Reviewed By

Christopher Armstead
I'm in the camp that actually enjoyed 'The Matrix: Reloaded'.  No, it didn't compare to 'The Matrix', and yes it was filled with wall to wall gobbledey goop and talkity talk that made very little sense to most everybody on the planet Earth, except those few who know every damn thing, but the action and the Belluci's made it worthwhile for me.  'The Matrix: Revolutions'?  Uh… well… no.  This time around, while the talkity talk remained at about the same level as it was in 'Reloaded', the philosophical round about within the talkity talk was insane, the action was repetitive and couldn't save us, and then there was the resolution.  Whatever the hell that was.  Now I know there is a subsection of society that completely understands what the Wachowski brothers were shooting for, and more power to those brothers and sisters, but over here… I don't know what to tell you.

Last time we saw Neo (Keanu Reeves), he was knocked out in the real world while wandering around in a strange place in the Matrix.  Or connected to the Matrix.  Or a conduit between our world and the Matrix.  This is strange because Neo isn't hardwired to anything, but he is The One, you know?  The stranger thing is that Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) has actually jacked into another humans body and is wandering around the real world as well.  One thing we've learned from watching three of these movies, is if something is strange, and you are a human who doesn't know the answer, and you have been cursed with a complete inability to think for yourself, you go and consult with The Oracle (Mary Alice).  Of course Mary Alice looks nothing like Gloria Foster who passed away between filming these movies, and they had a reason why she looked different, but pile that on to the list of things I didn't understand in this movie.

The Oracle tells Morpheus and Trinity some more cryptic, nonsensical, circular B.S. which the characters in this seem to accept as fact, which in turns leads to a spectacular shoot out with people
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crawling on ceilings, which leads to the welcome return of the Belluci's, which invariably leads to Neo being freed from the inbetween land.  Oh, and now Neo has to talk to the Oracle to get his dose of circular B.S. and now we can go back and wait for Zion to be destroyed.

Unless, of course , Neo can stop this.  He doesn't know how, but he will know once he knows.  You know?  And Agent Smith has pretty much taken over the entire Matrix, with his ultimate plan being to destroy the real world and The Matrix.  Agent Smith is a dick.  That much we understood.  Will The One save us?  I'm thinking the answer to that is 'no'.  Absolutely not.

Pretty much all of us have seen these three movies, so I don't think I'm spoiling too much here, but near the end, when the Sentinel machines turn away and float back to wherever they go, Morpheus looks up and says, 'I thought I'd never live to see this day'.  I'm thinking he must mean the day when they are right back where they started?  If I'm not mistaken, the ultimate plan of Morpheus was to set the human race free from The Matrix, and as far as I can tell, Neo's Jesus like sacrifice didn't come close to making that happen.  Yay!

Or did it?  And therein lies the magic of 'The Matrix: Revolutions' as this is a movie that inspires more 'what does it mean' conversation probably more than any other movie I can think of.  Why did Neo sacrifice himself?  Because he knew that Agent Smith absorbing him would cause him to self destruct and return everything in the Matrix back to normal.  He knew this?  Then why did they have the kung fu fight in the rain?  Neo should've let him absorb him from the get go.  I know the thought of a Matrix movie ending without a kung fu fight is crazy, but I'm throwing it out there.  And why was it raining anyway?  Did Agent Smith control the weather in his new version of the Matrix?  And if there is a truce between the humans and the machines, what exactly is holding the machines to the truce?  Machines don't have honor, do they?  Let's be honest, outside of the scantily clad hot chicks and the constant raves, Zion sucks as a place to live, and humans by their nature aren't content to live in shitty places.  I'm thinking the machines are aware of this and should figure it's just a matter of time before the humans start acting up again, and they should probably kill them all.  It's the logical, machine thing to do.  One more thing, the scene where Trinity and Neo fly above the muck to the sun, because none of the machines in this world can't fly above the Blackness of the Real World.  Maybe they should be making vehicles in The Real World that CAN fly above the muck.  That would probably be the easiest way to approach Machine City and bomb those machine commie bastards!

All that nonsense aside, the real problem I had with 'The Matrix Reloaded', aside from the banal circular discussions, the repetitive action, the pseudo philosophical talkity talk which framed a darn near incomprehensible, fractured, meandering and ultimately pointless narrative… my real problem was that this movie almost completely abandoned The Matrix.  Circular discussions in The Matrix often led to amazing things happening.  Circular discussions in Zion, the Real World, led to banality, rote action, and more circular discussions.  Sure, 'Reloaded' was kind of dumb, but considering it still took place mostly in the Matrix, it was… at least in my opinion… thrilling stupidity.  Not this.  Not at all.

Ultimately, it seems, our director brothers painted themselves in a corner in trying to expand the scope of 'The Matrix', to outdistance the first movie, and the thought process behind this seemed to be more philosophical B.S., more action, and a conclusion that only 2% of the most gifted people on planet understood.  Even though, I do believe, there is not a single, unifying thought between any of these 2 Percenters in regards to this conclusion they all understand.

Oh well.  We still have Nona Gaye. 
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