Dean's Thoughts on Entertainment

Matrix Revolutions - Dean lets it all out

I have seen it despite the wicked backlash of reviews that have killed its financial power. I saw it because I believed that this movie had the potential to be one of the most brilliant series ever, and although my beliefs were starting to fade (Especially after the second movie) I still believed enough to give it a chance. My verdict, the sequels have squandered the genius of the original and produced a weak sci-fi action clone of so many things that have already been done. However, this emotion comes from the intense desire to see its potential shine, on which it did not deliver. If I was to review this movie as its own entity I think I would give it a more favorable review. This next review will be one that does not take into account the previous movies, the one that follows will be a spoiler heavy review of the series as a whole which should only be read by people who have seen all three or who have no desire to.

Matrix Revolutions is a standard but heavily budgeted sci-fi action movie. The story follows the last colony of humans who are desperately trying to defend themselves against an onslaught of machine aggressors who will most certainly destroy them. For some of them there is a hope, in a mysterious man named Neo, who may be in some sort of position to change the scales in the favor of mankind. The special effects draw heavy amounts of influence from Japanimation, especially in regard to the fight sequences and the concepts involved with a post-apocolyptic world. The movie had its great feel-good moments and was able to maintain a decent level of suspense through some of the sequences. The characters will very simplistic in this movie, almost none of the characters were really explored in any significant way, and they really played to some predictability which weakened many of the movies potential high points. The ending was a disappointment in its simplicity and was hardly want someone would expect or desire after the time it took to develop. I would recommend this for you Sci-Fi people, and the special effects are top-notch, but the story and characters were not strong enough to really make this memorable.



SPOILER ALERT, DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN IT, OR IF YOU HAVE NO INTENTION TO.

The Matrix was a powerful force that took many by storm upon its release. I was one of the people who was captivated by the imagery and philosophy of the movie, and I could get lost in my imagination within the world that was created. It was a beautiful thing, and the promise of sequels was taken as welcome news to further develop these ideas and images that I had so enjoyed. What happened however is that the originality and complexity of the movies tanked after the first movie and dissolved into a cheap action thrill ride. Gone were the high-concept ideas that spawned so many philosophical debates and gone was the world in which I wanted to invest my fantasy. But more than the intelligence was lost, the action was weakened with each release to eventually be a poor shadow of what it had been. The second movie was too grand and gratuitous to really enjoy, but was still a sight to behold. The third movie jumped into the realm of the worst type of Japanimation fighting, which is force fighting. Neo and Smith fly at each other and explode into a giant ball like 6 times in the final battle, this effect would have worked only once effectively. The fighting besides the exploding balls was repetitive too, where they would repeatedly strike each other to th ground and stand suspensefully waiting for the opponent to stand again. I only found one bullet-time shot enjoyable in the whole final fight sequence. Now, the showdown at Zion with the machine suits was pretty cool and I think that it was one of the film's highlights.

As far as the acting is concerned their seemed to be a real decline from the original, most of which were written in on purpose. For instance, Morpheous was the brilliant mind who tutored and discovered Neo, but in the sequels he takes more and more the clueless back seat. Although it makes sense it is signiifcantly less enjoyable. The same can be said of Trinity, she goes from Femme Fatale to lovesick yet detached (and unattractive) female companion to Neo. Neo goes from a man who we can identify with to a savior who doesn't even make sense to himself let alone us. What we are left with is a world in which the only interesting characters are the ones who remain mysterious and don't speak much. I will give a moment to honor Jada Pinkett Smith for her hard-as-nails pilot who is beginning to believe in Neo. I say this because she is a replacement actress for the late Aaliyah who died before completion and had to be re-filmed. I hate to say it but I don't think Aaliyah would have played the part as well. With her other roles in mind I think she would have been either more vulnerable or more cocky and pissy, and both directions would have ruined the role. Jada Pinkett Smith played between the lines well, especially since characters like her have been done so many times.

Part of me will eventually delete the sequels from my mind to return the first movie to its place of glory, but for now their are a few things that the movie did convey in the sequels that I want to meditate on. The first being what the Wachowski brothers were trying to say about the machines especially from the final movie. They began to exhibit and admire more and more human attributes and the Oracle seems to have taken on all the attributes of humanity by the end. Second, could their possibly be a reason for the weak and simple ending that concluded the series. The letdown brought about by the ending was so bone-shattering that it ruins the series on its own, unless I am missing something and I pray that I am. And third, despite the final statement of the movie, do I believe that sequels are possible. And by possible I mean would they be valuable for anything other than mindless action and special effects. I am currently undecided on all of these points, and should I come upon something significant I may add a future blog to explore it. Thank you

SPOILER ALERT DO NOT READ THE ABOVE TEXT WITHOUT SEEING THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS