Revolutions Calling
Nov. 7th, 2003 01:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
uberreinigerFanboy that I am, I went to see Matrix Revolutions tonight. That's eight bucks I'll never see again.
I want everybody to know that I tried really hard to like this movie. I really did. Now mind you, I was one of the biggest apologists for Reloaded that there was. I loved it. I loved every minute and at times when it seemed like the whole world was against it, I was taking on all comers, unafraid to let them know how cool it was.
Now I know how all those people felt because this... this just left me sitting there going "And!? AND!?" It's okay to have an ending that leaves questions. I would've expected nothing less from the Wachowski bros. But it's something else to have an ending that's just plain unsatisfying. Especially when no other sequels will ever be forthcoming. And this ending was unsatisfying. Big time. Not the ending of the war. I'd actually hoped that they'd go that very direction and create peace with the machines. Rather, I just found the cheery sunset ending to be nullifying and abrupt. It did not invoke the feelings it was intended to. I wanted to know what happened to Neo. Was he dead, or merely unconcsious? My vote was for unconcsious as I doubt the machines would so carefully trundle him away if he were dead. More likely, he'd be unceremoniously scooped up by a most ungentle squiddy and dropped in the nearest liquification vat to feed the sleepers. I guess I felt they just should've done something at the end which personalized it more to him, brought more emphasis to the completion of his journey. It was as though at the end he just suddenly stopped being the main character and became just a walking plot mechanic. It honestly felt that way through the entire last half of the movie and I didn't like it at all. In fact, all three of the main characters (Neo, Morpheus, Trinity,) just sort of seemed to dissolve in both identity and significance once the battle for Zion started. The death of Trinity I found to be completely forced and empty. It just came across like "Oooh, look we killed a main character. Look how sad it is. Aren't you sad? Neo's sad!" Maybe I'm being too picky about it, but it was cliche and I found it downright insulting.
And I will say the battle for Zion was excellent. It was epic without being over the top, tragic without being pretentious, and so seamlessly animated that I found myself going "how'd the BUILD those things!?" even when I knew full well the machines only existed on a computer screen. The character of Zee really stood out strong in this sequence and it was incredible to watch her use the reserves of fortitude within herself that her brief appearance in Reloaded only hinted at. My only question.... Why in the hell didn't they already have an EMP mechanism set up within the dock to use as a last resort weapon? If I were Zion's defense coordinator, that'd be the first thing I'd install, but that's just the kinda guy I am. "Take 'em down with me" has always been a sound strategy in my book.
Hugo Weaving, was, as always, excellent in the role of Agent Smith. I do believe that Smith will go down alongside Darth Vader as one of the great cinematic villains of all time. I was extremely disappointed at so little screen time for the Merovingian and Persephone, and at the Twins' conspicuous absence. But... oh well. Probably the easiest paycheck Monica Belluci's ever picked up in her life.
Perhaps the most beautiful moment in the movie was the graceful homage to the late Gloria Foster who played the Oracle in the first two films before her death from diabetes. As the Oracle explains the change in her appearance as being due to her temporary destruction at the hands of the Merovingian, she gives gentle salute to her real-life predecessor without breaking character or story. That one line, "I wanted to be here just as you remembered me, but it wasn't meant to be," was easily the most moving of the entire film for me.
My final gripe is the fight scenes. These were every bit as dull as Reloaded's were awesome. There were fewer of them, for one thing. And what ones there were just felt routine and obligatory. Neo's gruesome real-life battle with Smith/Bane was the best of them all just for how irreversible the outcome of it was. The fight with Merovingian's goons? A yawner? The climactic battle with Smith? Eh, we could've skipped straight to Smith and Neo's final conversation, (which was very, very good,) and not been cheated in the slightest.
One final note: the Wachowskis are notorious for putting allusions and references in their films and this one was no different, but the references were quite a bit more overtly pop-cultural. The face and voice of the machine-entity at the end was quite reminiscent of the MCP in the movie "Tron" and I think that was intentional. And when Neo discovers his new "blind sight" I was quite a bit tempted to raise my fist into the air and shout "MAUD'IB!" :)
Overly, I'll give Matrix Revolutions three out of five stars. A decent ending to the trilogy, but an ending I felt was capable of so much more.
