*** Official THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS Review Thread (1 Viewer)

[AJ Johnson]

Much worse than Reloaded. To sum it up quickly...

Cardboard characters you could give a damn about.

Rehashed/overkill action sequences. First set action piece at Club Hell is nothing more than the lobby shootout from the first Matrix with people running on the ceiling. The Zion battle looked pretty for 2 minutes, after that it all looked the same. Superbrawl, same deal.

Some of the most long winded scenes I've seen in awhile that prompted jeers from the audience. And some of the dialogue was cringe-worthy..."Neo, I believe!!" Ugh.


:star:

 

[Chuck Mayer]

The more I ponder, the higher my score goes. As a straight up film, it's off-putting and disjointed. As the allegory I believe it was meant to be, I think it's thematically and intellectually brilliant. It is not your The Matrix, or even Reloaded. The very set-up, foreshadowed in Reloaded, necessitated the majority of the film being spent in the real world. How could it not be?

There are flaws, but they are primarily of a filmmaking nature. Soem characters and moments we are not privy to. Storywise, it ended the only way I believed it could. With some victory at great price. But the price is not even known yet.

Yes, there are many loose ends...just as the Brothers intended. Yes, it didn't go in all the directions I wanted it to. But when I began to think about the end, it simply clicked for me.

I think I understand the choices the Brothers made and why.

My score was a 7.5/8 when I walked out. It's a:

9/10 now.

It's certainly not for everybody. It's not standard sci-fi action (well, it is for a while). A bit of a Frankenstein, admittedly.

But worth the wait, and worth all the negative reviews.

Take care,
Chuck

 

[Steve K.H.]

It's a movie. It's very entertaining.

Matrix
41/2 :star:s (out of five :star:s)
An historical film that everyone copied.

Reloaded
31/2 :star:s
Predictibly, this film fought a losing battle in trying to live up to the original and everyone's expectations that go along with it.

Revolutions
41/2 :star:s
A little mindless, in a good way. More "WOW" with less "Hmmm... that's interesting!"

No, this isn't Ben Hur but it isn't Legally Blonde either. Some other comments I've read make me wonder if those opinions are exaggerated to create discussion.

Do yourself a favour... see this film if for no other reason than you saw the first one (or two).

 

[Arman]

"I don't believe this shit!"

I (don't) believe (too). C+ for The Matrix Revolutions, what a very disappointing finale. I was hoping that this film will regain the magic that was lost in TMR but instead of redemption and reinventing, it chooses to recycle (and like badly coded computer program that has lot of bugs, I thought it will go on an infinite execution loop) and provided us with overlong barrage of predictable and unexciting computer generated action sequences that had already been done before (action sequences in Star Wars trilogy and more recently by Minority Report and LOTR I & II which are much more fun, more creative and more inventive with more spectacular, powerful and dramatic results).

The Matrix A-
The Matrix Reloaded B and going down, down, down (I don't know what I'm thinking when I initially graded it then with A-. Now, I believe this is the weakest of the three, will probably end up getting at most C+ too)

 

[Chris S]

:star::star::star:1/2 out of 5

I looks like the rule of thumb for this movie is shaping up to be...

If you didn't like Reloaded very much you'll like Revolutions.

If you liked Reloaded you'll not like Revolutions very much.

Chris S.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

The Matrix: Revolutions
Directed by The Wachowski Brothers


- more gunfights
- efficient fight scenes


- Didn't like the throwaway sequences
- Utilizing certain characters

?
- ?

Movie Score: B+
Film Score: B+
Overall Score with Reviewers Tilt: B+

There's really not much I can say about the positives, other than that it ended pretty much the way it could've logically ended.

As for the negatives

Wasn't a big fan of the train sequence. It really didn't serve much of a purpose except to rehash points already made by other characters concerning love, choice, etc. etc. I didn't like how the Merovingian and his wife weren't big players anymore either. The whole "Eyes of the Oracle" was a waste of time.


Otherwise, solid film, and I have a better impression of this one than Reloaded.

 

[MattGentry]

^^^

Yeah, that seems to be it. I really did not like Reloaded very much at all. Yes, it had some nice "faux pas depth" and that's about it. The fight scenes were fairly boring and that freeway chase scene: not very interesting at all.

However, Revolutions was a nicely done film. The action was amazingly better than Reloaded. I, for one, am glad that the french man (Merwwiafiginog or however it is spelled). I did not like him all that much and they finished off his part of the story rather well, not focusing on him too much. Also glad Monica Belluci wasn't in it very much. Yeah, she's decent to look at, but aside from that, not much else.

