what goes down must come up!
Written: Nov 05 '03 (Updated Nov 07 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Stylish, amazing effects, good story
Cons: the main hero is as wooden as ever
The Bottom Line: A film that proves that when someone like the Wachowski's jump from a great height, they don't always smash through the ground, but rather, sometimes, they bounce.
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| carl_lazarevic's Full Review: The Matrix: Revolutions |
I've got to admit, that for me personally, the release of The Matrix Revolutions held no real sense of excitement. I just couldn't get myself worked up for a film that was the sequel to one of the years biggest disappointments, and not just a sequel but a sequel that was filmed at the exact same time as it forbearer, and as such left the creators no real time to learn from their mistakes. The only question in my mind was as to how well it would tie up the giant loose ends left by Reloaded, so with that thought in mind I went to the first available showing of The Matrix Revolutions and...
Found the proof that what goes down must come up. A film that proves that when someone like the Wachowski's jump from a great height, they don't always smash through the ground, but rather, sometimes, they bounce, and bounce high at that.
Revolutions opens exactly where Reloaded left off, Neo is in a coma after stopping the sentinels, Bane, the man possessed by Smith, is also in a coma next to him and nobody understands what happened. Morpheus and Trinity then receive a call from Seraph who tells them that the Oracle needs to see them, and when they arrive at the Oracle's she explains that Neo is trapped in a place between the 2 worlds, and that only the Merovingian is able to free him. What follows is a series of spectacular action scenes as the 3 of them, Morpheus, Trinity and Seraph, invade the Merovingian's S&M night club in order to rescue Neo. After that is achieved though they exit The Matrix for the final battle against the machines.
From this point on The Wachowski's provide us with everything they had always promised for the final film, all out war. The early scenes set inside The Matrix prove to tie up the loose ends that were left at the end of Reloaded in a satisfying, stylish way. After that though we move into the real world for an epic battle in Zion between the men and the machines. There are moments inside The Matrix that are designed to build up the story to it's spectacular finale, but the central characters themselves don't really get a chance to jack in, being too busy at Zion as the sentinels arrive and start their attack. These scenes reminded me of James Cameron's, Aliens, in that when the Sentinels attack they do it, not as individuals, but as a mass, an ocean even, of bodies that move in perfect unison. These are not the emotional machines that people are used to fighting inside The Matrix, but rather, like Star Trek's The Borg, are many bodies attacking as one mind. They show no concern to being destroyed, rather seeing that as a human would see himself when losing a single skin cell. This makes the battle that much more intense, as seeing the sentinels literally pouring in from any gaps in the wall leaves you feeling that this is a battle impossible to win, that fighting the machines here in the real world will not be as easy as it was in The Matrix.
That tension is typical of the films return to the roots of the series though. Revolutions represents the true sequel to The Matrix that I always wanted to see. The films violence has a shocking, unpleasant edge that was missing from the CGI heavy Reloaded. This is especially noticeable in the battle between the humans and the machines that permeates the entire film, but is also seen in the general fights too. People walk out of a fight bloodied and bruised, and when they are occurring they are handled so realistically that you, the audience members, can feel every punch as if they had been inflicted on you. It's this edge that was missing from Reloaded, due to the fact that a lot of the time the characters themselves were computer rendered, but that's not a problem you will be laying against Revolutions.
Of course that's not to say that they haven't used a lot of CGI effects, as you would expect in this series it is essential, but when they are used it's because a scene required them. For example the battle against the sentinels required some pretty heavy CGI work, due to the fact that both the sentinels and the ally ships would have been impossible to render otherwise, but the amazing thing was that if I didn't know they had to be CGI I wouldn't have realized that they were. It's because these effects are entirely believable, not drawing you out of the film, but enhancing the experience, that I can make the claim that I'm about to. The Matrix Revolutions is a better film than Reloaded, obviously, but, as far as I'm concerned it also tops the original. It has the same wonderful feel as The Matrix but without a slow, pretentious mid section, and for the first time in this series life I would rate it up there among the classic science fiction blockbusters like Blade Runner.
Stylistically it's in the spirit of the first film, with some extremely cool cinematography that perfectly recreates the intense look of a comic book, and a soundtrack that gives everything a sense of dark foreboding. Inside The Matrix Agent Smith goes about his business, and is seemingly inescapable to the characters that inhabit it, and outside The Matrix the humans make a last stand with the kind of degraded technology that wouldn't have been out of place in the early Alien movies.
It carries the theme of a live action anime that so clearly defined the first movie. I remember seeing the original Matrix way back when and being strongly reminded of one of the best science fiction movies ever made, Ghost In The Shell. It was this very style that drew me into the original Matrix despite the fact that it was not quite as good as the subtler Ghost In The Shell. I am also forced to grudgingly admit that their was a fair amount of anime to be found in Reloaded, though it was taken from the lesser, Golgo 13, Ninja Scroll end of the Spectrum. With Revolutions though fans should expect a film that carries a nice degree of tone from classic mech anime's such as the Macros Plus series and film. It is this style that Ultimately drew me into the movie, grabbing my attention and keeping me held breathless throughout. Besides which, the over the top, Dragon Ball Z, inspired finale didn't hurt things in any way.
That though is the surface style, it creates the atmosphere of the series and drives the story, but there is another area of style that I'm amazed deserves to be recommended too. You see the first film made wire fu a popular term in the west but I was never overly impressed by the skills that Reeves and co. displayed. In the sequel I found the fight scenes to be horribly amateurish, and yet in Revolutions the focus has moved onto the films better fighters. I had always suspected that Sing Ngai, who plays Seraph, was better than what he was allowed to show while trying to make Reeves look impressive, and here he is able to pull off the kind of fights that I have always enjoyed from stars like Jet Li, albeit in very brief scenes. Carrie Anne Moss also manages to hold her own, and Reeves fights are more of the slow motion variety that perfectly disguise his general lack of professional skill.
However there are problems with Revolutions (though nothing bad enough to effect it's overall rating) that should be addressed. There's a mildly annoying character who doesn't serve any real purpose, and despite the fact that Fishbourn and Moss have improved their acting over the previous film, most of the other main characters are as wooden as ever. Whenever a general, or any other leaders, gave a motivational speech to their troops I never felt that they gave off any authoritative presence, more resembling an everyman who's decided to shout mindlessly at their peers. Yet as ever, it's poor old Keanu Reeves who fares the worst. He's still a very bland, totally emotionless lead actor, and as such one scene in particular, that was designed to be emotional was left sterile, despite the writers noblest intentions to not over play the emotion. However compared to the other recent action heroes, as well as Reeves performances in other films, I guess I'll just have to accept this.
The Matrix Revolutions is really a good film. The bold visual style and tense soundtrack, combined with a refreshing lack of pretentious dialogue (I guess everyone must have lost their thesaurus, because they actually speak like normal people) has ranked the final installment of The Matrix trilogy among the best science fiction blockbusters around.
Recommended:
Yes
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carl_lazarevic
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Member: Carl Lazarevic
Location: UK-(pure blood Brummie)
Reviews written: 228
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Walk down the right back alley in Sin City and you can find anything.
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