[Jamie corrns]

I enjoyed this movie. Maybe not as much as the first 2 because this was more of a war movie than a kung-fu movie. But it beats most movies out there.

If someone is upset with the way the story went, then I'm sorry about your luck. This is the W Bros. vision, and until you create something better, I can't take you seriously. (envision someone saying to the W Bros "This is how it should of went....", followed by the Bros laughing and saying "I'll take a #1 with cheese")

[Paul_Sjordal]

Warning: Major spoilers below! This is a post-movie discussion thread, so if you're worried about spoilers you shouldn't be here in the first place!

OK, I didn't see the movie at zero hour and instead waited for the first IMAX showing. Glad I did. Let me start out by saying that I was wrong. I genuinely liked Revolutions.

Given the overwhelming negative response from critics and my profound (pun intended) disappointment in the second movie, I did not expect to like this movie, but I did.

As I'd hoped, Revolutions has cast Reloaded in a new light and changed my opinion of the second movie. Unfortunately, it changed my opinion of Reloaded for the worse.

In every fight in Revolutions, I genuinely felt that all participants were in real danger, and I genuinely cared about the outcome. By contrast, I never worried for any of the protagonists in Reloaded and the biggest emotional response I got from any of the fights in Reloaded was being impressed with the technical execution of action sequences.

I cared about what would happen to the humans in the Battle of Zion. On the other hand, the burly brawl advanced no plot points, never once asked us to care about either participant in the fight, and ended with no kind of conclusion or resolution.

I was on the edge of my seat worrying for the Mjolnir as Niobe desperately piloted it to Zion with that seething mass of sentinels in its wake. It even gave us an emotional link to the destruction of the Osiris and her crew (re: Animatrix). Contrast that with the highway chase scene in Reloaded. Other than feeling a vague worry for the Keymaker, the highway sequence gave us nothing to latch onto emtionally except maybe admiration for the ballet of flying cars and zooming motorcycles.

I suppose it helped that I went into the theater with drastically lowered expectations given the reviews. As an action movie, Revolutions is right up there with anything you care to compare it to. As a movie about ideas? Well… I'm going to need more digesting time before I can really comment on that part. At first blush I'd say that there were a lot fewer ideas presented in this movie than the first two and the theme of love was badly handled. Clearly the Trinity and Neo were supposed to represent love and the love humans have for each other, but nothing about their relationship told us anything new. Heck, it wasn't even satisfying as a romance.

The other love-symbol of the movie however was huge. Not only did Sati give us things to think about, but she neatly wrapped up a loose thread from Reloaded that really bugged me. In Reloaded we learned that machines were casually deleting each other when they became obsolete. This showed that they collectively learned nothing from the tragedy of B166ER and had not yet learned to value their own existence for its own sake. Indeed, what we learned in Reloaded made me question whether the machines truly counted as self-aware and alive. Sati, her relationship with her parents and her relationship with the Oracle gives us a satisfying answer without giving too much of an answer. We still have a few things left to discuss, which I find more satisfying than dotting every "i" and crossing every "t."

Another aspect of Revolutions that made Reloaded look worse was the simple fact that both Neo and Trinity die. With their deaths, the love-making scene and "spring break Zion" scene are rendered fairly meaningless. At least if Trinity survived there might have been some minor point to those scenes, but we are left without even that crumb.

Some people have been complaining about the Merovingian. I see nothing wrong here. First of all, we didn't receive any confirmation or denial that the Merovingian was the first "One" because Reloaded already made it abundantly clear that he wasn't. From the Oracle's use of the word "us" in reference to him to his use of the phrase "I survived your predecessors." More importantly, he does serve a purpose, just not the purpose you think.

He really is nothing more than a rogue program seeking power and more power. But his purpose has nothing to do with his motivation. His purpose was to let us know that not all machines agree with each other and not all machines are working towards the same purpose. This is what allowed us to consider that the Oracle might be working on her own agenda (which most of us figured out after the second movie). Since he served his purpose in the second movie, there was not much reason to give him a lot of screen time in the third, and that's exactly what the Wachowskis did. He already served his purpose. Time to move on, folks.

I am disappointed that we didn't learn anything else about Persephone. I found the whole kissing scene in Reloaded to be a cheap deus ex machina: a device to get the Keymaker in the hands of our stumped heroes. Sure, she did have one more purpose to serve in Revolutions but that was just to tell the Merovingian "Yes, they really are willing to die for Neo," but you'll have to agree that was an entirely redundant purpose. Further more, she piqued our interests by doing the exact same kiss thing with Ghost and even Niobe. The exact same thing. This really got me wondering about the purpose of Persephone. Unfortunately, without further explanation from Revolutions, I am left to conclude that she is merely a crude plot device for digging the writers out of a self-made hole. Too bad.

