Review 134: The Matrix Revolutions

The Matrix Revolutions is an utter mess of an action film and a shockingly, disappointingly underwhelming conclusion to a groundbreaking trilogy.

Neo (Keanu Reeves) is trapped in a limbo world between the Matrix and the Real World. Meanwhile Zion is preparing for the war against the machines with very little chance of survival. Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith) & Link (Harold Perrineau) set out to free him from the Merovingian, still believing that he is the One who will end the war between the humans and the machines. What they do not know is that there is a threat from a third party, someone who has plans to destroy both worlds.

The first Matrix film had an intriguing, though-provoking premise about our reality being an illusion and we as human being being used as slaves for A.I. it more or less did everything it could with that concept. By Part III, the formula is beginning to wear real thin on me.
The way the films story is told is in such an tired, muddled, rushed, uninspired, stale, nonsensical, incohearent way that it never hooks us as an audience or gets excited about what will happen next. If you want to visualise the experience of watching this film, imagine a kid building a sand castle and then jumping up and down on it for almost two hours

For a final chapter in a trilogy the stakes feel surprisingly low. Despite the machines imminent invasion of Zion, but none of it is interesting and none it is built to with any soul or passion. The way it's presented is frustratingly pedestrian and monotonous. It's almost as though The Wachowskis are just going through the motions by this point.
Every great story deserves a great ending and The Matrix Revolutions fails miserably to deliver on that front. I learned from Wikipedia and IMDB that "The Matrix Revolutions" was shot back-to-back with its predecessor, Reloaded from March 2001 until August 2002. Clearly, that wasn't enough time to plan out an emotionally satisfying narrative.

The Matrix Revolutions is a real boring movie mostly because it contains all the same elements which the first two movies did better.

The Matrix Revolutions has got to be one of the most uninspiredly written & directed films of the 2000's. Andy & Larry have clearly not thought this final chapter through at all.
Artistically, we get pretty much more of the same of what we've gotten from the previous films. The production design is feels all too familiar and    the costumes are bland

The scenery is bland and nothing we haven't seen before in the series, the score by Don Davis is gunk

 

Even more disappointing, for a "Final Chapter" the action in this film isn't anything special and feels dull and tentionless. You sit there starring at Human vs Machine action but you still feel board.

The appocolyptic battle
 

It's just stuff that we've seen before and done so much better and the whole Bullet Time/Slow-Mo aspect that made this trilogy so iconic to begin with just rubs me the wrong way on Round 3.
It looks like a Michael Bay movie - and by that I mean, dull generic, bang, bang, explosion, explosion.

Acting-wise, Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne, Jada Pinkett Smith, Harold Perrineau & Harry Lennix do their best with the material they're given but the story doesn't provide them with the emotional depth required - bless their hearts they all tried. This film is such a hollow experince because I just don't care about Neo, Trinity, Morpheus and Niobe and all the rest. The problem I think is that these characters are extremely short on charisma, they make a couple of cool entrances, recites a couple of snazzy one liners in their stoic monotone, puts on their shades and then they've run out of tricks.

 

I cannot say the same for Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith who has basically been reduced to a joke. Agent Smith in this film came off as very cartoonish to the point where I can no longer take him seriously as a credible threat to the heroes.   

 

Lambert Wilson and Monica Bellucci featured only to be dropped with little to no closure to their characters.

The Matrix Revolutions is a Colossal Misfire, 1.5/5.

The Anonymous Critic.