Matrix Revolutions

As the city of Zion fortifies itself for defence against the influx of sentinels, the two remaining ships of the fleet prepare to return to the city. Neo lies in a coma with the sole survivor of the attack on the fleet, however his brain patterns show that he is lost somewhere within the matrix. Trinty and Morpheus go to rescue him and return him to the real world. Back in the real world, Zion is under attack from the sentinels, Neo decides that he must travel into the machine city and confront the creator of the matrix while Niobe pilots the remaining ship back to Zion to take on the sentinels.

I love the original Matrix, but can't help feel that the 2 overblown, over serious sequels have damaged it. This film works a little better than the second sequel but not by much. Where Reloaded left us with unanswered questions, Revolutions offers us the answers. Sadly the "answers" just left me confused and bewildered. I didn't feel like the film even tried to explain what was going on, and the ending came about far too suddenly and with little explanation. I know that a film is good if it leaves you thinking about things and I could sort of guess that Neo might have become some sort of programme etc at the end, but I still felt that the film should have helped me out even a little bit!

The plot is very heavy going and it lacks the light imagination evident in the first film. This really sucks the fun out of the film and makes it hard work - I have nothing against it being thought provoking and requiring thought, but it all seemed very laboured to me. The opening hour is quite hard work and the whole "train station" thing is never really explained and just seems designed to fill time or something. The action all looks great - the attack on Zion is visually very impressive and is quite exciting. However some fight scenes are so overblown that they failed to inspire. The shootout in the check room of the club is simply a tired retread of the groundbreaking lobby shootout but it is the final fight with Smith that shows what I mean. Neo's showdown with Smith in the first film was great fun and very exciting. Here (and in Reloaded) it is an excess of special effects, horribly overblown - visually impressive but not enjoyable.

The film seems to have taken on the mantel of "meaningful epic" where once it was a clever film with no assumptions. Listen to the music - that's where the clue is. Instead of the rock mix from the first film it has taken on big sweeping classical pieces that it scatters around liberally to try and give the film an epic feel that it doesn't deserve. It is still worth seeing as it finishes the trilogy but it is hard work at times. The acting continues the curse of Reloaded in that everyone thinks they are reading Shakespeare and gives their performance as if they were speaking words direct from God. Even Weaving's Smith is a little too full of himself this time. The dialogue is pretty bad as before - full of clichés and over wordy speeches of grandeur, it just gets tiresome before it gets engaging.

In the first film we were told no one can be told what the matrix is, we must see it for ourselves. We were then taken on a journey (with Neo), led by Morpheus into this world that was explained as we went. Here we are simply dumped in the middle of an impenetrable plot and basically left to work things out for ourselves with little or no help. Attempts to have characters like the Architect or the Oracle explain things are simply clunky and don't work at all. I'm not adverse to thinking, but the more I think about the film as a series the more i see unanswered holes. I was hoping that Revolutions would tie things up from Reloaded and actually serve to make part 2 work better, but it didn't. It took some positive steps but really the same weaknesses just continue.

Overall I was glad I saw it to finish the story, and visually it had some very impressive moments. However the feeling was of a film with no controls, spiralling out of control - with narrative flow lost behind half ideas and spiritual nonsense. It is over indulgent, bloated and full of a sense of it's own importance - an importance it simply does not have and should not be wearing on it's sleeve. The Wachowski's created a fascinating universe but, as they opened it out, their egos have inflated the material and their inability to control and tell such a massive story has shown and the last 2 films have really suffered as a result. Worth watching for what it attempts to do, but ultimately very frustrating for what it actually delivers and, more importantly, what it fails totally to do.

...that this film is not getting the credit it deserves. It is in my opinion one of the most underrated films of all time along with The Matrix Reloaded. Revolutions is undoubtedly different from the previous films both in general and in terms of tone but why is that necessarily a bad thing? I won't be so arrogant as to say that the people who don't like this film are unintelligent. Whether or not people like a film or not is a subjective matter but I can't help feeling that the people who dislike (or even hate) this film are missing something because Revolutions is an intelligent, entertaining, beautiful, sad and moving picture.

