Matrix: Revolutions. WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERS

[Vile]

Hehe, Neo being a program. That would actually explain (or cover for) the oh-so-fashionable-to-make-fun-of acting ability. When I see Keanu Reeves, I don't see The One but rather think something else...

"EXCELLENT!! *guitar riff*"

I had to watch a Shakespearean play for a college course on world literature and despite a wide cast of familiar faces, as well as people I've never seen before, Keanu was the most unconvincing and most often criticized.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107616/

I'll have to see Reloaded and Revolutions eventually to form my own opinion, but I'm not expecting much more than action wrapped around lost potential, according to most reviews I've read.

[Sharessa]

Coopersville said:

When judging mostly on action and visual effects, I do not. I was also getting a lot of bass in the seat I was in, which rocked the expirience.

Yes, but who judges movies on their action and special effects?

[sargebaldy]

i sure as heck don't :P for action movies the matrix series are pretty good storywise. as deep works of science fiction, not so good. but as there aren't really many super awesome sci-fi movies i'll take what i can get.

[Zoorado]

Melfice said:

Zoorado, if you can laugh at a scene like the Neo vs. Smith fight, then I don't know what to tell you except, that's pretty damned retarded.

Yep, the fight is pretty damn retarded, no doubt. That's exactly the reason I laughed, and LMFAO. ;)

[fraggle]

[W4GH4X] said:
How does it end?

Morpheus and Trinity battle the Merovingian to get the counter virus which allows them to defeat Agent Smith. After defeating him, Neo destroys the Architect's underwater lair. It ends with the heroes watching from their hovercraft ship in the real world as they watch all the humans wake up from their pods.

[Zoorado]

fraggle said:

Morpheus and Trinity battle the Merovingian to get the counter virus which allows them to defeat Agent Smith. After defeating him, Neo destroys the Architect's underwater lair. It ends with the heroes watching from their hovercraft ship in the real world as they watch all the humans wake up from their pods.

I sure hope you are joking. It doesn't take a genius to realise that the scene you described is just part of the trailer for the next Matrix film.

[Melfice]

Heh that actually made me laugh.

[Lord FlatHead]

the_Danarchist said:

Yes, but who judges movies on their action and special effects?

You judge movies on what is shown in them. If a movie is almost completely based on action and special effects (as, arguably, the last two Matrix movies were), you don't have any other choice than to judge them on it.

I'm not going to judge Schindler's List on its special effects, just as I'm not going to judge Scary Movie 3 on its storytelling.

[Cyb]

wtf was there to judge scary movie on, because there sure as hell wasn't any humor in it :P

[david_a]

sargebaldy said:

for action movies the matrix series are pretty good storywise. as deep works of science fiction, not so good. but as there aren't really many super awesome sci-fi movies i'll take what i can get.

More or less what I think of the series now... The 80's were really the golden era of sci-fi/action movies. Road Warrior, Terminator, Aliens, Blade Runner, Predator, etc. Most of those aren't all that deep either.

I think some better editing of the last two (make them under 2 hours) would have done wonders. That wouldn't have helped the dialogue, but since when do action movies have good dialogue?

[Fredrik]

Yep, 80's and 70's SF movies are the best.

Computer graphics killed science fiction. Now isn't that irony?

[sargebaldy]

earth vs. the flying saucers pwns you.

[mmnpsrsoskl]

I liked the movie. Though i'm one of those people who has to see a movie twice or maybe three times before fully understanding it.

First impression though: Nothing like the ending I was expecting.

[Gokuma]

Wasn't the return of the one supposed to hail the destruction of Matrix?

Oh well, still a cool movie. I liked when Neo paused the Matrix. The trainman's place reminded me of a glitch area in the original Metroid.

[Ultraviolet]

Gokuma said:

Wasn't the return of the one supposed to hail the destruction of Matrix?

It was made very clear that the prophecy was not true.

[Lizardcommando]

I just watched Matrix Revolutions. I thought it was cool. Those robot mechs were cool. I'd like to get me one those things! So yeah, basically, I think it's better than Reloaded, but I still think the first one was better out of the entire series.

Speaking of trailers, I thought the Last Samurai one was cool. And the Punisher trailer seemed cool. Haha, the Punisher. That guy is such a cool comic book hero. Oh and of course there was that Arcade game of the Punisher. You know, the one that's like Final Fight, except with guns and stuff. Whatever, I haven't played that game in such a long ass time...

