The Matrix Revolutions Review Revisited (Part 2)

OK, so this will be my final post of the year (well it is Hogmanay!) and it is once again another revisitational one of a previous re-write of The Matrix Revolutions and since I recently got the Matrix trilogy on 4K Blu-ray, I figured I would give this one another look.


So, how does the finale of the trilogy hold up??? Well, let's take another look...

And the usual is coming up...


PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!!

STORY

So, the film begins with Neo (Keanu Reeves) lying unconscious in the medical bay onboard the hovercraft named the Hammer, and next to him lies, Bane (Ian Bliss) a lone survivor from one of the destroyed ships. Bane however at this point has been mentally taken over by Smith, who assimilated his avatar inside the Matrix, but Bane remains unconscious at this point.

Meanwhile he is in his unconscious state, Neo's mind is trapped inside a limbo zone between the Matrix and the Machine city, which takes the form of a train station.  In the station Neo talks with an Indian man named Ramanchandra (Bernard White) whop has a wife, Kamala (Tharina Mudaliar) and a young daughter called Sati (Tanver K. Atwal).  The father tells Neo that the train station was created by a program called the Trainman (Bruce Spence), who is actually holding Neo hostage for the Merovingian, who eventually arrives, allowing the family onboard the train, but he stops Neo from getting on, and overpowers him, the Trainman then leaves with the family on the train, with Neo stranded.

In the meantime, the Oracle's bodyguard, Seraph (Collin Chou) contacts Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss) and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) who asks them to meet with the Oracle (Mary Alice).  On meeting the Oracle we see the Oracle has physically changed her appearance from before, and she tells them that Merovingian is holding Neo hostage.  Morpheus, Trinity and Seraph then go to Merv's club (called Club Hel, which is filled with goths!) where they confront him, and Trinity points a gun to his head, demanding that he let go Neo or she will kill everyone in the room.  In the next scene, at the train station, a train arrives and Trinity gets off, embracing Neo, they escape the station.

After this Neo visits the Oracle to ask her some questions about the Matrix, Smith and where he was in the train station.  The Oracle explains that the station was transition point between the Matrix the Machine world, and that Smith is intent on destroying all life within the Matrix and in the real world.  On leaving the Matrix, Neo asks for time to think over what he has been told before he can act on what he has to do.

Meanwhile in the Matrix, the Oracle recevies a visit from Smith and his clones, who assimilates her as well as Seraph and Sati who was freed from her family by the trainman.  Back in the real world, Neo after some time tells Morpheus and Trinity that he knows what he must do, and that is to take one of the ship's to the machine city, as that is the only way he can end the war.  Niobe, although she doesn't believe in the Oracle's prophecy, has faith in Neo, and let's him have her ship, the Logos.

Trinity goes along with Neo on the Logos, however before they can get off, they encounter a now conscious, and psychotic Bane who by this time has killed one of the medics on the Hummer, and stowed away onboard the Logos.  Bane, speaks like Smith from the Matrix, and fights with Neo, blinding him in the process, with a power cable.  Although he doesn't realise at first, it dawns on Neo that Bane is now Smith in human form, but as Bane moves in to kill Neo, Neo stops him, telling Bane that he can see him, despite his blindness, he kills Bane.

With Neo blind however, Trinity now pilots the Logos to the Machine city, however as they fall under attack from a swarm of sentinels, the ship crashes, and Trinity is fatally wounded on impact and in her dying words she professes her love, and tells Neo to not be afraid before she dies.

Meanwhile Zion falls under attack from a hoard of sentinels, and the humans make their stand to try and hold them back, with their military personnel, who use strap-in robots with arm loaded machine guns to destroy the sentinels, but they suffer heavy casualties in their battle.  Morpheus and Niobe in the meantime pilot the Hummer to try and leads the Sentinals through the tunnels into Zion, when they arrive, they blow the EMP to knock out the sentinels.  Despite this success, they await yet another attack from the sentinels, which is inevitable especially as the stern Commander Lock (Harry Lennix) informs them the EMP has knocked out all their equipment.

Neo arrives at the Machine city, where he speaks with the Dues ex Machine like machine leader, and warns it that Smith is growing beyond their control and is intent on destroying the Matrix and the real world, but he insists that he can stop him.  Neo also says he wants peace if he suceeds in defeating Smith, the machines allow him to plug into the Matrix, where he confronts Smith, who by now has turned the Matrix into a rain drenched, dark world, populated with Smiths as far as the eye can see.

