November 20, 2003
Review: The Matrix Revolutions
Saw The Matrix Revolutions twice in the past week (although I only watched Reloaded once). I’ll start with a non-spoiler review here, and in a separate post I’ll go into a deeper analysis of what I think it all meant. Basically, it’s better than Reloaded (definitely much better paced) while not nearly as good as the first one. That’s pretty much what everybody else says. All-in-all, a pretty wild ride (albeit with several cliches and some degree of predictability). The ending, however, was initially disappointing and unsatisfying, but I got a deeper appreciation of it and the film and the trilogy upon further reflection. But let me start with the surface stuff.
I won’t dwell too much on the acting or the dialog, because that’s not why anybody watches this stuff anyway (and neither were all that good). But I’ll say that the pacing seemed off at the beginning. It had a jarring feeling that you just wandered onto these people and had no idea what they were talking about. Also, that “mini-mission” to rescue Neo in the beginning was very unsatisfying. It was cool to watch Seraph team up with Morpheus and Trinity, but there wasn’t nearly enough of it. The shootout was obviously intended to echo the lobby scene in the first film, but it just wasn’t nearly as gripping or cool, likely because it occurred too early in this film to get the all-out treatment that the lobby-scene received. After all, you can’t peak too soon, or else the rest of the film becomes one big disappointment (which I don’t think is the case here, except perhaps the ending).
Indeed, that “mini-mission” at the beginning is one of several elements that mirror Return of the Jedi. Rescuing Neo from the train station was akin to rescuing Han from Jabba the Hut. Neo asking the Oracle why she didn’t tell him about the Architect mirrored Luke asking Ben Kenobi why he didn’t tell him the truth about his father (sorry if that spoiled anything for anybody, but what the heck are you doing watching The Matrix if you haven’t already seen the Star Wars trilogy?). The Hammer flying through the claustrophobic mechanical shaft was very reminiscent of the Millenium Falcon through the Death Star tunnel. And the final battle between Neo and Smith (especially how Neo resolves it) does bring to mind Luke and Vader’s final duel. Well, somewhat.
I have to imagine these were intentional homages, given that these are the Wachowski brothers, who are clearly geeks. But don’t worry, Revolutions is not just a rehash of Jedi (a dubious choice to reference anyway), as the film itself isn’t structured the same (aside from the initial mini-mission and the final showdown), and thankfully, there are no Ewoks. And no, during Neo and Smith’s last fight, the Architect does not come in and shoot lightning bolts out of his fingers.
The battle scene at the dock is, by far, the high point of the film. The swarming sentinels and the hail of bullets at them are truly sights to behold. The huge mecha APU units are way cool, but it’s pretty obvious how they did the effects (green-screen compositing with computer effects), which makes the scene lose some credibility. Heck, the design of the APU unit doesn’t protect the operators at all, which makes it seem like they were more intent in showing off the compositing effect (and perhaps referencing Aliens) than making a believable scene. But it’s still cool to watch, which I guess is the point of these movies. The battle is somewhat undermined by the predictable cliche of the kid taking over an APU to save the day (complete with a Star Wars-esque “You’re all clear kid” type of beat), but this is minor in the grand scheme of things.
The big problem is that there is a lot of movie left after this battle scene, and the rest of it pales in comparison. Indeed, very little of the action in this film is actually in the Matrix, which seems rather silly, given the name of the movie. Those looking forward to Neo and Agent Smith’s final duel to rectify this little detail are bound to be disappointed. There is actually very little kung-fu (what, were the Wachowski brothers intimidated by Quentin Tarantino?), and instead, there’s a lot of repetitive flying into each other at top speed to generate massive collisions complete with huge shock waves. Maybe it’s kinda cool once, but after that it gets really old. Really old. The fight scene pales very badly in comparison to their battles in the first two films, and seems a bit too similar to the final showdown in that film that The Matrix always gets compared to, Dark City. Only at least that final battle scene, while too short, had plenty of objects swirling around to make it look interesting and feel more epic, which are two things I just can’t say about this scene. Heck, it wasn’t even nearly as good as Angel and Spike’s faceoff in last night’s Angel episode.
And of course, the ending is extremely unsatisfying, leaving many of the questions unanswered.
At least, not explicitly answered. I think I’ve figured out some of what was really going on, which makes it all a bit more interesting (and helps to explain the gaping plot holes). To protect you from the spoilers, I’ll put that in a separate post. But all-in-all, it’s a film worth watching. Just don’t have your expectations too high (maybe that’s the real reason why Reloaded sucked?).
Overall rating: 7.5 out of 10 smiley fishies.
