The Matrix Imploed

Rating: 5/10 (9 July 2006)

'The Matrix' was a film that rehashed many of the corniest ideas, and re-used much of the most familiar aesthetics, of science fiction; but it stitched them together into a package so breathtakingly implemented that few people noticed, or if they did notice, cared. Then the sequel came out and the backlash begun. I actually thought that 'The Matrix Reloaded' was not too bad given the film it was trying to be: in other words, it's hard to imagine how such a sequel could have been much different (I also thought the original was good but not great). But among devotees of the first film, I think the real crime of the second film was to expose the emperor's clothes in the first movie: often fantasy stories hint at a complete world, glimpses of a wider mystery, and 'The Matrix' was no exception; but a second film spent reworking the same ground served only to expose how little was actually there in the first place. By the time of the third movie (made together with the second, and released soon after), expectations were lower and criticism was less; but in fact, the first half of 'The Matrix Revolutions' is undoubtedly the worst part of the trilogy, with its incomprehensible plot and misguided attempts to squeeze the wooden romance between Keanu Reeves' character Neo and Carrie-Ann Moss's Trinity for more than it is worth. Later on, things pick up a bit, and the special effects are spectacular as ever, but the Wachowski brothers clearly have no truck with the maxim that "less is more, and by the time of the film's conclusion, the movie is completely unplugged from any sort of narrative sense. What was fresh and original when the first film came out is tired and bombastic by the end of part three. And that's a shame.