Revolutions NOT Reloaded (Matrix Revolutions (DVD))

Member Name: mpeh

Product:	Matrix Revolutions (DVD)
Date:	10/11/03 (52 review reads)
Rating:

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There doesn't seem to be a 'Revolutions' category, maybe becaue its not out on DVD. What? Apologies for the lack of capital letters in teh first few paragraphs, as I read this here on the editing screen I can see capital letters. When I 'submit' they go away, I don't know why.

Anyhow:

Trilogies of movies seem to be becoming necessary for the label 'epic'. Hugo Weaving seems only to do trilogies. I was worried that, having built up some steam (I felt Reloaded was much better than the Matrix) and written a diabolically involved plot with a lot of sophisticated ideas that the Wachowski brothers may have problems extricating themselves neatly and plausibly (within reason) and without letting down their audience. I am pleased to announce that I think Revolutions is the best movie of the three. It has moments of real class.

Lets get the bad bits out of the way first, the acting isn't up to scratch, but you're watching a matrix movie folks, its got Keanu Reeves as the lead, you weren't expecting oscar winning performances. There are a few really painful moments and some that aren't anywhere near as bad as you'd cynically expect. That said there aren't as many as there were in the previous two instalments and the rest of this movie kinda makes up for it. There are a few roles filled yb children and in true Hollywood tradition the casting people seem to have gone with an image over any form of acting ability, notable exception to 'tradition' being Sixth Sense.

Most of this film isn't set in the matrix, there are some bits, rest assured, but that means the producers have been able to concentrate on really getting the atmosphere of what it would be like to live on a machine dominated earth, which they do very well. Costumes, props and computer generated buffoonery all abound to make the gritty, grimy, dirty sweaty bloody hell of Zion really leap to life. This is one of the
reasons I was so impressed by this film, the first two installments of the trilogy were not made with a mature 'thematic' outlook, the second one delved into the questions raised by a 'mat
rix' existing at all but the environments, way of life and general feel were ignored. I'm not advocating a massive examination of what life is like 'for the people' but I think the mark of a really good movie set anywhere but contemporary surroundings for its audience is that background wash of happening that indicates that 'real life' is continuing for everyone in the world that isn't credited at the end of the film. Revolutions has more of this background activity, struggle and hardship which brings Zion to life.

The computer generated effects and graphics are marvelous. Its easy to say 'oh but you can tell when the graphics are CG', which is true, anytime you see a large spacecraft or sentinel flying around in an underground dome that could house most of east Fife, thats gonna be CG. To be more realistic the pace of the action sequences means that your attention isn't on spotting integration mistakes and so I argue that you can't tell visually (I'm assuming deductive faculties are up to scratch) where the CG begins and ends. Theres a rumour that the 20 minute attack on Zion sequence (I don't think I'm giving away much here) cost $43 million. In a film only sense I think it was worth it. To balance this a litle it should be noted that one of the people I went to see the film with (Page for those of you who know her) didn't think the sequence fulfilled its potential. There was a lot going on, the details in the background were filled in, there weren't any parts where the focus was only on the lead in the scene. I liked that, I felt it made the action more real, Page disliked it, she felt that there was too much going on and that it detracted from what should have been the focus of the scene.


The main criticism levelled at the computer generated aspects of the film are (and will be) that there isn't anything new. I agree, the truly innovative (for western cinema) stuff was done in
the first film. In an effort to outdo themselves the producers put the freeway chase sequence into the second film, and that too was clever and, along with the multiple agent Smith battle, probably counted as 'new' stuff for that film. This movie doesn't have anything that immediately sticks out in my memory as being a new Computer Graphics related idea. In my mind that isn't a huge criticism of a film. There are effects which are new to the trilogy, and the aerial shots of machine dominated earth are quite good. The influence of the Japanese Anime shows through.

There is more depth to this film than either of the first two. More depth in examining the ramifications of a matrix, the interplay between the real and simulated worlds, the differences between 'people' and 'programs'. Theres a lovely little scene where Neo has a conversation with a program about what the word 'love' means. I may be assigning credit too hastily here but I think that the writer(s) oft his scene were genuinely throwing a little conundrum at the audience to mull over subconciously later, almost an in joke. This film is far darker than the first two. There is less of the 'Neo is the Absolute hero' stuff and more of 'The world's a shitty place' stuff.

I've read/heard it said somewhere that the second film was about life and this one is about death (and maybe the first one was about birth), although this is typical adolescent/film critic melodrama there may be an element of (vastly overstated) truth. Certainly the film's makers do not shy away from as many of the really difficult questions as I expected. There is one scene in particular where, in an effort not to ignore difficult issues, they over do it
and produce one of the overdone, over acted painful scenes I was talking about earlier. This not shying away is what lifts this film above what I expected. I thought, prior to going to see it, that, having gro

ssed however many hundreds of millions on the first two the easy option may well be taken on the third: Spend millions on making the action sequences blinding (well they did this), don't worry too much about the acting (I think there really was an effort, failed but still an effort), chuck plot and difficult questions out of window, replace with more action sequences adn pretty computer graphics. I was positively surprised.

The ending was quite good. They didn't overdo much, apart from making Neo a bit too much like Christ (legs together, arms spread, glowing nimbus of golden light, choirs of angels singing hallelujah, nails through the hands and feet, a crown of thorns and soldier robots dicing for his clothes, now I'm lying, I'll leave you to guess where the truth ends and the lies begin) for my taste. There was a satisfaction in knowing that they had ended it adn explained stuff. There is a scene at the very end which is blatantly a 'we have to explain more stuff or there'll be disgruntled punters' scene. I didn't think it should be there. There is nothing wrong with leaving a little mystery, not explaining everything, Highlander used that idea brilliantly, Alien didn't need to 'explain' where aliens had evolved from or how their 'gene stealer' reproductive cycle operated when there weren't any humans (or other mammallian soft things) around. I think that enough was explained before this extra scene, there were still questions but if some of the sudience had left the cinema and actually thought about some stuff that has to be positive no?

I have done the opposite to what I usually do when reviewing anything. Usually I pull thigns apart too easily, here I have written somethi
ng that suggests I loved this and it should get oscars. I don't think it should (unless its for the thechnical stuff). This gets 4/5 or maybe 7/10, 3/5 would be too harsh but 8/10 is too good, I'm going to b
e a p
ain and say 6.5/10. I think I have veered towards talking about the positive aspects because I feel that the swell of critical opinion will be against me. I think the film will get slated. I can rip it to shreds too, but I don't see the point. It was better than I expected and most of the difficult questions raised by the trilogy were answered/ discussed. If you thought the first film was the best film you've ever even heard of then you probably won't like this, if you thought the second film was better than the first then I think you may be in for a pleasant surprise.

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