[GameArena]

I liked it a lot better than the last one, but would say it's equal to the first. However, I did think the overall cheesiness (is that a word?) seemed to really reach the extremities in Revolutions. Definitely one of the better movies this year, although not that great if you were expecting something excellent for a matrix closing. There is one thing that does sort of bother me, why do they have to sneak in some form of nudity in the last to films? It's such a dramatic transition from the previous scene, it'd be like forest gump sitting on the bench talking to someone, and the next minute have some naked chick humping him.

[Sharessa]

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

[Sharessa]

Lord FlatHead said:

You judge movies on what is shown in them. If a movie is almost completely based on action and special effects (as, arguably, the last two Matrix movies were), you don't have any other choice than to judge them on it.

I'm not going to judge Schindler's List on its special effects, just as I'm not going to judge Scary Movie 3 on its storytelling.

Sure I like some movies for their storytelling, others for their cinematography, and others for their humor, but I just cant see how a movie that is completely action and special effects could hold anyone's attention. Well, unless they're done badly and travel into the world of humor, like, say, Commando. :P

Fredrik said:

Computer graphics killed science fiction. Now isn't that irony?

So sad, but so true.

[Scabbed Angel]

Trinity dies, Neo dies. . . but somehow I was most bothered by the fact that the original Oracle was not in the movie. She was so awesome. Well let's see, Trinity dies, Neo dies, and the real Oracle already did.

*initiates moment of silence*


My score: 6.9/10

[cycloid]

interestingly i was convinced that morpheous was going to bite it for some reason. darnit! hell at least no one's moaning that it wasnt a cheesy lovey neo and trinity live hapilly lovelly after ever ending. i'm considering forgiving the bro's for the cheesy neo/trinity bits in all the films because of that. considering :-) ....

i have to watch them in a marathon ASAP to see if the action in 1 and 3 make up for the slow first hour of 2



oh and the best sci fi film ever?

Robocop: it's dark, it's violent, it also cost about 10p to make, not a bad job considering. oh and ignore the other films/tv serieses

runner up: bladerunner (equally a bit dark) and 2001 (it's so darn coooool!)

[Scabbed Angel]

Fredrik said:

Yep, 80's and 70's SF movies are the best.

Computer graphics killed science fiction. Now isn't that irony?

How so?

[Grimm]

Yeah, that scene with Neo and the Oracle in the New York courtyard (with the Neo/Multiple Agent Smith fight scene) is my favorite scene in the series, and one of my favorite scenes ever. (Not cause of the fight scene, mind you.) I'd post more but I'm too tired.

[Ubik]

Eh, I'm middle-of-the-road about it. I enjoyed it for the most part, but found way too many flaws in it for my taste.

They pretty much ignored most of the plot elements from Reloaded, and in fact embarked upon new, nonsensical ones. How do two programs have a child? What's the actual PURPOSE of the Merovingian? Why are we so concerned with a purposeless little Indian girl who can make big lens flares?

The dialogue was terrible. It was so incredibly redundant, inane and inept that I found it hard to believe that Neo could sound stupider than he did in the previous movies.

The visuals of the invasion of Zion were rather impressive, but the fight as a whole felt like a slightly less fun version of Starship Troopers. And why have power armor when you yourself aren't armored in the least? :P

The visuals of the machine city and the chase in the tunnels were very nice as well.

I'm glad they had the balls to kill off Trinity and Neo in this movie, instead of going with some sappy lovey-dovey junk. But the overwrought and painfully obvious messiah imagery got to me after a while.

The fight between Neo and Smith was WAY too DBZ-like for my tastes. There was too much BIG BUBBLE OF RAIN FX and not enough actual down-and-dirty whoopass. Not to mention the SLOW-MOTION CASSIUS CLAY KNOCKOUT shot was the cheesiest thing in all movie history. :P

But I will say that Smith is the best factor in this movie by far. He's just such a badass villain in every respect. Even the actor portraying Bane did a nigh-perfect job of his voice. I always knew Smith was going to be the crux of the matter, and his personality simply came to a head in this movie.

I'm still very dissatisfied with the tete a tete that resulted between the humans and machines, though.

