**** out of 5

Rating: Null/10 (11 November 2003)

Deep down I know that the Matrix Revolutions is a good movie because it excites me to think about it. Ironic maybe because the more I think about it the more I like it. It hits us with ideas that the end is near because everything that begins must end, but in some ways it seems to breathe more life in its paradoxical conclusions than the first movie did with its cultural references.	But it is not the best film in the trilogy because even though there is artistic poetry in the final showdown between Neo and Agent Smith, the Matrix Revolutions seems to forget its mass audience. At some point we see a transition from the self-professed philosophy of Reloaded, spawned from real philosophies and other cultural impacts, into a method in believing that we must fight for the end with our honour, our valour, and our pride. But the Wachowski Brothers get away with it because they have so much already invested in these characters that they were bound to succeed.
Yet the Matrix Revolutions is not simply a nice looking action picture. It focuses its story more on human connections in comparison to machines as Neo awakens in a place somewhere between the real world and the Matrix. After being saved by his comrades he talks to the Oracle who speaks prophecies that could be expected from a psychic at a Star Trek convention.
This lends Neo with the impression that he must venture to the machine world on his own because there he will find what the fate of human kind depends on. Far and wide between these ideas lies an immensely long action sequence with minimal cuts in relentlessness and no interwoven notions of Neo's state.	But it still answered some of my questions. And even when it felt the need to sway from an explanation I didn't mind because the new questions left in the open were just as fascinating as the answers to the old ones. Then ending on a note of such curiosity that if a fourth film were made I would not watch it because coincidence does not merit an explanation.
This is a film that hinted at ideas, more fully explored in graphic detail in Darren Aronofsky's cult masterpiece Pi. In Pi, conscious decisions were made with prime material that this film didn't have room for due to mentioned action sequence of epic proportion.	The hint in Revolutions that coincides with Pi is in that every human action is based on a code and that we need machines to be the mathematicians that our minds can't allow us to be. That film was kind of an elaborate set up for a look into a man's limit to his own sanity. This one speaks in tongues that show the better part of a grade eleven math course finally doing itself some good.	The belief stems to say that every equation has equal opposition between worlds. In a mathematical sense, the figures that exist on both sides of the equal sign (parallel worlds) are, in turn, the same information, only presented in different forms. For example the number three could be opposed as being six divided by two in another universe making it the same power in a different identity.	That's where the Matrix comes in. It was a system designed to balance the equations. The Architect, we learned in Reloaded, was a mathematician, who, in creating this vast program could balance the equations and hold the power of humanity in his hands, because those who hold the answer hold the understanding. In this film we find his equal opposition. That one whose attempts to unbalance the equations effect a chain reaction of unbalance between bi-polar opposites Neo and Smith.	In Reloaded we were thrown a bunch of psychobabble about how Neo and Smith were one in the same. This is true in Revolutions as we find the only way to balance an equation is to make both sides of equal proportion, leading up to that final battle sequence, which may make sense of, or complicate matters even worse.	That's what I would have liked to see more of in Revolutions. Although, it is a smarter film than critics are giving it credit for. And it doesn't surprise me. When something is given such mass appeal it is easy to become immobile to hate for no better reason than to be the one saying something different.	Unlike the first two films, with Revolutions it comes down to a war between parallels that are acted out instead of further exploring reasons. I was looking for more curiosity in the methods behind the action, but such is not the case. All ideas seemed second to the endless shooting inside the Bay of Zion. But to a certain advantage point I was still content that this was a good film because we are receiving no more than what was avoided but pushed toward during Reloaded; a special effects extravaganza.
And an extravaganza it was. The person next to me in the theatre could only utter two words as the Sentinels swarmed into Zion, the first being `holy...' With that, there is no doubt in my mind that it will be years before the effects in this film will even be comprehensible to all the other special effects driven films to follow.	I know that I have neglected to examine much of the story and characters of Revolutions but in all honesty it would be impossible to have someone follow anything that happens in this film without prior knowledge to the first two. I think of this as more a theoretical analysis rather than an opinionated view, because there is much more to be explained and discovered in the questions I was left with than in the actual technique of the filmmaking.
I'm reluctant to say that Revolutions is the worst film in the trilogy, simply because it was more entertainment than thought. But I still have my impressions that this series is not the culture-shock phenomenon that many claimed it to be. During the bonus features of the DVD for Reloaded I heard someone say in an interview that this could be the most complex movie ever made. I highly doubt that, but it could very well be the smartest and nicest looking action movie of its time.