And its here where the two men face each other in the ultimate showdown to decide the fate of the Matrix and Zion...

THOUGHTS

The Matrix Revolutions despite any of its flaws still remains a very entertaining action movie and a fitting conclusion to the trilogy despite the bad press it has gotten over the years, its actually a better film that it is given credit for. The film also manages to suceed in getting the audience a bit more involved in the people of Zion for a change, as they battle against the machines, it is quite a rousing battle sequence where you can actually root for the humans.  And where Revolutions scores better than Reloaded does is its pacing as it doesn't feel as padded out and it keeps the action and dialogue scenes on a fairly quick pace, whereas Reloaded had that rather tedious opening 30 minutes intro to Zion and well....that rave sequence which I won't mention again! 

PERFORMANCES AND NOTABLE SCENES (Warning: this section contains spoilers!!!)

Performance wise Revolutions remains on par with its previous films as they are mainly good.

Starting with Keanu Reeves who while he isn't the world's best actor he still continues to do well enough in his role as Neo or "The One" even if his character is a bit one dimensional (but then again most of them are!).

Regardless of that though Reeves still has some good moments in the film such as the scene where he visits the Oracle and he wants answers to a few key questions. So, in the scene the Oracle asks Neo if he recognises her changed appearance "So you recognise me?" and Neo says "A part of you". So, Neo then asks the Oracle with some frustration "Why didn't you tell me about the Architect? About Zion and the ones before me? Why didn't you tell me the truth?!". The Oracle tells Neo "Because it wasn't time for you to know" and Neo asks "Who decided it wasn't time?" and the Oracle says "You know who" and and she indicates the placque on the wall above Neo which says "Know thyself" in Latin and Neo looking up at it, in realisation says "I did".

 Neo confronts the crazed Bane who has been taken over by Smith.  And in the scene Neo fights with Bane but is blinded by him after he attacks him with a loose power cable but as Bane moves in to finish off Neo with a pipe, Neo stops him and says "I can see you!" before he grabs the pipe and kills Bane.  And in the next moment Trinity finds Neo blinded and they hug and he says "I'm alright, Trin.  But I think you're gonna have to drive!".

Another good scene is when Neo finally arrives at the machine city and he faces the Deus Ex Machina and tells it that "The program Smith has grown beyond your control. Soon he will spread through this city, as he spread through the Matrix. You cannot stop him. But I can".  And as the Deus Ex Machina defiantly shouts "We don't need you!  We need NOTHING!" Neo calmly continues "If that's true then I've made a mistake and you should kill me now" prompting the Machina to ask "What do you want?" and Neo says "Peace" and as the machines plug Neo into the Matrix, the DEM asks Neo "And if you fail?" and Neo says calmly "I won't".

And then there is the final battle scene between Neo and Smith where Neo tells Smith "It ends tonight!".  And after they have an intense long battle with Smith seeming to gain the upper hand, a tired Neo slowly get's up and Smith angrily asks "Why, Mr Anderson???  Why do you persist?!" and Neo says "Because I choose to!" before they fight some more.  And just before Neo is assimilated by Smith he says to Smith "You said it yourself.  It was inevitable!".  

Then we get Hugo Weaving who easily delivers the film's best performance as the ruthless rogue program, Smith, who takes full control of the Matrix as the film progresses.  Weaving also has his share of good moments in the film such as the scene where Smith tracks down Seraph and the girl Sati and he says to her "So you must be the last exile" and Sati says to her "The Oracle told me about you" and he asks "Oh and what did she say about me?" and Sati says "That you are a bad man" and Smith smiles saying "Oh, I'm not so bad once you get to know me!".  And in the next scene Smith turns up at the Oracle's apartment with his clones and he smashes her plates of homemade cookies and says to her "Maybe you knew I was going to do that, maybe you didn't. If you did, that means you baked those cookies and set that plate right there deliberately, purposefully. Which means you're sitting there also deliberately, purposefully!".  And when the Oracle asks Smith what he did to Sati one of his clones answers her with a line she said to Sati earlier "Cookies need love like everything does!".  And the Oracle says coldly "You are a bastard!" prompting one of Smith's best lines "Well you would know, mom!".

Then there is the scene where Smith has his final showdown with Neo in the Matrix on a dreary stormy wet night.  And Smith emerges from his clones saying "Mr Anderson, welcome back.  We missed you!" and Neo says simply "It ends tonight" and Smith says " I know it does, I've seen it. That's why the rest of me is just going to enjoy the show because we already know that I'm the one that beats you!". 

