The Matrix Revolutions
Being the concluding part of a trilogy many
expected Revolutions to tie up all the loose
ends created by the original Matrix and
Reloaded and give us the answers we were
looking for, unfortunately this is not what it delivers and ultimately that is its biggest flaw. Let's look past that for now and focus on what the film does deliver.
The CGI is almost flawless, everything looks stunning, this is certainly a real technical achievement. Unfortunately though, the acting is still as awful as ever, Keunau Reeves is excrutiatingly bad this time around. Luckily though, Carrie-Anne Moss saves the day and does her best as always, Trinity steals every scene in the film and you'll really find yourself rooting for her. The strange thing is that many of the characters from Reloaded barely make an appearance, Persephone only gets one line in the entire movie and the Architect only shows up at the very end, also most of the main characters are seperated for the duration of the film, and both Neo and Trin go missing for most of the second act. What we are given during this time is the battle of Zion, which is impressive, but ultimately too long and dull to be fully engaging.
The action itself is pretty spectacular for the most part, the aforementioned battle is rather eye-catching, but the best is saved for last as Neo and Smith have the ultimate showdown, which has to be seen to be believed. There's nothing else that's really worth mentioning, the gun fight at the night club is just a rehash of the lobby scene from the first Matrix. The best thing about the action this time is the sense of danger, all the characters face immediate peril and struggle for their lives, we really don't know who's going to come out of this alive, the fight scene between Neo and Smith is also a lot more brutal than the Burly Brawl in Reloaded and all of this helps to create a real sense of danger and consequence which the previous film lacked.
All this action is fun to watch but what we really want to see is some real story development, so it's disappointing to realise that there isn't any. The plot has taken a back seat this time, which would have been acceptable if the action was at least constant in quality and varied but it's not. The first half an hour or so of the film is pretty dull, with not a lot going on, we get the fight in the club but that's about it. Then we move on to the battle of Zion, which is all well and good but really it serves no purpous except to look pretty, the characters and plot disappear and we are left watching a bunch of robots fight a bunch of humans in robot suits. After what seems like an eternity we finally return to Neo and Trinity who are now piloting a ship to the machine's source in the real world, their little adventure is both interesting and exciting to watch and holds a few surprise twists. Then we get the final showdown between Neo and Smith which is awesome and almost manages to redeem the movie, but then we get to the ending and it's all a bit disappointing really, most questions are left unanswered and a lot is left unresolved, leaving things open for another sequal, which would only be a bad idea.
The Wachowski's have decided not to wrap things up neatly and instead leave it all a bit too ambiguous, clearly they are still hoping to make more money from the franchise, which is very annoying for us fans who were hoping to get some kind of closure from the film. What could have been a true epic has been reduced to a muddled mess, not quite knowing what to do with the universe they have created the brothers go for the easy option and just bombard us with special effects until our heads hurt. Sadly all this CGI cannot mask what is a badly acted, poorly written and at times shoddily directed film. There are moments that shine, that make this worth watching, but there are still far too many flaws. Revolutions entertains on a basic level and is satisfactory, perhaps the success of the first two and the hype created has worked against it, but in the end it's still disappointing and the potential for the franchise has not been met. On the other hand, it is pretty good for a sequal and after all the complaints I can safely say that it is not a complete failure, in fact, far from it, but it certainly could have been a whole lot more and many fans will hate this for ruining the overall quality of the trilogy, this is both a huge step down in terms of quality from the original Matrix and even Reloaded.
Rating- 6/10
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