The Matrix revelations?
A showdown between Neo and Mr. Smith, played
once again with Machiavellian glee by Hugo Weaving.
Time to bone up on your New Testament, Matrix fans. In Matrix Revolutions, the third installment of the cyberpunk pop culture phenomenon, the Wachowski brothers eschew the pedantic philosophy lessons of the underwhelming Matrix Reloaded in favor of - get this - a sci-fi action riff on the Second Coming. Call it 'The Last Temptation of Keanu.'
Call it one of the most uneven films in recent memory. The imaginative visual effects and astonishing action sequences in the latter half of the movie are all but torpedoed by a turgid, senseless first quarter. The lazy plotting and inane dialogue make George Lucas seem like David Mamet in comparison.
The story picks up immediately where Reloaded left off. Neo is still in a coma after somehow using his powers in the real world, and the machines are only hours away from invading Zion. It's the last stand for mankind. And where does it all begin? In an S&M club, of course!
The first thirty minutes of the film fall back into the senselessness that plagued Reloaded. The aforementioned scene in the S&M club introduces or reintroduces characters that serve no part in furthering the story. It's a scene full of leaden, heavy exposition broken up here and there by some by-the-book fight scenes. The revolutionary bullet-time effect introduced in the Matrix has finally run its course and the action seems like the later stage of a tired video game. Run jump kick. Shoot jump pause. Jump jump yawn.
As sleep approaches, the movie jolts you awake as it warp speeds into one jaw-dropping effects scene after another. The invasion of Zion, with millions of machine squids battling humans in Aliens-like battle-suits is exhilarating in its epic scope. It's followed by the final showdown between Neo and Mr. Smith, played once again with Machiavellian glee by Hugo Weaving. Drenched in rain as hundreds of Mr. Smiths look on, it's a battle fought both on land and in the skies and it is an awesome spectacle.
But for fans who wanted an answer to what the Matrix is all about, this movie is sure to disappoint. Many of the questions left dangling at the end of Reloaded - from Neo's real-time powers to just what the hell the Architect was actually saying in his thesaurus-enhanced exposition, are given short or no shrift at all. Unfortunately, the Wachowskis, who have been lifting their ideas all along from sci-fi writers like Phillip K. Dick and William Gibson, have become so entranced by flashy CGI that they don't even bother to steal anything good. For the most part, the questions either go unanswered or are given the most superficial half-assed explanations imaginable. And when they do try to explain something, the Wachowskis reveal themselves to be like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz: they're all sound and fury, but they signify nothing.
What could have been one of the most thought-provoking sci-fi films since Blade Runner has turned out to be the futuristic equivalent of Pearl Harbor. This is a half-baked attempt to cash in on a once innovative idea. The quasi-religious subtext makes for good after-movie discussion but is extremely underdeveloped. And the rest of the movie is plagued by dumb inconsistencies. For instance, why does Neo with all his god-like powers always resort to goofy looking kung-fu? Or why can't these machines that have learned to turn humans into batteries, get through a layer of cloud for some solar juice (which as explained in the first film, they prefer anyway)? And it goes on and on.
You will be entertained by the action overload in Matrix Revolutions, but in the end you will leave the theatre unsatisfied, if not by the lack of depth of character development and story, then by the extremely lazy, anti-climactic ending that (surprise, surprise) leaves room for yet another sequel. The question now is: will you come back for the Matrix Resurrection?