I want everybody to know that I tried really hard to like this movie. I really did. Now mind you, I was one of the biggest apologists for Reloaded that there was. I loved it. I loved every minute and at times when it seemed like the whole world was against it, I was taking on all comers, unafraid to let them know how cool it was.
Now I know how all those people felt because this... this just left me sitting there going "And!? AND!?" It's okay to have an ending that leaves questions. I would've expected nothing less from the Wachowski bros. But it's something else to have an ending that's just plain unsatisfying. Especially when no other sequels will ever be forthcoming. And this ending was unsatisfying. Big time. Not the ending of the war. I'd actually hoped that they'd go that very direction and create peace with the machines. Rather, I just found the cheery sunset ending to be nullifying and abrupt. It did not invoke the feelings it was intended to. I wanted to know what happened to Neo. Was he dead, or merely unconcsious? My vote was for unconcsious as I doubt the machines would so carefully trundle him away if he were dead. More likely, he'd be unceremoniously scooped up by a most ungentle squiddy and dropped in the nearest liquification vat to feed the sleepers. I guess I felt they just should've done something at the end which personalized it more to him, brought more emphasis to the completion of his journey. It was as though at the end he just suddenly stopped being the main character and became just a walking plot mechanic. It honestly felt that way through the entire last half of the movie and I didn't like it at all. In fact, all three of the main characters (Neo, Morpheus, Trinity,) just sort of seemed to dissolve in both identity and significance once the battle for Zion started. The death of Trinity I found to be completely forced and empty. It just came across like "Oooh, look we killed a main character. Look how sad it is. Aren't you sad? Neo's sad!" Maybe I'm being too picky about it, but it was cliche and I found it downright insulting.
And I will say the battle for Zion was excellent. It was epic without being over the top, tragic without being pretentious, and so seamlessly animated that I found myself going "how'd the BUILD those things!?" even when I knew full well the machines only existed on a computer screen. The character of Zee really stood out strong in this sequence and it was incredible to watch her use the reserves of fortitude within herself that her brief appearance in Reloaded only hinted at. My only question.... Why in the hell didn't they already have an EMP mechanism set up within the dock to use as a last resort weapon? If I were Zion's defense coordinator, that'd be the first thing I'd install, but that's just the kinda guy I am. "Take 'em down with me" has always been a sound strategy in my book.
Hugo Weaving, was, as always, excellent in the role of Agent Smith. I do believe that Smith will go down alongside Darth Vader as one of the great cinematic villains of all time. I was extremely disappointed at so little screen time for the Merovingian and Persephone, and at the Twins' conspicuous absence. But... oh well. Probably the easiest paycheck Monica Belluci's ever picked up in her life.
Perhaps the most beautiful moment in the movie was the graceful homage to the late Gloria Foster who played the Oracle in the first two films before her death from diabetes. As the Oracle explains the change in her appearance as being due to her temporary destruction at the hands of the Merovingian, she gives gentle salute to her real-life predecessor without breaking character or story. That one line, "I wanted to be here just as you remembered me, but it wasn't meant to be," was easily the most moving of the entire film for me.
My final gripe is the fight scenes. These were every bit as dull as Reloaded's were awesome. There were fewer of them, for one thing. And what ones there were just felt routine and obligatory. Neo's gruesome real-life battle with Smith/Bane was the best of them all just for how irreversible the outcome of it was. The fight with Merovingian's goons? A yawner? The climactic battle with Smith? Eh, we could've skipped straight to Smith and Neo's final conversation, (which was very, very good,) and not been cheated in the slightest.
One final note: the Wachowskis are notorious for putting allusions and references in their films and this one was no different, but the references were quite a bit more overtly pop-cultural. The face and voice of the machine-entity at the end was quite reminiscent of the MCP in the movie "Tron" and I think that was intentional. And when Neo discovers his new "blind sight" I was quite a bit tempted to raise my fist into the air and shout "MAUD'IB!" :)
Overly, I'll give Matrix Revolutions three out of five stars. A decent ending to the trilogy, but an ending I felt was capable of so much more.