Entertaining, but nothing revolutionary in terms of special effects or plot.

[pritch]

Heh. Finally saw it today.

Definitely better than Reloaded I think, though it still had one thing in common with the second film - it creaked and groaned along in parts with spurious explanation, confusion, and generally it just aggravated rather than satisfying me. It tries too hard to be too deep and fails, most of the people I know have voiced disappointment in the lack of cohesion in the plot.

It did provide more drama than Reloaded, especially with Bane. He gave an accomplished performance. It was also much more emotional, there was a lot of rubbishy cheesy godawfulness but the death of the captain, for instance, and the drama of the battle, were superb.

Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus still can't act, and I lost count of how many times the secondary military characters said "Goddamn". But that sort of doesn't matter.

The Oracle's 'changes' were about as worthless a way of explaining a cast change as I've heard in a while.

The special effects were mind-blowingly good. I can't wait to put them to scrutiny on DVD but I sort of don't care even if they didn't hold up in slowmo or zoom, they captured the essence of what was going on just right.

There was too little reference to The Merovingian or The Architect and things that we were made to think would be important in Reloaded were ignored here and people like Sati just sprang up from nowhere. That annoyed me.

Smith was brilliant, though for the first time in three films I found his dialogue a little stretched. They clearly overwrote his part for the finale, but Weaving still has the acting ability to carry the performance.

The ending. Not great. Slightly confused religious connotations and too eccentric to really be satisfying.

Overall, a good film, still nowhere near the first film and perhaps unsurprisingly not quite managing to live up to the hype, but a fair enough way to round off the trilogy.

[Job]

pritch said:

Lots of Matrix critque

Surprisingly, or maybe not, I find myself whole-heartedly agreeing with each of your points.

[pritch]

Job said:

I saw the trailer for "The Last Samurai". Looks damn good. Can't hardly wait for it.

Yes I saw that trailer before Revolutions too. Tom Cruise has always been my favourite deep, spiritual Japanese actor so my tickets are already booked in advance :P

A final word on The Matrix series, I agree with Grimm, strangely the worst film of the three, Reloaded, had the best scene. Smith and Neo in that concrete park is still the one that springs to mind as the strongest scene, because of the dialogue and Smith's comments/mannerisms. I love him.

[Grimm]

But the overwrought and painfully obvious messiah imagery got to me after a while.

Huh. Didn't pick up on it.

The main problem, as others had said, is that Reloaded had NO FUCKING POINT. I think the main reason Reloaded failed is because Reloaded and Revolutions were aparrently one big-ass script that the Brothers just divided in half. Therefore, Reloaded didn't have all the necessary elements for a good film, and ended up failing it. Here's a question: Can anyone even remember the plot of Reloaded? I sure can't. Something about a Keymaster, blowing something up, and the Architect dude.

Anyway, it's not certain whether Neo is actually dead. I have a feeling he's gonna come back, myself. Also, the whole Indian family was deifnately a bit off. Programs having kids? Righto. I guess perhaps they were trying to imply that as programs entered the type of world the Matrix is, programs have to have personalities, and begin to grow as people? Then they "wrote" a little girl program? I dunno.

Of course, like all good movies and video games, Revolutions ends with a sunset. I guess they didn't have enough cliches.

[Job]

pritch said:

Yes I saw that trailer before Revolutions too. Tom Cruise has always been my favourite deep, spiritual Japanese actor so my tickets are already booked in advance :P

A final word on The Matrix series, I agree with Grimm, strangely the worst film of the three, Reloaded, had the best scene. Smith and Neo in that concrete park is still the one that springs to mind as the strongest scene, because of the dialogue and Smith's comments/mannerisms. I love him.

Again, I concur. Interestingly, the quality of the movies slowly degrade from the 1st to the last.

[Ultraviolet]

The programs didn't "have" a kid. They wrote a kid. Note that the guy introduced his wife as an intuitive software programmer. She programmed the child.

Also remember that Morpheus said in the first movie that they weren't just fighting machines, they were fighting AI. Not our game AI, but actual AI. Actual AI could for some reason end up emulating and eventually fully incorporating emotion as a means of motivation, or purpose, beyond simple programming for self-preservation, which their AI would eventually find to be unimportant, without purpose.