And as they fight long and hard, Smith appears to have finally gained the upper hand as he physically wears down Neo who slowly get's up prompting a speech from Smith, which is the best dialogue in the film.

So, Smith looks wearily at Neo and says "Why, Mr. Anderson? Why, why? Why do you do it? Why, why get up? Why keep fighting? Do you believe you're fighting... for something? For more than your survival? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it freedom? Or truth? Perhaps peace? Could it be for love? Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. Temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose. And all of them as artificial as the Matrix itself, although... only a human mind could invent something as insipid as love!". 

And lastly (SPOILER!!!!!) as Smith becomes panicked by his powers of precognition, which he inherited from the Oracle, he realises what will happen in the future after which he assimilates Neo.  And after Smith has completed his assimilation of Neo, he asks the now Smith clone of Neo "Is it over?" and the Smith/Neo nods only then for a massive system shock to occur which starts to cause all the Smiths to glow with light and be destroyed as Smith realises what is happening he says "No!  No its not fair!" just before he glows with light and is destroyed too.   

As for the other cast members Carrie-Ann Moss does well in her role as Trinity and she adds a little bit of extra dimension to her character (if only a little!) in this film as she reveals a bit more of Trinity's vulnerability especially as she and Neo face their mission to travel to the machine city. 

Carrie-Ann also has some good moments in the film especially the early on fight scene at the Merovingian's club where Trinity, Morpheus and Seraph arrive there to bargain with Merv for Neo's life.  And the Merovingian makes a pretentious and long winded demand to "bring me the eyes of the Oracle and I will release your man" and Trinity simply says "I don't have time for this shit!" and they all start a fight which ends with Trinity pointing her gun right at Merv's head.  And she says "You wanna make a deal? How about this? You give me Neo or we all die, right here, right now!" and Merv looks surprised saying "Interesting deal.  You really are ready to die for this man?" and Trin cocks her gun saying "Believe it!".  And after the Merovingian says "It is remarkable how similar the pattern of love is to the pattern of insanity" Trinity says her best line in the film "Time's up.  What's it gonna be, Merv???".

Laurence Fishburne again is good in his role as Morpheus but this time he is largely sidelined in the movie, which is a bit of a shame given that Fishburne is one of the best actors in the film.  And Fishburne still has some good moments in the film such as the scene where Neo says goodbye to Morpheus as he departs for the machine city and Neo says to him "Its been an honour, sir" and Morpheus says "No, the honour is still mine".  And then there is the scene where Morpheus speaks to the councillors in Zion where he tells them of Neo "I don't know what he can do to save us. But I do know that as long as there is a single breath left in his body he will not give up and neither can we".  And then there is the scene where Morpheus co-pilots alongside Niobe (Jada Pinkett-Smith) and after they successfully manage to get into the dock Morpheus says to her "You're a hell of a pilot" and Niobe says "Some things in this world never change" and Morpheus says "But some things do?" and she smiles "Luckily....some things do".

As for the supporting cast there are some good performances to be found such as Mary Alice as the Oracle who replaced Gloria Foster who died before filming was completed.  Alice has some good moments in the film also such as the scene where the Oracle meets with Neo and tells him of the Architect's lack of understanding choices "He doesn't understand them - he can't. To him they are variables in an equation. One at a time each variable must be solved and countered. That's his purpose: to balance an equation" and Neo asks her "What's your purpose?" and she says "To unbalance it!".  And when Neo asks who Smith is she says "He is you. Your opposite, your negative, the result of the equation trying to balance itself out".  And in the film's last scene the Oracle is reunited with Sati who asks her "Will we ever see him again?" and the Oracle says "I suspect so. One day".  

Jada Pinkett Smith is also pretty good in her role as Niobe and this time she get's a little more screen time to develop her role a bit more and makes it a bit more evident that her and Morpheus had previous history with one another. 

Jada also has some good moments in the film such as the scene where Niobe and the other ship commanders have a meeting with the councillors on Zion and one of the other commanders, Roland argues with her about giving her ship to Neo.  And as Roland says to Niobe "Niobe!  You can't do that!" she turns to him and firmly says "Don't you even begin to tell me what I can and can't do with my ship after that little speech!".  And Morpheus surprised says to Niobe "You never believed in the one" and Niobe says "And I still don't" and Morpheus asks her "Then why are you doing this?" and she says of Neo "I believe in him". 

