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
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.
