Welcome back to another edition of Adam's Reviews!! **queue intro music**
Tonight's movie flick is The Matrix Revolutions (2003), the concluding act of the Wachowski Brothers trilogy which begins where the sequel, Reloaded, left off; Neo, played by the coolest of cool dudes Keanu Reeves, is unconscious, trapped in a place between the real world and the machine world; this realm, which takes the form of a subway station, is controlled by the Trainman, played by Mad Max alum Bruce Spence. Neo is in a coma after stopping machines in the real world with his mind - the filmmakers use this as a core concept throughout the movie. This new idea among the extravagant fight scenes of the humans fighting against the sentinel machines or the fight scene in the fetish style club where Trinity and Morpheus with the help of Seraph attempt to track the Trainman at a club run by the Merovingian where you see one woman twisting another woman's nipples and heaps of punky people wearing leather outfits that seem to be made for a BDSM movie. And this is where the film continues into a no return point and very quickly it begins to stray away from cool fictional fantasy into loony town.
The main plot of the movie is simple where the filmmakers build this extravagantly staged, fantastically noisy battle between the humans and the machines. This dull plot steers away interesting, original, cool ideas of the first film, and all the humanity, too, are left far behind in this limp conclusion which has little in the way of coherent plot or interesting characters. Don't get me wrong, the movie does have many positives, its always good to see multiple Hugo Weavings as the devilish Mr. Smith, but the rest of the cast simply look bemused and all those fancy outfits and Chinese-influenced fights seem very second-hand and recycled from Reloaded.
Film trilogies are a difficult thing to get right due to the hype and anticipation for any great trilogy can be so high and put on a pedestal, it is almost certain the ending would suffer. Matrix Revolutions, was no different. Despite its efforts to create new and interesting ideas, you knew the humans would triumph with the help of Neo. Well kind of - there is peace between the humans and machines which was teased in the sequel, humans need machines t get tasks done and completed. The ending - I myself when I watched it when the flick came out in cinemas, did not see it coming. After watching it again, it was so wild and nonsensical that all its originality was wasted and undone. The film drew more towards the terminology of the PC world such as hacking into a human body to upload an anti-virus program in order to remove Smith completely, it steered away from the science fiction aspect.
The dialogue is difficult at times, characters such as Morpheus is treated into a co-pilot and has little to say in this entry which is a shame as this character was a pivotal character from the first film. The filmmakers do deserve credit for being inventive and creative, many of their choices just don't make much sense. Like how did that sentinel go through Neo in the fields?? The screenplay is simply unable to deliver satisfying story arcs or resolutions for these characters. Yes, the film is visually impressive, the most grounded part of the film lies in the attack on Zion where heaps of sentinels penetrate the Zion defences and the war sequences do pack a punch and do make a slight impression. The sequences with Bane were a bit tiresome, while it seems to be a good idea to have a subplot where Smith invades and explores the human world, most of the material we end up with in Bane's escapades represents stuff we really don't want to waste time looking at. Bane gets more rope and screen time than he is worth and personally, I much prefer the Ani-Matrix episode "Matriculated" in terms of the machines exploring the human world.
This final instalment for the time was such a letdown and the departure from the successful things that were done in the previous two films. The final battle between Neo and Smith ended with Neo rewriting Smith with the help of the big Deux Ex Machina to upload a anti-virus. But didn't we kind of see this in the ending of the original? The best part was the dialogue where we find out that Neo is actually fighting the Oracle taken over by Smith, yeh - very nice twist.... and nice to see that she takes over for one line of dialogue and confounds Smith beautifully. We now see Smith scared and anxious as we he uses her ability to predict the future, while also gaining her limit of not being able to see past the choice he doesn't understand. All of this is very well played by Hugo Weaving. What I don't understand is the deal between Neo and the Source (the big Deux Ex Machina) - why agree to the deal? To me this part is never quite clear where everyone in the Matrix is infected by Smith and the whole point of the Matrix is it's a place to keep human minds occupied so that the machines can use their energy, right? Does it really matter if the minds are all the same or not as long as the bodies are pumping out watts? Maybe Smith infecting them kills them and therefore they are no longer energy sources? There's some talk of Smith being able to destroy everything but the movie never tells us how and the never explains what Smith's relationship is with the machines or the Source. And when Neo did win, the machines carried his body...why? Will everyone in the Matrix be freed and Neo will be used as the only human energy to power up the machines?