Also, really glad they chose to not gift wrap everything in a tidy box for all to see. Good movie, not quite as great as the original, but far better than the atrocious crap that was Reloaded.

 

[david kennedy]

I enjoyed the movie much more than reloaded however i thought that the last 10 or 15 minutes wre a bit much. The fight for zion scenes were incredible. Definitly picking up the dvd.

 

[Paul_Sjordal]

Why does everyone bother to say "I liked the first movie"? There are very few people (particularly in Matrix threads around here) that didn't like The Matrix.

Anyway, I was disappointed in the second movie. In fact Reloaded gets worse every time I watch it. It's come to the point that whenever I put it in my DVD player I spend an awful lot of time hitting the chapter skip button.

Given my feelings about the second movie and the vicious reviews Revolutions is getting from critics, I went in thoroughly expecting to be disappointed again. I was pleasantly surprised.

Maybe I like it purely because I had low expectations. Maybe my opinion will change after I've seen it two or three times. But right now I like it. The biggest reason I like it is because it gave me what the second movie utterly failed to give me: emotional involvement.

 

[RyanJM]

Some background on where I stand:

Matrix: 8.5/10
Reloaded: 5/10

And now Revolutions: 6/10

The movie had great special effects, but was overall not as entertaining as the first one for one simple reason: Real life sucks, the Matrix is entertaining. If they'd stuck to that principle, it would have been a whole hell of a lot better. Oh, and please delete any/all love scenes with Neo and Trinity...they have as much chemistry as 2 rocks in a barrel, and their acting when trying to show love was akin to watching a rhino attempt to mate; not pretty.

 

[Kami]

Hmm where to start. In one way I was amazed by the whole thing, but I still felt sort of empty at the end. The way it ended was fine, but there is no denouement to the whole thing.

I didn't like the fact that the last scene was the oracle, seraph, and the kid. Just didn't do it for me. I think either shots of Zion (with morpheus in them) would have ended it better, or even Neo being carried off by the machines would have been a very poetic ending. The final scene was necessary, but I felt it should have been placed a tad earlier.

There's also the matter of...what happens to everyone in the matrix? How can Zion handle all those newcomers (especially since it is in ruins) and wouldn't all the older people not "accept" being unplugged, just like Neo had a hard time with. Not to mention the lengthy muscle rebuilding/explanations/etc.!!!

I guess the brothers wanted people to think of their own ending. My thought would be that all the people still plugged in would live out the remainder of their lives in The Matrix until every last one is dead. No new people would be added, just new programs would be created instead to represent individuals. That way when every real human being is dead, the matrix can be shut down.

Enough of my rambling though...

I will need to see it again to make final judgement since my second viewing of reloaded was much better.

The action was incredible. Looking back on amazing scenes from Reloaded such as the freeway chase or burly brawl, you just can't think that things will get bigger and better, but they do...10 fold. Some of these scenes are truly epic...jaw dropping in fact.

The quality seems to have been bumped up too...there were only 2 or 3 shots that screamed "CGI"...the rest was incredibly well done. This is the only movie that has will give Return of the King some competition for the visual effects oscar.

The final smith/neo fight is awesome but I wanted it to be a bit longer. I guess I was just getting to into it. A bit anti-climactic, though the Smith stuff at the end of that scene was very cool (good job Hugo).
Did this fight remind anyone else of the comic book where Superman dies (that fight with Doomsday).

Lots more to say, but I'll cut my review short.

I give it an 8.5/10 but this score might be edited after a second viewing Definitely a worthy Matrix film in my eyes, and definitely not deserving of the incredibly bad reviews it is getting (IMO).

 

[Dennis Pagoulatos]

Matrix Revolutions

Where to begin with this one...I'm really not in the mood for a dissertation, after all, it's late! Suffice it to say, I saw the first showing at 6:00AM here on the West Coast (with SO if you can believe I managed to drag her along too!) The crowd was pumped up teens, obviously, and the theater was packed. I liked this film a lot. A whole lot. For one, I'm glad that there is some ambiguity in the end, it just makes things more interesting. The action was spectacular, and I found myself really caring about the characters this time around. Maybe it had to do with the fact that so much of the film takes place in the real world, ergo punches HURT, people BLEED, and people DIE, like, for real! Real war is horrible and the movie doesn't turn away from that; bravo. Decisions you make can decide life or death in an instant...not whether you take another meaningless kick to the head that produces no discernable effect (Reloaded fights anyone?! which I still liked a lot, but felt no suspense whatsoever during most of them!) Not so this time since I cared about the characters, AND loved the action, AND really liked the fact that everything doesn't get tied up neatly into a bow in the end. In fact, the only thing I can think to say negative after only one viewing is that I wish the film were a bit longer! And the only character that I longed to see more of was, as usual, Smith, but perhaps it's best that his scenes are few, because he makes so very much of every single moment he is on the screen. Another fantastic job by Weaving.

