In like a lion out like a lamb

Rating: 5/10 (23 November 2003)

What a letdown. When I first heard about the Matrix 2 and 3 I was appropriately excited and even after the second movie I was still looking forward to part 3 (albeit less then before). But after seeing Revolutions, I (like many other posters) am glad the series is over. I knew when I was watching it I didn't like it as much and though it kept my interest in the action scenes, the rest of the movie was nothing special. I think there are several reasons why this movie was worse then the others and this is what I came up with...
1)Boring characters: In the original Matrix, Neo was a much more interesting character. He was the everyman who was put in an extraordinary situation and had to learn to cope with the fact that he may be humanities only hope in a world he knows nothing about. By the second one and definetly in the third one he is just a boring monotone character who says stuff like "It ends tonight" and "I know what I must do". Pretty much lines that explain the action and do little to flesh out the character (a sign of poor writing). He isn't a charismatic hero nor is he really awe-inspiring (as he is to the other characters). Trinity and all of the other humans are just as lifeless. I didn't really care about them or their fate and the interesting characters from Reloaded like the Merovingian and Persephone make a meaningless appearance.
2)Pointless scenes: The whole train station scene is entirely unnecesary and the characters in it. The Indian couple and their girl and the Train master (or whatever he's called) add nothing to the plot and force the audience to listen to this bs diatribe about karma (which I guess is proven by this movie because while we got the good in part 1, we get the bad now in part 3). They also could have left the S&M club scene out as well, and the only reason the characters went there was to get Neo out of the stupid train station (which was pointless itself). The plot itself was extremely linear and the characters moved from point a to b to c (and all the while explaining their movements "We have to get back to Zion" "I must go to the surface", this crap would have been okay if there was some flavor to their dialogue but it was all stuff like that).
3)That's how it ends?: Ok so let me get this straight. Neo sacrifices himself a la' christ to save his people and destroy smith, therefore ensuring the machines wont kill the remainder of humanity. The problem I have with this is that the machines don't kill the people. It seems inconsistent with their character to just stop because they "made a deal with neo". They are MACHINES! They have no sense of loyalty or honor. The machines came out on top if you think about it. Neo and Smith are dead and the city is left defenseless, so why shouldn't the machines whipe out the people? The humans could only mean trouble for them in the future so why leave them? My answer is the studio answer. They left them alive so if they wanted to make a 4th movie they could still have both the machines and the people alive and bring neo back with some sort of resurrection (if he is dead, which i am assuming). This ending also reinforces the belief that they were just trying to end the whole the movie and didn't really think about being consistent with the prior motivations of the machines.
4)Focus away from the Matrix itself: This is something else I noticed and I think contribued greatly to my lukewarm reception of the third one. The most interesting part of the matrix movies to me (and I suspect many others) was the whole digital world of the matrix itself, where the laws of nature can be bent etc. Even the second one had some cool stuff in the Matrix like the freeway chase (the twins were cool) and the Merovingian but in this one the Matrix is in the background. What's in the foreground is the boring "real world" with it's flat characters and more familar post-apocalyptic setting. The only reason they go in the Matrix this time is the train station scene (which in my opinion unnecesarilly complicates rather then enriches the matrix universe) and the fight scenes between Neo and Smith (which we have seen before in both movies).
5)Action masquerading as philosophy: I think of this movie a lot like I think of Fight Club in the respect that it is primarily an action movie (and that is the main selling point of it) but it has some "deep" questions thrown in. So while that it may have more depth then your average Vin Diesel action flick, in the end it's about as deep as Star Wars. What people most enjoy about the Matrix is the action and all of the "big ideas" thrown in there are sometimes intriuging but mainly serve as a back drop for the movie and are often muddled together. I think it's just a ridiculous defense for people to claim that the only reason someone didn't like the Matrix Revolutions or Fight Club or one of these other modern "thinking-man's" action movies is because they are too stupid to get it. I hesitate to even use this example because it may make me look pretentious but just compare this film to a Bergman movie like Persona or the Seventh Seal or any movie for that matter that seriously asks philosophical questions. Those films are far more interesting on that level and make the matrix look juvenille by comparisson. Now I like action movies as much as the next guy, in fact Hard-Boiled (which is all guns and no brains) is one of my all time favorites. But I don't like it when people hold up movies like The Matrix Revolutions as examples of philosophical cinema, and chastise the people who don't like it as being stupid or "unable to grasp the concepts".
6)The little things: In most movies there are these little things that you either forgive and dismiss (because you are having a good time) or bug you, when you aren't. I listed a few above (the train station, pointless characters etc.) and now I'll list a few more just for fun. I found it ridiculous and perhaps inconsistent with the second movie (haven't checked this, nor do I really care to) that Zion had no "EMT devices" or whatever they are called. I was led to believe by the second movie that there would be at least some ships hanging around the city and that only a few went out to look for Morpheus and the gang. Anyway my grievance is that if they can make these EMT things and put them on all their ships why cant they have like 1 or 2 back at the base and just use it when all the Squid Machines come pouring in. Yeah it knocked out their defenses, but they could just use it again when the second round of machines came in. Besides their defenses sucked in the big picture and if the machines just ran right at all the mech guys with the guns right away instead of flying around in patterns and getting shot at the battle would have been much quicker. I guess though that I'm glad they didn't use common sense cause that would have eliminated the movies best scene, but still it kind of bugs me in retrospect. Another thing was the music. I read this comment from someone else (forget who, but good idea) and it seems to make sense to me. The music in the first 2 (especially in the 2nd) was this cool kind of techno stuff that worked really well within the world of the matrix and the action scenes in general. In this one we had this more orchestral sound and in my opinion it wasnt consistent and didnt feel as right in a Matrix movie. Now i recognize that this is really minor but I think it subtley attributed to taking away the "cool factor" that the other two films had and I think that the techno stuff is really well suited for the Matrix.
Anyway that's pretty much it. And while this review sounds and is highly critical, it is so only because the previous two especially the first left me with high expectations and were really good (the first excellent) sci-fi action films. Having seen lots of these types of movies I also conceed that the special effects were top notch and the action scenes were still pretty cool. I'm giving it a 6/10 and it is definety worth the price of admission for fans of the genre but I don't think it is a "must see" for casual fans to which the films weaknesses may be more apparent.

Zoopansick