The prophecy was a lie...

Rating: 6/10 (7 November 2003)

'Everything that has a beginning has an end' state the posters. `Woah' we think, imitating the Messianic Neo, `that's, like, so simple-yet-deep. It just has to have, like, a deeper meaning. And, like, a Revolution is, like, a circle, which, like, means that maybe it doesn't have an end after all. Man, those Wakoffemalsky dudes are clever.'
Don't bet on it. Six months after Colonel Sanders wannabe The Architect sent us spilling out into the night discussing inevitable systemic anomalies, cataclysmic systems crashes and how the One should technically be named the Sixth, we finally get to find out which of all the wonderful possibilities the end of Matrix Reloaded prompted are true and which were, frankly, the products of underused and slightly sad imaginations. Of so you would think. Instead, the Wachowski's have inexplicably chosen to ignore just about every idea put forward at the end of Part 2, taken us mostly outside of the action playground of the physics-defying Matrix, away from the theme of fate vs. destiny that was the cornerstone of the series, and dished us up a conventional sci-fi/action film centering on humanity's last stand against the maurauding machines. The writing/directing brothers seem to have lost their nerve in this concluding installment, choosing to serve up an hour and a half of bullet-spewing, race against time, pedal to metal - but distinctly un-Matrix like - action in the hope that, with all the shooting and shouting and special effects, that the audience won't notice that Revolutions barely addresses any of the issues that helped the first two films tickle the intellect and the imagination as well as the eye.
What Matrix-based scenes there are are undeniably stunning. There's the opening shoot-out in the lobby of the S&M club run by mysterious French slimeball the Merovingian (whose role in the big scheme of things - like so much else in the film - turns out to be the most mundane of all the possibilities). And the final slug-fest between Neo and Smith inside the coming-apart-at-the-seams Matrix is a stunning tour de force set piece that defies just about every action convention in the book and writes some new ones of its own. What a pity then, that the Matrix is visited so rarely, and the viscerally impressive - but hardly distinctive - battle for Zion so resolutely placed centre stage. The reality-defying kung-fu of the series' fantasy world is, after all, the reason why this has all become so cool.
The Wachowski's are undoubtedly blessed with brilliant imaginations and the ambitions to match, and as in its predecessor, there are a fistful of moments in Revolutions that take the breath away. However, now that their modus operandi is now complete, their principle shortcoming is laid bare; with so many characters, ideas, and themes introduced over the first two films, they have proved unable to bring focus and coherence to the seemingly hundreds of things they wanted to do in these three films. Questions, character arcs, and plot strands crucial to the saga are skipped over with a few inconclusive lines of dialogue, all supposedly justified by that catch-all of get-out clauses: that the viewer should make up his own mind. Balls. The ending to Revolutions could hardly have been less satisfactory had Keanu woken up at his computer terminal and pronounced the whole thing a dream. The interminably bitty and superficial ending will have its supporters of course, but in their heart of hearts they must know that's its nothing more than an example of lazy scriptwriting. After two films and around seven hours of new characters and new ideas, the Wachowski's have ultimately fallen victim to their own hyperactive imaginations, and imploded.
Don't get me wrong: there is much to admire in Matrix Revolutions. The action is plentiful and brilliantly handled. It is far more in keeping with the sombre tone and the grubby, muted look of the original than the too-sterile middle instalment, and the Wachowski's have rediscovered the emotional touch that went AWOL in Reloaded, including taking the Neo/Trinity love affair to its natural conclusion and rediscovering what made Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving, the best performance in the film by a country mile) such a great villain. For these reasons it is in some respects more satisfying. But then, Reloaded was not the film that we were promised would tie everything up. Reloaded didn't have the weight of the entire saga resting on its shoulders. Whatever Reloaded's shortcomings, we could always remain hopeful - that optimism fuelled by producer Joel Silver and the Warner Bros publicity department, consistently declaring the brothers `geniuses' - that the Wachowski's could pull it off, tie up all those loose plot strands and tie them into the arcs of their characters, bringing the saga to a close in a dramatically satisfying way. After all, no one in their right mind(s) would put so much material in these films if they didn't have a plan of sorting it all out in the end, right? Revolutions doesn't even come close, and this is why it must be branded a disappointment. The fans didn't spend the six months since Reloaded endlessly debating how good the SFX were. What really stimulated people - and what was so enticing about the series - was the fun derived from wondering how those enslaved to the Matrix would be released, whether Zion really was a Matrix-within-a-Matrix, and sundry other items that genuinely sparked the imagination. Addressing these things - and introducing them in the first place with a sense of discipline - could have resulted in the great cinematic saga of our time. Instead, what history will remember is a truly great original followed by two sequels that had more questions than it had answers. Like the prophecy Morpheus so resolutely believed in, our blind faith in the Wachowski's also turned out to be misplaced: the answers to all those questions are not coming and, tragically, now they never will.