I wasn't too disappointed with Neo's sooperdooper powers in the real world, but that's only because I made my peace with those demons long ago. The explanation the Wachowskis offered for his comic book powers was unsatisfying, but then I expected that. Eh, water off a duck's back and all.

The scene with The Kid and Zee at Gate 3 was horribly predictable but I cheered anyway. I guess that sort of sums up a lot of the action sequences. Nothing all that profound and certainly nothing all that new, but it was well executed and more importantly, I cared.

I don't understand why so many people seem unsatisfied that the Matrix was left standing at the end. I think most of us understood implicitly from Reloaded that the Matrix would be left standing and that the Machines and mankind would remain dependent on one another. One of the few things Reloaded really did right was let us all know that the only thing that would change with the conclusion of Revolutions would be the nature of the relationship between humans and machines, that the symbiosis would become willing rather than forced.

Oh, and that last conversation with the Oracle, the Architect and Sati at the end? That was definitely not heaven, but the Matrix. Remember that Sati was the one who made the sunrise extra beautiful (and the sunrise is what overwhelmed the green tint). So if that was heaven, that would make Sati God. I'm pretty sure we can all agree that Sati is not supposed to be nor represent God. If anything, she is the machine equivalent of Adam. If you believe in religion, God gave us free will, which in turn gave us a certain amount of power over the mortal world. Sati's ability to manipulate the Matrix and alter the sunrise probably corresponds to our symbolic/limited power over the material world, and that would confirm her role as a mechanical Adam.

I am infinitely grateful that Revolutions went back to implying ideas rather than having characters come right out and discuss them. That was one aspect of Reloaded that really torqued my 'nards. As I said, I need more digesting time before I feel comfortable making conclusions about the ideas presented in Revolutions, and they really seem fewer in number than in its predecessors, but at least the ideas weren't broadcast on giant flashing neon signs as they were in Reloaded.

I disagree with those who complain that Revolutions was too ponderous and slow-going in the first hour. I found the conversations and speeches at the beginning of Revolutions satisfying in a way that Reloaded wasn't. The comparisons to Return of the Jedi are apt. The entire movie is one long climax (no snickering, please… I meant that plot-wise you reprobates!). That may not be intellectually satisfying, but it had a visceral gravitas that was sorely missing from Reloaded.

The Battle of Zion went on a little too long. The Neo-Smith duel went on a little too long. The celebrations in Zion were played for emotions in an annoyingly transparent way. The Christ allegory at the end was heavy-handed enough to make me wince. Still, I walked out of that theater on an emotional high and I can hardly wait to go back.

Put my opinion in the positive column.

[Robert Anthony]

I hear a lot of people saying this movie needed to be a lot longer, and I used to think the same thing about Attack of the Clones, but watching the IMAX cut of Clones made me realize that often, if a movie looks too crammed full, then it doesn't need more movie, it just needs more editing. Too much ultimately unneeded detail is slowing things down, and it will often make the movie feel herky jerky and disjointed.

From what it sounds like--they should have just made Reloaded/Revolutions one 2 1/2 hour movie, and just killed:

The Niobe/Lock/Morpheus triangle
The Link/Zee explanations (their entire relationship seems to exist solely to explain why Marcus Chong isn't in the movie)
The Council scenes.
Almost everything Zion related in Reloaded. Not seeing Zion until Revolutions probably would have helped a whole lot.

I posted something similar somewhere else, but basically, wouldn't it have been a lot cooler if we just started Matrix
Reloaded with Final Flight of the Osiris, jumped straight to the meeting with Niobe, skipped all that "returning to Zion" stuff (all the info gained from those scenes could have been wrapped up in about 3 lines of dialog, tops) and had a couple scenes explaining that they had to go see the Oracle, and then pretty much from there just run it the same as
they did--so that the Freeway chase is the MIDDLE of the movie, not the end. that the Architect speech comes halfway
through. and then go with most of Revolutions from there, with all the fat completely shaved off.

Reloaded brings up just way too many subplots. It's not as lean as it could be. I still enjoy it, but looking at it, I don'tsee why half that stuff is really necessary, and cutting most of it out would have way streamlined both movies. Sure, there's enough backstory and side stories to fill an animated anthology, an hour of video game cut-scenes and two full movies--but a lot of that is not at all necessary. It's fun to dig through, sure, I like being able to see it, but it's too much at times. at least for the movies to work, it is. I think the idea to stretch it out to a trilogy is what did it--if they'd said "We'll do ONE sequel, that's it" then we probably would have gotten a much tighter 2nd flick. But everything's gotta be a trilogy now.