I will most certainly be seeing this film on the big screen again, but for now...

:star: :star: :star: :star: 1/2 out of 5

-Dennis

 

[John Wielgosz]

I'm with Scott Weinberg on this one, maybe higher.

Trinity's "death" and subsequent revival in 'Reloaded' was always one of my favorite scenes in that film, and 'Revolutions' really kicked me in the head, HARD with similar circumstances that didn't work out so well.


I never was able to place 'Reloaded' in any position relative to the first film. There were elements that I thought worked a bit better in 'Reloaded', and vice-versa. I wound up wussing out and declaring a tie.

With 'Revolutions', it just makes it even harder.

I'm going to just say it flat out. I love the trilogy equally, not for the same reasons with each individual chapter, but equally all the same.

 

[Cary P]

Man, what a complete disappointment.

Besides the bad acting, writing, and direction, am I the only one that thinks the special effects sucked as well?

These CGI effects are totally cheesy and look ridiculous at times. Don't the filmakers of today realize that over-reliance on CGI effects detract from a viewer's involvement, and has the effect of taking the audience completely out of the story? At least it works that way for me, the CGI effects look totally fake, IMO.

Tarantino seems to be the only big-time director that gets this.

 

[MikeM]

Man, what a complete disappointment.

Besides the bad acting, writing, and direction, am I the only one that thinks the special effects sucked as well?

Cary, I'm with ya man. I can't believe how bad this movie was. I actually liked Reloaded quite a bit, because it opened up a host of questions and really made you think. The problem is that in Revolutions those same questions were either answered poorly or not answered at all.

I didn't feel anything toward these characters, and the host of new faces left me thinking, "Who the hell are these people?" Who cares?

The acting was bad. Really bad. Episode II Anakin Skywalker bad. Ewwww.

An utter and total disappointment in my book.

I give it a D+.

 

[Yoshi Sugawara]

I wasn't expecting much after seeing that the majority of critics dismissed it as a mindless exercise in special effects.

While I agree that there were a lot of special effects, but I felt they were appropriate in their purpose.

The movie wasn't as bad as I would have been led to believe. The only glaring negatives I can think of are:

- Many of the Neo and Trinity dialogue sequences seemed downright unnecessary and cheesy. I believed their affection for each other in Reloaded, but here it seems very forced, and unintentionally funny.

- Some minor plot holes that make you think, "Why couldn't they just...."

But I'd say it was at least as good as Reloaded.

Revolutions didn't answer all the questions it raised in Reloaded, and it throws out more questions. It seems like they intentionally didn't answer them, leaving you to come up with your own interpretation.

Maybe people were expecting a "explain-all" scene like in the elevator scene in Vanilla Sky - I'm glad that didn't happen.

Revolutions was enjoyable - a good but flawed movie.


:star: :star: :star: out of :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

 

[Dan Rudolph]

I loved it. Anyone who was expecting a clear resolution, well I'm not sure what movies you were watching.

I didn't have any problems with dialogue. Sure, real people don't talk that way, but this was not an exercise in realism, and it wasn't ridiculous dialogue like a certain other trilogy.

Effects seemed improved over Reloaded. Either they made the CGI humans look much better or they didn't use them as much.

My advice is go see it if you didn't mind all the philosophizing in Reloaded.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Members,
This thread is for reviews "only" and is not intended for film discussion nor for any response to other posts about any plotline involving "The Matrix Revolutions". All posts that do so will be deleted without warning. Thank you.




Crawdaddy

 

[Todd Terwilliger]

:star: :star: :star: / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

There are some things I really liked about the film, such as Jada Pinkett Smith as Niobi but there were also many things that I didn't like that pulled me out of the experience, such as the machine logic during the battle for Zion. They seemed anything but efficient. I also don't share the Wachowski Brothers love for the sappy ending.

My final trilogy ratings:

Matrix: :star: :star: :star: :star: / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:
Reloaded: :star: :star: :star: / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:
Revolutions: :star: :star: :star: / :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:

 

[StephenP]

I personally disliked this film so much I am thinking of putting my copy of reloaded on ebay. The original film is the only one I consider worthy of occupying my shelf space. The film was visually awsome, but soon as it ended I wanted to scream "Thats rediculous!"

I think the wachowski brothers had a good idea for a film and tried to stretch it in to three for extra cash, and werent willing to get writers to fill in the extra 4 hours.