Now to the agreement...what kind of agreement did Neo entered into with the machines on their behalf. Stories that use this sacrificial structure successfully need to carefully set things up in order to invite the audience to understand on not whats on stake but more so the explanation and as movie goers we can rest purely on its emotional impact after the fact. In my opinion this letdown on not providing us the details on the explanation on Neo's newly founded skills such as seeing the machines whilst blind, able to sense machines in the real world and the agreement lets the most crucial moment possible down which has led to why many people find this to be the most disappointing film in the trilogy.
Another major plot hole is Neo's predecessors' - did they also create mutated Smiths? Was Zion in the brink of destruction and its inhabitants getting massacred by the sentinel machines? All we get is The Kid's silent war cry "Neo, I Believe", like what do you believe Kid? Do you believe that the program Smith who has mutated and infected everyone in the Matrix is the result of Neo in the first film therefore it is Neo's who is guilty on what has transpired and has to fix his own mistake? There are little explanations on the connection between Smith and Neo, all we receive are surface level information.
The best part of the film were these two characters, Trinity and Neo having one last moment together before Neo's eventful sacrifice. Teary and heart-warming but its soon forgotten due to the upcoming induced macho energy of the fight between Neo and Smith. Instead of using elements around Love and how programs can understand the connection of emotive words, the film in the end was more of an action movie. Overall, the movie fails on so many levels, it even fails Neo's story arc who feels a bit wimpy in this entry by continually admitting how clueless he is about what to do. It was a shame to say goodbye to Neo and Trinity with such little fanfare 6.5/10.
Tonight's movie flick is The Matrix Revolutions (2003), the concluding act of the Wachowski Brothers trilogy which begins where the sequel, Reloaded, left off; Neo, played by the coolest of cool dudes Keanu Reeves, is unconscious, trapped in a place between the real world and the machine world; this realm, which takes the form of a subway station, is controlled by the Trainman, played by Mad Max alum Bruce Spence. Neo is in a coma after stopping machines in the real world with his mind - the filmmakers use this as a core concept throughout the movie. This new idea among the extravagant fight scenes of the humans fighting against the sentinel machines or the fight scene in the fetish style club where Trinity and Morpheus with the help of Seraph attempt to track the Trainman at a club run by the Merovingian where you see one woman twisting another woman's nipples and heaps of punky people wearing leather outfits that seem to be made for a BDSM movie. And this is where the film continues into a no return point and very quickly it begins to stray away from cool fictional fantasy into loony town.
The main plot of the movie is simple where the filmmakers build this extravagantly staged, fantastically noisy battle between the humans and the machines. This dull plot steers away interesting, original, cool ideas of the first film, and all the humanity, too, are left far behind in this limp conclusion which has little in the way of coherent plot or interesting characters. Don't get me wrong, the movie does have many positives, its always good to see multiple Hugo Weavings as the devilish Mr. Smith, but the rest of the cast simply look bemused and all those fancy outfits and Chinese-influenced fights seem very second-hand and recycled from Reloaded.
Film trilogies are a difficult thing to get right due to the hype and anticipation for any great trilogy can be so high and put on a pedestal, it is almost certain the ending would suffer. Matrix Revolutions, was no different. Despite its efforts to create new and interesting ideas, you knew the humans would triumph with the help of Neo. Well kind of - there is peace between the humans and machines which was teased in the sequel, humans need machines t get tasks done and completed. The ending - I myself when I watched it when the flick came out in cinemas, did not see it coming. After watching it again, it was so wild and nonsensical that all its originality was wasted and undone. The film drew more towards the terminology of the PC world such as hacking into a human body to upload an anti-virus program in order to remove Smith completely, it steered away from the science fiction aspect.
