhile, the machines are steadily burrowing towards Zion…
Neo wakes up at the Train Station where he meets Sati and her family. He learns that he’s in-between places: not quite in the Matrix and not really in his physical world. What more, this limbo world is under the control of the Merovingian who decides who goes and who stays.
Trinity and Morpheus learns about Neo’s state through the Oracle and decides to see the Merovingian accompanied by the Oracle’s bodyguard, Seraph. The Oracle we find out is actively against the Architect, the yin to the latter’s yang very much as Agent Smith is the nemesis of Neo. Both it seems have a the power which reaches beyond the Matrix. This is revealed by the Oracle once Neo is freed by the Merovingian.
Neo decides to go to the Machine City, in the Logos. Trinity sensing that Neo is on a suicide mission decides to join him. Morpheus along with Niobe, the crew of the Logos, and the Hammer, the only surviving ship from Zion, makes their way to help out in the defense of Zion.
Bane manages to sneak into the Logos and reveals to Trinity and Neo that he is indeed Smith possessng Bane’s body. Neo kills Bane but not before Bane/Smith blinds Neo.
Back in Zion, the machines managed to breach the dock. Captain Mifune and his APU infantry puts up a valiant defense against the machines with great cost. Before the machines manages, to breach Zion, the Hammer enters the dock and fires its EMP charge, neutralizing the machines. Unfortunately, it also takes out Zion’s defenses.The rest of Zion retreats to the Temple to make their last stand.
Neo and Trinity fights their way to machine city. Using Neo’s new found ability to destroy machines in the real world, they manage to crash land into the heart of the machine’s world. Trinity dies in the crash, leaving Neo having to deal with the machines.
Neo negotiates with the machine collective: he will destroy the rogue program called Agent Smith who has managed to take control of the Matrix with his replicants and threatening the physical world in exchange for machine-human peace. The machine agrees and the attack on Zion is halted.
Neo enters the Matrix to find Smith has indeed taken control of it. He faces off with Smith to a standstill. No burly brawl here though. Smith asks why does Neo continue fighting despite all the pain he has to endure. Neo answers that it is his choice to do so. Neo lets himself get assimilated by Smith after hearing him echo the Oracle’s words. Once assimilated, Neo destroys Smith and his replicants from the inside. Back in the physical plane, Neo’s body is collected by the machines.
The Matrix is restarted. The denizens and programs of the Matrix are once again in their proper place. The Oracle and the Architect comes face to face talking about the peace between machines and humans and that those who wish to leave Matrix will be free to do so. The Oracle hints at seeing Neo again soon.
***
Trinity’s death scene was a tad too long, I feel, and it diluted any major emotional impact as a result. It was brave for the Wachowski Brothers to kill off a major character like that. It did however serve the story. When Smith asked why Neo keeps fighting, he asked if it’s about love, a human construct as artificial as the Matrix (I’m paraphrasing)? Neo could’ve said yes for Trinity blah blah blah. Instead he said it’s because it is his choice to do.
Also, when Neo encounters Sati’s family, he was surprised about a program which ‘loved.’ ‘But love is a human emotion,’ Neo asks. Sati’s father answers that love is a word and that the more important thing is the connection which the word implies. I wish Revolutions had more moments like that. Or even explored more of man’s free will vs determinism.
Unlike Reloaded where we have Super Neo (=Super Boring), I love how they disabled him and made him blind. It gets us more sympathetic for him and his triumph all the more seem courageous. Also it was nice for Trinity to see the sun before finally kicking the bucket. Those were nice touches.
The ending leaves me wondering though. I think the machines placed Neo back into the Matrix, with memories modified. And with that, we’re back to the first Matrix. The Architect did say there were others…
***
In a totally Pirates of Silicon Valley moment, Petite watched Revolutions (in a virtually empty moviehouse in Florida) around the same time I did. And then later, we talked about it on the phone. ‘Ha mo. We’ll have ROTK.
2 Comments, Comment or Ping
petrol
Dude, this meta-review is the proverbial shiznax. YOU are the man!
Pet
Nov 7th, 2003
NUKI
Another great review from Mark. Keep it up!
Nov 9th, 2003
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