The acting of all three films have been a mixed bag and although I usually join in the bashing of Keanu Reeves I find him strangely fitting for the part of Neo. His voice is not the perfect voice due to its monotonous tone but his body language is very good and sometimes even great and that is the case in Revolutions as well. Carrie-Anne Moss plays her character like she did in film two and that is neither particularly good or bad but a decent performance. Laurence Fishbourne's character has been reduced somewhat for the final part of the series but I found that the lines he did have were delivered with conviction and experience. As most people know Gloria Foster died before finishing her scenes for Revolutions and thus a different actress was cast to take over. The choice fell on Mary Alice and while she is no where near as good as Foster she is decent enough. Ian Bliss gets a chance to show his worth in the third film and personally I found his scenes to be among the most interesting of the film and his uncanny imitation of Weaving was spot on. Most of the secondary cast from Reloaded returns in their parts in Revolutions and they all do decent jobs with their characters. Harry J. Lennix (Lock) improved his character tremendously in spite of limited screen time. Hugo Weaving still provides the best acting in the film and steals every one of his regrettably limited number of scenes. He is probably my all time favorite screen bad guy. He manages to show the change in his character remarkably well considering how limited his screen time is. Agent Smith exhibits an increasing amount of human traits including anger, hatred, jealousy and even a sly sense of humor. This change happens to mirror Neo's growing understanding of the machines. Neo and Smith are linked in that way as well.

The effects are of course extraordinary which was to be expected after the stellar effects in the second film. Although there weren't as many scenes inside The Matrix this time around I still found the effects of the "real" world to be awe inspiring at the least and the battle for Zion was an incredible display of special effects. Of course the directors never lost sight of the people involved in the battle making it more tense had it only been effects. The climactic battle between Neo and Smith is quite simply stunning. It takes roughly 15 minutes and I for one hardly breathed in those 15 minutes. All three Matrix films have been inspired by Japanese animé comics and that is very visible in the final battle as one can't help but think of Dragonball for instance. The action in that particular scene is frighteningly well done and I got the chills when I watched it in the cinema. Very well done.

The story is darker in this film than in either of the previous films but that is to be expected as the first film was about birth and the second about life. Obviously that means that the third is about the inevitable end that must come to us all: Death. This does that the tone of the film becomes much darker and I felt that was good. This did that the film distanced itself from the previous films in the series and rather than become another rerun the film becomes its own entirely and that is both its weakness and its strength. I think it is its strength as it increases the originality of the film but apparently a lot of people didn't like the interpretation that the third film represents as is clear from the bashing the film has gotten from audiences and critics alike. The film does still have great symbolic value and you can interpret the film in a great number of ways like the previous films. For me this improves the film(s) greatly as you can watch it again and again and still find new things that will renew your interest.

Sadly I cannot make you love this film as much as I do because that would defeat the purpose of the film which is to make people think for themselves. My conclusion about Revolutions is that you will either love or you will hate it but in my opinion Revolutions is almost as good as the first one and one of the best films I have ever seen.

9/10 - On my top 10 of best films.

The Matrix Revolutions (2003) is very underrated trilogy of the mythology to understand. I know for a lot of people is not that good and it is terrible movie to watch. The first time I watch it, I couldn't finish it because I did not understand it and I felt bored with the movie. The second time I kept watching I just enjoyed the movie and I wanted to know more, what will happen next. I think the movie end perfectly the trilogy, tough it did lack on a story and on the action, there very barely in it, that it was in the original and the second movie. It is one of my personal favorite Keanu Reeves movies amd I love this movie to death I don't care what anyone says.

The movie it self's focus more on the humans and the battles against the machines on the planet Zion, more than they are in the phone line of Matrix. I think this was a brilliant end to a brilliant trilogy. If you didn't understand what the matrix was by the end of the film, then you're never going to get it!

