Some Endings Are Better Left Unfilmed...

Rating: 2/10 (21 November 2003)

Possible spoiler hints  second-to-last paragraph only.
The first Matrix movie was fantastic because it framed an action film inside a cerebral one; it was special both for its revolutionary action sequences and for the novelty of such an engaging `what if?' scenario. The movie had plenty of flaws, but they were easy to forgive because of the sheer originality of the movie's visuals and viewpoint. The Matrix's open ending allowed viewers to draw their own conclusions to all the questions raised.
Simply by making the sequels, the Wachowskis disobeyed one of the first rules of show biz: `Always leave em wanting more.' As soon as I heard they were going to make two sequels, I had a gut feeling, a fear that I would be sorely disappointed. I knew the sequels could never live up to the original, and going into Reloaded with that in mind, I was able to appreciate the movie for what it was, and I forgave its [this time more serious] flaws because I assumed (hoped) they would be resolved or rendered irrelevant in Revolutions.
Revolutions fails to provide any of the positive attributes the first two films. The visual style is no longer original, nor is the philosophical bent, and I found the action sequences to be profoundly uninteresting. Reloaded did one-up the original in its action sequences  the many Smiths scene took martial arts to a whole new level, and the freeway scene delivered a masterfully done car chase, a key element in any quality action picture. What does Revolutions have? A bunch of computer-animated machines duking it out with one another. Most of the action scenes in Revolutions resemble a video game more closely than they do a kungfu or action movie. I doubt I am the only one who does not find watching video games all that interesting. The few non-video-game-like scenes that Revolutions did have were unimpressive, simply because I felt like I had seen them before. In the first film, they had full-throttle action and in the second, they turned on the afterburners. In the third, they just plain ran out of gas - the Wachowski brothers just could not top what they did in Reloaded.

Without originality or satisfying action sequences to fall back on, what does Revolutions have left? The dialogue is ridiculous, with almost as many cliches as Batman and Robin. There are numerous scenes that seem to serve no purpose  watching it, I wondered how such a widely anticipated, expensively made film could be so flabby. There are also far too many characters in this movie to allow for any kind of character development or for us to care about any of them; besides, the acting was never a strong point for the first two Matrix films, either.
That leaves only the plot itself and its philosophical implications to redeem Revolutions. Once again, Revolutions failed to measure up to its predecessors. While the Matrix was simply revolutionary and Reloaded provided some interesting new twists, Revolutions was almost completely unintelligible. Maybe I missed something because I did not watch Anamatrix or play the Enter the Matrix video game, but most of what happened in the third movie made no sense! Instead of providing answers, which I and other audience members wanted, above all, from the final (God, I hope so) installment in the series, Revolutions delivers ambiguity. Was there a matrix within a matrix? Does the movie end with a new world order, or did we just view one `iteration' of the program? What happened to Neo? What was the point of anything that happened in all three movies? Of course, a good movie should leave the viewer with something to think about, but instead of thinking `what could happen next?' or contemplating the film's philosophical message, after watching Revolutions, I wondered `what the hell just happened?' and `what was any of it supposed to mean?' In my humble opinion, the Wachowskis could not figure out how to write the ending in a way that would tie everything together (without being so obvious as to be unsatisfying) that they just made it as confusing as possible so that there were no true answers and the Wachowskis were completely off the hook.

Bottom line  a truly good movie like The Matrix did not need to have an `ending' as such, but the Wachowskis insisted on giving it one (`everything that has a beginning must have an end', more like `every film that could have a successful sequel should have two'), and they couldn't deliver the goods. They brought so much philosophy into the first two movies, especially the second movie, that viewers, myself included, expected a plausible, coherent closure from Revolutions. As intelligent as they are, the brothers could not provide it. Maybe they have the whole thing cooked up perfectly in their heads so that it all ties together logically, there are no `plot holes,' and everything makes sense, but even if that were the case, they did a terrible job communicating the conclusion and resolution (if there was resolution  I'm not sure whether there was or not). 2 stars out of 10 for the remote possibility that the brothers actually had something in mind that they were unable to communicate.