2003 / 129 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

When the first “Matrix” film ended, I was left wanting more. I wanted to see the liberation of those still stuck inside “The Matrix”, I wanted to see the machines be defeated, I wanted to see the world become human again and I wanted to celebrate this along with the characters in this world that I had come to love so much. So when it was announced that we were getting not just one but two sequels, I was excited. I was excited because I expected to see what my imagination prepared me to see.

Unfortunately, the Wachowskis had something different in mind than I did which, as the creators of this universe, is their right. But their ideas have been such a polar opposite from my own ideas of where this series was going that it has been hard for me to really get into the groove of “Reloaded” and “Revolutions”. Especially “Reloaded” which seemed to dick around for an hour and a half before finally giving us a thimble-full of relevant information that seemed to explain something plot wise. My problem with “Reloaded”, one that is only magnified by repeat viewings, is that nothing much happens in it. Sure, the sentinels are digging their way toward Zion, the last refuge of free humans. Sure, we find out something about the Matrix. But the revelation that was made at the end of “Reloaded” doesn’t seem to have a fucking thing to do with anything that goes on in “Revolutions”, therefore, that entire movie seems to have been, as I suspected, an enormous waste of time. There are one or two little things in “Reloaded” that pay off in “Revolutions” and those mostly involve the character of Agent Smith. Otherwise, “Reloaded” may as well not even have existed. I’m serious. It didn’t add up to much of anything and, impressive as the freeway sequence might have been, it didn’t justify two hours of my life being somewhat entertainingly wasted. They could have used these two hours to do so much more with the concept behind “The Matrix”, that is what pisses me off about that film.

However, very few of my problems with “Reloaded” apply to “Revolutions”. “Revolutions” is all business. No more of the dicking around that was the majority of the screen time in “Reloaded”. “Revolutions” dives right in and doesn’t slow down until the credits roll. And it’s about fucking time. “Revolutions” has to make up for all the time that was wasted in “Reloaded” and, for the most part, it does so. Not only that, but the dark tone that was so great in the first “Matrix” has returned in full force. If anything, this film is the darkest of the trilogy. If anything, “Reloaded” was too lighthearted. Thank God this one is not. It’s brimming with menace and, finally, you sense what is at stake in this world that has been created for our entertainment. The philosophy is more cleverly and unobtrusively integrated into the narrative this time. It does not slow the whole picture to a screeching halt as it did in “Reloaded”. The characters become people that we care about once again and, for reasons that will be obvious once the last frame of “Revolutions” has unspoiled, that is of vital importance. If we didn’t care about the characters then, conversely, we wouldn’t care about the movie. (I didn’t care that much about the characters in “Reloaded” and it might be the reason I don’t care that much for that film and find it little more than a rollercoaster ride with few highs.) And the spectacle in this film is dark and important and nail-bitingly good. I have very few qualms with this film, in fact. The only thing I had a real problem with on first viewing is the ending, and that is something I can’t really get into without ruining the film. Let me just tell you this much, I think it’s a damn good one. I have a slight problem with the resolution; one that first made me downgrade the film but the more I think about it, the more I have come to appreciate it, and the movie up until that point is simply astounding. It’s as exciting and intense as anything the first movie had to offer. Okay, maybe not quite that good, but worth favorable comparison, nonetheless. I was simply shocked, after the disappointment of “Reloaded” at the greatness and rollicking action this one provides. The big set pieces of the movie are undoubtedly the fight against the sentinels attempting to invade Zion and the final fight between Neo and Agent Smith. And, during both of these, one nearly has to remind themselves to breathe. The battle for Zion is particularly engrossing, despite the fact that it doesn’t involve any of the main characters. It is as close to a gritty war film as I have ever seen a science fiction film get. It’s like watching “Saving Private Ryan” at certain points, only with machines in place of the Nazis. It goes on for quite a while and is never less than amazing. And even though we’ve seen Neo fight Smith (even a hundred Smiths) the final fight here is pretty breathtaking. It goes on a bit too long, and there’s also the fact that, as good as this fight is, we have seen these two square off before, but the stakes behind this final conflict are huge, and that gives the fight a gravity that makes it rather intense. Oh, and there is a truly dazzling gunfight near the beginning of the movie that was completely inventive and sent my pulse racing.

So the characters work, the storytelling works, the philosophy works, and even the love story between Trinity and Neo finally works. Everything that was off in the second installment clicks into place here, and it even redeems a few moments of “Reloaded”. This film goes places that I never expected it to go: dark, ballsy places. Keanu acts like a real person with real dilemmas again, and I loved that. Trinity matters again, and I love that. Morpheus takes a back seat, but it’s fine. And Hugo Weaving conveys effortless menace once more as Smith, and I loved that too. He works better in this film, because he’s more like the badass Smith we had in the first movie. And the resolution, well, it’s definitely unexpected. It’s not how I would have ended the series, and it certainly leaves a large window open for a sequel, but it’s hopeful and strange and definitely different. It’s got spunk, I give it that much. The movie is guilty of having a few clunky moments of dialogue, and some of the characters might suffer from an overdose of solemnity, but the movie works far more often than it doesn’t. It provided me with thrills from the first frame to the last and it sends this trilogy out on a darkly optimistic note, filling it with the humanity that seemed to have been sucked out of the second one. And I liked that. I liked that plenty. You don’t always get what you want in trilogies, and there is a LOT more that I would have liked to see done with this whole concept (Hell, pretty much everything I wanted to see in the sequels wasn’t even touched on by them) but I was enthralled and I was even moved. Sometimes, getting what you don’t expect is all right too.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 5th, 2003 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.