Kai Lord
Hero
I think a thread is in order for those who want to discuss Matrix Revolutions without having to deal with four pages of blacked out posts so here it is.
Now for my review.
Short version. Wonderfully entertaining. Thumbs up. Not as good as the original, but much, much better than Reloaded. Thank goodness. Overall three out of four stars.
Longer version.
The first 20 or so minutes were "meh" at best. Clearly just clearing the story of that nasty "Reloaded" residue. The Train-man chase was utterly ridiculous. The guy hobbles along as if his shoes were tied together while they repeatedly cut back to the badass Morpheus, Trinity, and Seraph in full sprint and never gaining on him. Then the shoot out with the ceiling walkers was the most uninspired gunfight of the series. I can see how it would have looked good on paper but it was almost yawn inducing on film. But once they said goodbye to the Merovingian, Neo and Bane woke up and everything stepped up a notch BIG time.
I LOVED the climactic action sequences in Revolutions. Unlike in Reloaded, they actually had narrative weight and served a real purpose this time around. The Zion fight was spectacular and was what, 40 minutes? Too cool. Nice to see the W. Bros provide a pay off to all the anticipation of the machines reaching the humans, even if the squiddies did at times seem much more concerned with forming pretty tentacle patterns in the air instead of just swarming over the humans. But it was a visual marvel and fiercely kinetic. Chalk up rushing out to replace the ammo in the Power Armors as possibly the worst. job. ever.
And all I could think about when Niobe was crashing through the mechanical tunnel on their frenzied run to the Zion docks was this was how Lando's attack on the second Death Star should have gone!
And forget Dragon Ball Z (which I've never seen a single episode of) for me the Neo/Smith fight was pure Superman II. Very cool. I still wish Neo busted out some of the "fist bouquets" he did in the original but I remember watching that and marveling at how well they pulled off showcasing an "epic kung fu fight." With a ton of state of the art Superman/Zod-isms.
The actress playing the Oracle actually did a much better job than Gloria Foster, but the explanation for why she changed forms was very clumsy. At least they addressed it.
The ending was great. I loved all the anime references. The swirling squiddies around the power armors and structures on the Zion docks reminded me of the worm ridden "demons" from Princess Mononoke. And the falling squiddies after the EMP appeared as the many kodama spirits falling from the trees when the Forest Spirit lost its head.
The surface world was very "Nausicaa" what with the collosal beetles spewing their "spore squiddies." And I really liked Neo's teaming with the "Face" of the machine city. A great touch that it was made up of many smaller squiddies.
Trinity's death had been spoiled for me, but I didn't know how it was going to happen and would have been very good if her last speech was at most half as long as it was. As for asking Keanu Reeves to get all weepy and actually emote, (through a blindfold no less!) have mercy and make it short!
Bane was cool. Neo should have immediately recognized that it was Smith but the actor playing Bane was badass. Really nailed Hugo Weaving's cadence and mannerisms.
The ending was satisfying, and wrapped up the series nicely. I was surprised that the machines agreed to a truce and would free all the humans, but the way they did it made sense.
I don't get the criticisms about how Neo killed Smith at all. Of course it was ambiguous, because for all the time the Wachowski Brothers spent trumpeting "belief," and "choice" and the "source", they obviously wanted to play it safe and let each member of the audience fill in the blank as to what the source of Neo's power really was. Is it God? Power of the human spirit? Magic?
In strictly sci-fi terms I think it was pretty obvious he acquired his heightened power at the end from being jacked directly into Machine City, and that was what caught Smith off guard and allowed Neo to merge with and expunge the source of Smith's essence. All Smith's were connected, so doing it to one did it to all. It was much less ambiguous than when Neo killed Smith at the end of the first Matrix, but on a scale that ended the war. Of course a lot of people scratched their heads over the first film, but I wasn't one of them and loved how the series got back to its roots. Merge with Smith, blow him up. Lather rinse repeat until he's gone, which Neo did.
I can't say I was in love with the final epilogue. Had a bit of a "deleted old Sarah Connor at the playground ending of T2" vibe to it. But even that gets a passing grade (barely.)
Overall Revolutions was just a fun, thrilling conclusion to the saga that showed much more restraint when it needed it than its "predecessor." I'm impressed.