The dialogue is difficult at times, characters such as Morpheus is treated into a co-pilot and has little to say in this entry which is a shame as this character was a pivotal character from the first film. The filmmakers do deserve credit for being inventive and creative, many of their choices just don't make much sense. Like how did that sentinel go through Neo in the fields?? The screenplay is simply unable to deliver satisfying story arcs or resolutions for these characters. Yes, the film is visually impressive, the most grounded part of the film lies in the attack on Zion where heaps of sentinels penetrate the Zion defences and the war sequences do pack a punch and do make a slight impression. The sequences with Bane were a bit tiresome, while it seems to be a good idea to have a subplot where Smith invades and explores the human world, most of the material we end up with in Bane's escapades represents stuff we really don't want to waste time looking at. Bane gets more rope and screen time than he is worth and personally, I much prefer the Ani-Matrix episode "Matriculated" in terms of the machines exploring the human world.
This final instalment for the time was such a letdown and the departure from the successful things that were done in the previous two films. The final battle between Neo and Smith ended with Neo rewriting Smith with the help of the big Deux Ex Machina to upload a anti-virus. But didn't we kind of see this in the ending of the original? The best part was the dialogue where we find out that Neo is actually fighting the Oracle taken over by Smith, yeh - very nice twist.... and nice to see that she takes over for one line of dialogue and confounds Smith beautifully. We now see Smith scared and anxious as we he uses her ability to predict the future, while also gaining her limit of not being able to see past the choice he doesn't understand. All of this is very well played by Hugo Weaving. What I don't understand is the deal between Neo and the Source (the big Deux Ex Machina) - why agree to the deal? To me this part is never quite clear where everyone in the Matrix is infected by Smith and the whole point of the Matrix is it's a place to keep human minds occupied so that the machines can use their energy, right? Does it really matter if the minds are all the same or not as long as the bodies are pumping out watts? Maybe Smith infecting them kills them and therefore they are no longer energy sources? There's some talk of Smith being able to destroy everything but the movie never tells us how and the never explains what Smith's relationship is with the machines or the Source. And when Neo did win, the machines carried his body...why? Will everyone in the Matrix be freed and Neo will be used as the only human energy to power up the machines?
Now to the agreement...what kind of agreement did Neo entered into with the machines on their behalf. Stories that use this sacrificial structure successfully need to carefully set things up in order to invite the audience to understand on not whats on stake but more so the explanation and as movie goers we can rest purely on its emotional impact after the fact. In my opinion this letdown on not providing us the details on the explanation on Neo's newly founded skills such as seeing the machines whilst blind, able to sense machines in the real world and the agreement lets the most crucial moment possible down which has led to why many people find this to be the most disappointing film in the trilogy.
Another major plot hole is Neo's predecessors' - did they also create mutated Smiths? Was Zion in the brink of destruction and its inhabitants getting massacred by the sentinel machines? All we get is The Kid's silent war cry "Neo, I Believe", like what do you believe Kid? Do you believe that the program Smith who has mutated and infected everyone in the Matrix is the result of Neo in the first film therefore it is Neo's who is guilty on what has transpired and has to fix his own mistake? There are little explanations on the connection between Smith and Neo, all we receive are surface level information.
The best part of the film were these two characters, Trinity and Neo having one last moment together before Neo's eventful sacrifice. Teary and heart-warming but its soon forgotten due to the upcoming induced macho energy of the fight between Neo and Smith. Instead of using elements around Love and how programs can understand the connection of emotive words, the film in the end was more of an action movie. Overall, the movie fails on so many levels, it even fails Neo's story arc who feels a bit wimpy in this entry by continually admitting how clueless he is about what to do. It was a shame to say goodbye to Neo and Trinity with such little fanfare 6.5/10.