And then there is the scene where Niobe desparately tries to pilot her ship through the tunnels of Zion being followed by a swarm of sentinels and she accidentally crashes the side of the ship against one of the tunnels prompting her to say "Ah shit, she's got a fat ass!".   

Lambert Wilson also does a good job in reprising his role as the Merovingian and he has some fun with his role again in the scene where he is confonted by Trinity, Morpheus and Seraph. 

And Wilson only really has one scene here and its the one where Trinity, Morpheus and Seraph turn up at Merv's nightclub as they want to bargain with him to get Neo back. So, the Merovingian says to them "Well, there is something that I want and they see they have to be taken and cannot be given. The eyes of the Oracle". So, Merovingian says "Bring me the eyes of the Oracle, then I would give you back your saviour. Does that sound like a good deal? Yes? No?".

Trinity however then says "I haven't got time for this shit!" and starts fighting with Merv's men as does Morpheus and Seraph and Trinity holds her gun right at Merv's head and tells him "You wanna make a deal. How about this? You give me Neo, or we all die, right here, right now!". So, Merovingian says "Interesting deal. You are really ready to die for this man?" and Trinity cocks her gun and says "Believe it!". So Merv's wife, insists that she will do it as she is in love and Merv says "Its remarkable how the similar the pattern of love is to the pattern of insanity!".

Bruce Spence does well too in his role as the Trainman, who holds Neo hostage for the Merovingian.  And Spence has a good scene where the trainman (who for some reason wears a dozen watches on his arm!) stops Neo from leaving the train station and he says to him "You don't get it.  I built this place.  Down here I make the rules.  Down here I make the threats!" and he punches Neo who flys into the wall and he continues "Down here I'm God!".

And last last of all is Ian Bliss who does a good job as Bane, the sub-villain of the film who was taken over by Smith during Matrix Reloaded.  Bliss also does a pretty good impression of Hugo Weaving's Smith which was ultimately what got him cast in the part so Bliss also get's some good lines in the film as he basically spouts Smith's demented ramblings. 

And as such here are a few examples such as the scene where Bane speaks to one of the crew medics, Maggie and says to her "What if I blew that EMP? What if I did destroy those ships and I am responsible for the deaths of all those men? If I did that, it wouldn't be very safe for me here, would it?".  And Maggie realises that Bane is crazy too late as he stabs her and he says "Of course, it might not be very safe for you, either!". 

And then there is Bane's showdown with Neo on the Logos where Neo has trouble identifying Bane as being taken over by Smith "Still don't recognize me?  I admit it is difficult to even think encased in this rotting piece of meat!".  And then it slowly dawns on Neo who Bane reminds him of and Bane says "Yes. That's it, Mr. Anderson. Look past the flesh. Look through the soft gelatin of these dull cow eyes and see your enemy!".  And as Neo looks on in belief and says "It can't be!" Bane says "There's nowhere I can't go. There's nowhere I won't find you!" and Neo shocked says "Its impossible!" and Bane replies "Not impossible.  Inevitable!  Goodbye, Mr Anderson!".  

DIRECTION AND MUSIC

Now moving onto the director and music section of the post starting with the film's writers and directors, the Wachowski's.... well they continue to do a pretty good job here in Revolutions even though the pacing of the film is still a bit inconsistent in places.  However the Wachowski's know how to stage their action scenes and there are still some good ones to be had particularly the fight scene at Merv's club, the huge battle on Zion and of course Neo's final showdown with Smith even if it is a bit overblown and long.


As for the music score it is done again by Don Davis and it is a very good one overall and it is also notable for its use of choir singers during Neo and Smith's final battle, which for me is the stand-out track of the score.  The choir singers are actually as it turns out singing excerpts from Hindu scriptures known as the Upanishads.  And this time around it doesn't really involve any other tracks from other artists as before so its pretty much Davis's score on its own and it holds up well and is easily for me his best score of the three films.

FLAWS (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)

As for the film's flaws.........yeah OK Revolutions has its snags and for starters I have a bit of a problem with Neo not recognising Bane earlier on to be really be Smith especially as he kept saying "Mr Anderson" to him over and over.  And in all the time in the movies who else called Neo "Mr Anderson" OTHER than Smith???  So I find it a bit daft how Neo didn't even think when Bane popped onboard the Logos acting all psychotic and calling him Mr Anderson that he didn't think to say "Mr Anderson????  Wait a minute!  Only Smith calls me that!" and put two and two together!