Now for my review.
Short version. Wonderfully entertaining. Thumbs up. Not as good as the original, but much, much better than Reloaded. Thank goodness. Overall three out of four stars.
Longer version.
The first 20 or so minutes were "meh" at best. Clearly just clearing the story of that nasty "Reloaded" residue. The Train-man chase was utterly ridiculous. The guy hobbles along as if his shoes were tied together while they repeatedly cut back to the badass Morpheus, Trinity, and Seraph in full sprint and never gaining on him. Then the shoot out with the ceiling walkers was the most uninspired gunfight of the series. I can see how it would have looked good on paper but it was almost yawn inducing on film. But once they said goodbye to the Merovingian, Neo and Bane woke up and everything stepped up a notch BIG time.
I LOVED the climactic action sequences in Revolutions. Unlike in Reloaded, they actually had narrative weight and served a real purpose this time around. The Zion fight was spectacular and was what, 40 minutes? Too cool. Nice to see the W. Bros provide a pay off to all the anticipation of the machines reaching the humans, even if the squiddies did at times seem much more concerned with forming pretty tentacle patterns in the air instead of just swarming over the humans. But it was a visual marvel and fiercely kinetic. Chalk up rushing out to replace the ammo in the Power Armors as possibly the worst. job. ever.
And all I could think about when Niobe was crashing through the mechanical tunnel on their frenzied run to the Zion docks was this was how Lando's attack on the second Death Star should have gone!
And forget Dragon Ball Z (which I've never seen a single episode of) for me the Neo/Smith fight was pure Superman II. Very cool. I still wish Neo busted out some of the "fist bouquets" he did in the original but I remember watching that and marveling at how well they pulled off showcasing an "epic kung fu fight." With a ton of state of the art Superman/Zod-isms.
The actress playing the Oracle actually did a much better job than Gloria Foster, but the explanation for why she changed forms was very clumsy. At least they addressed it.
The ending was great. I loved all the anime references. The swirling squiddies around the power armors and structures on the Zion docks reminded me of the worm ridden "demons" from Princess Mononoke. And the falling squiddies after the EMP appeared as the many kodama spirits falling from the trees when the Forest Spirit lost its head.
The surface world was very "Nausicaa" what with the collosal beetles spewing their "spore squiddies." And I really liked Neo's teaming with the "Face" of the machine city. A great touch that it was made up of many smaller squiddies.
Trinity's death had been spoiled for me, but I didn't know how it was going to happen and would have been very good if her last speech was at most half as long as it was. As for asking Keanu Reeves to get all weepy and actually emote, (through a blindfold no less!) have mercy and make it short!
Bane was cool. Neo should have immediately recognized that it was Smith but the actor playing Bane was badass. Really nailed Hugo Weaving's cadence and mannerisms.
The ending was satisfying, and wrapped up the series nicely. I was surprised that the machines agreed to a truce and would free all the humans, but the way they did it made sense.
I don't get the criticisms about how Neo killed Smith at all. Of course it was ambiguous, because for all the time the Wachowski Brothers spent trumpeting "belief," and "choice" and the "source", they obviously wanted to play it safe and let each member of the audience fill in the blank as to what the source of Neo's power really was. Is it God? Power of the human spirit? Magic?
In strictly sci-fi terms I think it was pretty obvious he acquired his heightened power at the end from being jacked directly into Machine City, and that was what caught Smith off guard and allowed Neo to merge with and expunge the source of Smith's essence. All Smith's were connected, so doing it to one did it to all. It was much less ambiguous than when Neo killed Smith at the end of the first Matrix, but on a scale that ended the war. Of course a lot of people scratched their heads over the first film, but I wasn't one of them and loved how the series got back to its roots. Merge with Smith, blow him up. Lather rinse repeat until he's gone, which Neo did.
I can't say I was in love with the final epilogue. Had a bit of a "deleted old Sarah Connor at the playground ending of T2" vibe to it. But even that gets a passing grade (barely.)
Overall Revolutions was just a fun, thrilling conclusion to the saga that showed much more restraint when it needed it than its "predecessor." I'm impressed.
Last edited:
