The Matrix: Revolutions

Rating

Director

The Wachowski Siblings

Screenplay

The Wachowski Siblings

Length

129 min.

Starring

Mary Alice, Tanveer Atwal, Ian Bliss, Collin Chou, Laurence Fishburne, Nathaniel Lees, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jada Pinkett Smith, Keanu Reeves, Bruce Spence, Hugo Weaving, Lambert Wilson, Anthony Wong

MPAA Rating

R (For sci-fi violence and brief sexual content)

Review

What do you call a question without an answer? The Matrix: Revolutions is an effects-laden fight movie that searches for its audience and finds it in the minds of the fans who enjoyed the first two movies for its visuals and little more.

Keanu Reeves returns as Neo, trapped in a limbo between the Matrix and, wait, isn’t that the Matrix? A small subway station with no entrance or exit finds Neo conversing with a couple who are waiting to board their daughter Sati(Tanveer Atwal) on a train to take her out of the general code of the Matrix. She is a program without a greater purpose and therefore is about to be purged from the system.

Meanwhile, Trinity(Carrie-Anne Moss) and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) seek the Oracle(Mary Alice) to find a way to get Neo out of his coma and back into the waking world. The Oracle sends them in search of the Trainman (Bruce Spence) by way of her trusted bodyguard Seraph (Collin Chou). Their search takes them on a bullets-blazing excursion through the subway and into a Goth club run by Merovingian (Lambert Wilson).

The performances have suffered since the first film came through. Reeves had an obligation to play Neo as a confused, unenlightened prophet but here, he barely breaks the mold to become a further nuisance to the audience who are expecting a little more than one-liners and high butt-kicking action. The other cast members proceed the same way, keeping their characters from growing physically or emotionally from film to film. Only Jada Pinkett Smith as ace pilot Niobe, attempts to grow her character from the previous films but it’s too little and too late.

Trilogies are meant to tell large stories in three parts. Often they consist of questions posed in early chapters and answered in later ones. The Matrixcertainly posed lots of questions through its length. Many of the questions in the first part were answered well in the first part and left little to be desired in a way of a conclusion. The Matrix: Reloaded answered very few questions and posed many others. The Matrix: Revolutions posed even more questions and only answered some of all of the movies’ questions. What we’re left with is a brief understanding of why the film’s events occurred and why they were significant but many of the smaller questions remained unanswered. The most noted was a question directly posed during Revolutions. The question was why Neo could see differently in his mind than with his eyes; the answer was never revealed.

As for the Revolutionsplotline, there were a number of unnecessary scenes that truly felt as if they had no bearing on the story at all and were used only to fill an absence of time. We find ourselves watching wasted scenes in subway terminals and lingering over lurid battle scenes that drone on forever. Worst of all, we find ourselves watching a saccharine-sweet conclusion that only poses more questions.

What The Matrix: Revolutions has is a bevy of good visual effects that are wasted on a lackluster story. Audiences will find that they enjoy the film as a movie and a diversion but, as a suitable conclusion to an otherwise auspicious trilogy, the audience will likely balk at its abundant lack of finality. Maybe the producers will change their minds again in a year and decide they want to turn it into a Star Wars-like six-chapter saga.

Review Written

November 13, 2003