But in a way its almost like they are poking fun at how Neo is actually pretty slow on the uptake when it comes to most things.  And as an example it takes him a long time to figure he has to go to the machine city after meeting with the Oracle, he's also pretty blinded by the fact that Trinity was initially into him all along from the beginning and again he can't figure that something is up with Bane calling him Mr Anderson!

I also have a problem with the film's climactic (or anti-climactic depending on your point of view!) showdown between Neo and Smith as it is far too long and overblown even if it is still fairly impressive visually.  And the fight scene also has some silly extreme close-ups of Neo and Smith punching each other like its something out of a Rocky film!

And the film's climax in general is problematic as it just isn't clear what the hell is going on with Neo and Smith after Smith assimilates him!  In fact it raises more questions than it answers as we are left to guess if Neo really is Smith and if by connecting himself into the Matrix and by allowing Smith to assimilate him does this mean that Neo has cancelled Smith out altogether???  And if Smith is a virus then Neo is surely just the anti-virus solution to wipe him out!  So in the end Neo isn't so much Neo he is more in fact Norton! (OK that was a very bad joke!).  This also makes you wonder if Smith fully assimilated everyone in the Matrix such as even the Merovingian or does he exist outside the Matrix in the machine world????  Again its pretty confusing and never clearly explained and you are left to do a whole lot of guessing and head scratching at the end of the film.

Another issue I have with the film is one of its most irritating characters, the kid (played by Clayton Wilson) who is just an annoying little dweeb at first but in the end he plays a vital part in the battle against the sentinels as he manages to use one of the machine loaders to open the gate for the ship piloted by Niobe.  And in the scene he utters one of the film's most naff lines "Neo, I believe!".  Acchhhh shut it!  I mean believe what???  What exactly did Neo tell you to believe in??  Basically Neo couldn't be bothered being around this little gimp so why would he think that Neo told him to believe anything!  In fact Neo spent more time being embarrassed by the attention he gained in being the one than anything else.  Anyway the kid also yells in delight to everyone at the end of the film that "the war is over!" as the sentinels fly away and as he does everyone just decides to take his word for it!  And why not?!

And last of all (and this is an intruiging one) can we actually even say from all this that Neo is in fact NOT the one???  Because having watched an interesting Youtube theory on the whole Matrix-Neo- being-the-One thing its possible that Neo isn't the one but in fact the real one is Smith.  And this is because Smith is the one that makes all key and vital changes within the system and he even stands out as an individual agent within the Matrix as we see in the scene from the original where he interrogates Morpheus and tells him how he "hates this world" and "needs to get out".  And after Neo destroys Smith as an agent he is ressurected as a rogue program who has the power to clone himself and its a power that eventually sees him take over the entire Matrix and in the end Neo manages to destroy Smith by becoming him (again doesn't make much sense!).

But the one thing that make sense about Neo not being the One comes in the scene where Niobe lets Neo take her ship to the Machine city and Morpheus questions why she let him take the ship as he says to her "You never believed in the One".  And then Niobe says in response that she doesn't but "I believe in him" (i.e. Neo) which means that Neo isn't necessarily the One in the first place even if he does have the power to end the war and in a way that makes more sense.  Its not about him being the One its about him believing in what he has to do and making that decision to do it.  And it all goes back to the Oracle originally telling Neo that "he's not the one" in the first place which actually makes some sense as she just gives him cryptic clues to give him the confidence to make a decision but that doesn't necessarily make him the Messiah just "know thyself".  But again you could drive yourself batty if you think about it too long!  But in short Smith is the one (no pun intended!) that calls the shots at the end and in the end Neo is not necessarily the true One he is probably more just a troubleshooter sent in to deal with the evil One! (OK this is getting confusing but its food for thought I guess).

SUM UP

So to sum up, The Matrix Revolutions is a worthy end to the Matrix trilogy and it has plenty of tense action sequences that work very well and this time round we get a bit more emotional development from the characters particularly Neo and Trinity and the battle of Zion is quite an intense rousing one that get's you to root for the human characters there also. The film also features solid direction by the Wachowski's and an excellent score by Don Davis, which I would have to say was his best of the three films and the cast as usual do their best with the material they are given.

The film of course does have its flaws and its certainly not perfect and the fight between Neo and Smith is pretty overblown and at times even boring and the ending will kind of have you scratching your head aswell.  But all that aside this is still a pretty good film overall, which is actually underrated and I would have to say that neither Reloaded or Revolutions deserve the bashing they get and this film is worth a second look.

Right, so that's it for now and all that remains for me to say is I hope you all have a Happy New Year and I'll see you in 2019.

Till then its bye fer now!