The Matrix Revolutions

As the convoluted mess dubbed Revolutions reaches its illogical conclusion, Lock — a character not named Neo, Morpheus or Trinity — utters the now infamous line: "it doesn't make any sense!" as the machines withdraw from the defeated human city of Zion after being perched upon the precipice of victory. And goddamn if he isn't right. While the original The Matrix was an utterly brilliant, revolutionary sci-fi/action movie that not only brought about technical innovations ("bullet time") but posed philosophical questions on the nature of reality, its subsequent offspring (Reloaded and Revolutions) may have improved on the eye candy, but to paraphrase Lock, they haven't made sense. Revolutions is the worst offender because while Reloaded set up the illogical questions and plot turns (Neo has superpowers in the real world? There have been six Zions? You couldn't come up with a better name than the Keymaker? Everything with the Architect), Revolutions doesn't even try to address them or salvage something intellectual. Instead, Revolutions is all big battles (the battle between the machines and the last free human city; the battle in the computer-generated slave world of the Matrix between the now seemingly omnipotent Agent Smith and Neo, the saviour; the battle between good and evil; the battle between my head merely hurting and exploding from trying to make sense of it all). Sadly, Revolutions eschews the intelligent examination of reality of the first and ignores the heavy-handed positing of the second, content merely to slug it out to the bitter end, cliché dialogue and all (seriously, check out the interaction between Kid and Mifune). Still, while it doesn't make sense, it sure looks good. The siege of Zion especially is awesome — just watch in amazement as a quarter-million Sentinel robots battle it out with the city's defences. It's an impressive visual spectacle, as is much of Revolutions, and makes it watchable and somewhat entertaining, but after having your cake and eating it too (action and intelligence), Revolutions is too much Lucas and not enough Jackson. And while the original The Matrix helped spawn the DVD phenomenon with its "must have" status, sadly, despite a second disc for its extras, Revolutions again fails to equal its predecessor. While the notoriously interview shy Wachowskis are again, notoriously interview shy (appearing fleetingly in the periphery of the extras), there are a number of features on the technical aspects of the film (mainly the CGI, effects, fights, etc.). Sure it's fascinating, with a lot less CGI work than you would assume for much of the shots, but it's also infuriating as everyone keeps going on about how awesome the trilogy is, what masters the Wachowskis are and how they're all honoured to be part of this. After the first, I would have agreed. Now, I wonder why they can't see the flaws and what might have been. Maybe I took the blue pill. Plus: timeline, The Matrix on-line, more. (Warner)