The Matrix Revolutions is the new cinema sensation!

Sunday, November 9, 2003 » movies thought

Of course, I am lying. Read the rest of today's entry to hear my thoughts and possibly have important plot points unexpectedly revealed to you.

First of all, I didn't really have a good reason to see this movie. While I still like to consider the original Matrix to be one of the best movies ever made, Reloaded was a terrible followup, in fact being bad enough to taint my opinion of the original. (If you'll recall the poll earlier this year which pitted The Matrix Reloaded against Metal Gear Solid 2 for the title of More Disappointing Sequel, I had to vote for Reloaded because although I still hold the original MGS in the highest regard, I have to always remind myself that The Matrix was indeed an excellent film, despite the sequel it spawned.) The thing is, aside from a minimal amount of curiosity of how the trilogy ends and a decreasing amount of hope that they may be able to salvage it, The Matrix Reloaded didn't really give me any desire to see the sequel. It's a good thing for the Wachowskis that the first film happened to be good. I mean, would people have kept going to Star Wars films if they had been released in order?

Anyway, trying not to get too off track, there was very little reason for me to see this movie, and there's even less for people who don't care about the series; there's just not much substance in Revolutions. There's very little to the plot, and even less to the dialogue. Neo's conversation with the Oracle was just one vapid Keanu "what?" or "why?" after another, and the Oracle's dialogue, which was fantastic in the original, is just more of Reloaded's vague, pseudophilosophical drivel. She sounds like all of the bad parodies of Morpheus at his worst (You know, "Are those bullets in your chest, or in your mind?"), except this time they expect us to play along.

Also, on the subject of the Oracle, the beginning of the scene in which Morpheus and Trinity confront her in her new form (played by Mary Alice) has got to be the most forced addition to a script ever. I remember the Wachowskis saying they'd explain the reason for the change (caused by the truly unfortunate death of Gloria Foster, who, in the trilogy's greatest injustice, was unable to appear in the final scene) in the script, but they really didn't. At all. They just spit out another page of their pretentious causality-talk.

Back to the script. The original Matrix posed an interesting question about whether life in a virtual reality would be worth living. That's pretty much ignored in Revolutions, replaced by Agent Smith's obsession over why humans struggle to live at all. The final dialogue between Smith and Neo is very dramatic and climactic, so I was expecting Neo to fire back with something pretty profound. Or, at least something better than, "Because I choose to"?? What the heck??

Oh, yes, and who can forget the emotional final scene between Trinity and Neo? I haven't been so moved since the time Bill thought he accidentally killed Ted.

And as for the action scenes: Was that the exact same lobby shootout from the original Matrix, except this time with the bad guys on the ceiling? And it ended with Trinity doing the exact same bullet-time kick from the original?

Even the final Neo/Smith battle managed to be less captivating than Reloaded's "burly brawl." The Wachowski's new "cataclysmic shockwave-thru-water" After Effects filter (or whatever) was barely interesting the first time. I remember thinking, so, this is what it's all hinged on: Two tiny CGI characters flipping around in the air and smacking each other. I'm pretty sure that overblown CGI sequences have lost their ability to impress me, unless I'm either emotionally involved or they're actually well-directed (e.g. Xenosaga). This is probably why I barely even think of the Zion invasion when I try to recall all of Revolutions' action scenes. I miss all the masterfully-choreographed kung fu from the first Matrix, when they not only didn't have to build everything on the computer, but they even had the real actors right in the thick of it.

The original Matrix would have been better off if it had just stayed as a standalone film. A lot of the appeal came from the theory behind the Matrix, anyway, and thanks to the ending, the war's final resolution was pretty clearly implied.

...rather than explied.

If you want to read a real review, Scott Kurtz has written a pretty good one over at PvP, and he tends to be more eloquent and thoughtful.