Many viewers preferred Revolutions to Reloaded, thinking it was a simpler, more straight-ahead action movie. Though it may have appeared that way, nothing could be further from the truth. Revolutions was a mind-blowing layered ending that honored and respected the plot threads and themes introduced in the first two movies. The character arcs were satisfying and true to the characters introduced in The Matrix. The creators continued to challenge our understanding of the Matrix and its purpose, avoiding the temptation to serve us a bunch of "their" answers on a platter. That, to us, would have been a sellout of the vision they've been constructing, and wouldn't have been fair to us. Nor would it have been true to the spirit of the previous movies - they've never told us what things meant, they've only shown us the door.

Everything that has a beginning has an end. In this explosive final chapter of the Matrix trilogy, Neo, Morpheus and Trinity battle to defend Zion, the last real-world city, against the onslaught of the machines that have enslaved the human race. And, now as Neo learns more about his heroic powers--including the ability to see the codes of things and the people, he faces the consequences of the choice made in The Matrix Reloaded. For Neo, that means going where no human has dared - into the heart of Machine City and into a cataclysmic showdown with the exponentially more powerful renegade program Smith. The revolution is now: The Matrix Revolutions.

I wish they made more films about the Matrix. The fighting, story and the conspiracy theories that emerged from these movies created a new world for millions of people out there. Some of the conspiracy theories even created a new "religion", the CGI was at the time freaking impressive, the fighting in slow-mo were even more epic and the story itself captured a lot of hearts. Just saying to all who think this movie (and/or the first two) sucked balls,- you are a minority. Movie is great, second one being the best in the trilogy. It is my second favorite film in the trilogy because it ends the story and answers what happened with Neo (Keanu Reeves), he saved Whole planet and defeat Smith (Hugo Weaving) on the end of the movie. This movie may not be the best in storyline, but hell it knows how to make action! That end fight and emotional ending leaving behind a plot for sequel ...Second really expanded the meaning of matrix and the whole idea so I don't understand the hate.

There is a lot of memorable moments the Smith vs Neo climax rain scene is one of my favorite movies scenes of all time. Anyway I love this movie it is not good as the greatest or the best movie or that good, but it is still a worthy sequel to watch and a good end to the trilogy. It is one of my personal Keanue Reeves favorite movies and I love this movie to death. I am giving this 9/10 and only because one of the characters dies in this movie not telling which one.

Like it's predecessor, the final installment of The Matrix trilogy is overcomplicated in plot, yet even more excessive in CGI. The entire 2nd half of the film is a huge barrage of special effects, and while it's not a huge bore, the brilliant choreography has been sacrificed in it's place; save for the final battle between Mr. Anderson and Mr. Smith, and it's always a pleasure watching the two stars square off. Fun moments aside, it feels overlong like Reloaded and is just as unnecessary.

It is hard to believe that the original Matrix's philosophical subtlety came from the same authors of the two sequels.

It seems the brothers must have cribbed the original story for the first Matrix, since the last 2 show none of the original's subtlety or interest, just rehashing and CGI multiplication.

One evil robot, two evil robots, many many evil robots. Wow, what an idea, what creativity!

Viewing the behind-the-scenes on DVD disc 2, you can see the reasons for the incoherence of story and scenes - the huge fractured design team, numerous 'senior this' 'senior that', all contributing to some corporate creation lacking any inspiration. Maybe the corporate cube-farm culture works for making cars, but it doesn't seem to work for films.

I would have liked to have seen another level of reality exposed behind the mindless machines, and why are they so mindlessly evil when they can think up such a subtle ruse to enslave the humans? It isn't consistent. Why not introduce an alien ET culture who is really the master culture enslaving the machine culture by some similar hallucinatory ruse. Or, have the humans escape by transcending their bodies, as in all the traditional gnostic spiritualities.

All in all, the Matrix is just a retread of the movie TRON. TRON at least had some insight into what the machine mindset and motivation for domination might be, e.g. tyrannical game addiction, much like the decadent Roman emperors. The Matrix, after the first film, gives no thought to any subtle motivations of the machine culture, preferring the tired cliché of 'alien villain = mindless unrelenting violence'.