So that's what we got.

[Diallo B]

FINALLY A MAN (PAUL S.) WITH IMAGINATION!!!

And I actually agree with Rob A. However, I am pretty sure that all of that hanging stuff is just fuel for more media outlets later on down the line.

[Paul_Sjordal]

No, Robert. Link and Zee represent the everyman and everywoman. They are our Alice in the Wachowskis' wonderland. Since they don't occupy very much screen time, I'd say they serve their role quite well.

Oh, one more thing. I just realized that the ending we got means that not only can anyone unplug from the Matrix if they choose to, but it also means that all the Cyphers in Zion can go back without killing anyone.

[Kristoffer]

Spoilers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay just saw it, liked it! First impression was a little disapoinment, but It has grown since I saw it today.
Spoiler:
I liked that Neo became the savior of all, man and machine. The ending was the only thing they could do. In the end everything you have is faith, if they hadn't taken the next step after philosophy to faith, they would have a BIG PROBLEM on their hand. A problem which almost all philosophers have dealt with. The infinite regress, meaning that what is happening is explained by a something and that is explainted by something and so on to infinity. If you use faith on the other hand the questions stop here! You either believe or you don't! Thats it...I think that all the people at the end was gods inc the little girl. But why did the machines keep their promise and give up fighting? They are machines! Wouldn't they just kill everybody once their problem in the matrix had been fixed?
Also was the architect just lying or bluffing when he said in Reloaded; That there are sacrificers we are willing to make! Because the machines clearly couldn't live without the power of the Matrix!
Why did everybody live again at the end? Was it because Smith program got deleted?

[Robert Anthony]

Diallo, man...it's starting to get annoying.

I know people have tried to say it a couple times, but maybe it's not straightforward enough.

The implication you're making is that the people who don't like the movie dont' have imagination, and people are going to end up getting offended by a blanket assumption like that, based not any actual knowledge of the person, that person's likes, that person's skills, probably not even that person's posting history. It just comes off as a very condescending and antagonistic statement.

Maybe you don't even realize you're making that insinuation, but seriously, when you see a couple negative reviews and there you are bemoaning the lack of imagination in audiences, and a positive review pops up and you're applauding not that man's perceptive skills, or his writing skill, or his ability to communicate what he's thinking, you applaud his imagination? It's not too hard to draw the conclusion that you're pretty much saying "You have no imagination if you don't like Matrix Reloaded"

and that's just gonna start more fights than it's going to lead to constructive conversation.

No offense intended, man.

Paul: I know what they're supposed to represent--but it's pretty tenuous, and like I said, since we're supposed to be following the story of Neo here (and there's no argument that can convince me the Matrix Trilogy isn't, at it's heart, Neo's story) it's not really helping to that end. If Link and Zee were characters on the level of say, Trinity, or even Cypher from the first movie, it might make sense, but there's really no REAL purpose to their introduction except to explain why marcus chong isn't there--the "Alice in Wonderland eyes" thing in the end just feels tacked on after the fact. I can appreciate it--I just think it doesn't serve the storytelling as well as it would have been to completely cut it out and streamline the movies down.

[Paul_Sjordal]

Quote:

FINALLY A MAN (PAUL S.) WITH IMAGINATION!!!

I hope you're saying that because of some of the specific points I raised and not just because I happen to agree with your overall assessment.

:p)

[ThomasC]

Quote:

As you all trickle back in from seeing it, let me know what one thing you liked most about Revolutions and the one thing you disliked most.

The silhouette shot of Neo and Smith fighting in the building. Awesome.

I didn't like the way Neo died. I wouldn't know what to suggest as an alternative, though.

[Diallo B]

Gotcha Rob.

I hate if I am sounding annoying but this movie absolutely does not deserve the critical roasting it is receiving.

What annoys me is that folks are lambasting the movie because it did not conclude how they thought it should.

As I stated before this is not the best movie ever and it actually is not the best of the trilogy but it deserves far better than:

it sucked
it was terrible
it was a waste of 2.5 hours.
what a piece of shyt

That is what is annoying. There are many sci-fi movies that fall inot the categories above and Revolutions was not one of them.

I am not going to get into a societal discussion here but part of our problem as a society is that we can not see out of our own box or past our hands in