Matrix Revolutions or Mentally Retarded?

Rating: 2/10 (11 December 2004)

You will rarely find any big-budget movies more venally opportunistic than the Matrix films. We've seen it all before in different packages: Pseudomystical claptrap about choice and fate; a machine intelligence and a beleaguered humanity with war between machines and people---reference the Terminator movies. Neo is blinded by Smith inhabiting Bane's body and so becomes able to "see" the pseudo-reality of the Matrix without jacking into it---reference Oedipus and the blind prophet Teiresias (hey, we have an actual glimmer of culture here!). But this is then interrupted by enough boring, overlong ultra-violent battle scenes, numbingly familiar pyrotechnics, and cheap-looking CGI for a shelf full of action computer games---which is in fact how this movie looks---and then how does it end? Like a Power Rangers show, with a one-on-one chopsocky fest in the rain that is no more advanced in inventiveness than the similar duel between Superman and Zod in Superman II. (You want to watch violence? Turn on CNN.) And then Neo wins out over Smith by becoming one with the computer intelligence---reference Decker and Ilia at the end of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Keanu Reeves ends the series as he began it, with a performance worthy of an honors degree from the David Janssen School of Non-acting. His Muses are obviously the twins Hypomimia and Hypophonia. The relationship between Neo and Trinity has always been hindered by the fact that Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss have an on-screen chemistry that is tepid at best. Their lovemaking scenes in Matrix Reloaded were underwhelming. Furthermore, five years of Matrix movies have not been kind to Carrie-Ann Moss; she looks tired and haggard and has not aged well, although this actually fits her character, as you would expect the hard life of the unplugged humans in the Earth of the Matrix movies to do that to people. Mostly, however, she looks like she is bored to tears by what she is doing. Maybe that's why they brought in Nona M. Gaye to "fill out" the film, which she does quite well, if you get my meaning. Hugo Weaving pretty much steals the movie as Agent Smith. Too bad that the only other actor truly worth watching in the first two films, Gloria Foster as the Oracle, died before Revolutions was made and was replaced by Mary Alice, an actress of much less charisma. The handling of the introduction of the new actress, since it was common knowledge that Gloria Foster died, felt pretty lame.
The Wachowski brothers have vision, all right: It's TV-Guide, Reader's Digest, back-of-the-cereal box vision. It's a vision of movies that are as drearily derivative and as shamelessly exploitative as they come.