November 6, 2003
Bucks County Courier Times
Stephen Faller is a Bucks County resident, and author of Beyond the Matrix: Revolutions and Revelations, available this January
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The Wachowskis have quite a feat to pull off when The Matrix Revolutions hits worldwide release this week. The film bears the burden of being another sequel and the final chapter to wrap everything up. The trick was to create a movie as visually stunning as Reloaded, as philosophically rich as the original Matrix, and a movie successful enough to be worthy of the $735 million that Reloaded raked in a mere six months ago. Fans have held their breath ever since, gasping only a few times over the summer - first with the release of Enter the Matrix (a video game with exclusive movie footage), second with the release of the Animatrix (a set of animated shorts), and most recently the printing of a graphic novel capturing the online comics from the official website.
It's a safe bet that Revolutions will do as well at the box-office, if for no other reason than the towering cliffhanger at the end of Reloaded with final shot of a comatose Keanu sleeping next to Bane - a character now possessed by the malevolent program formerly known as Agent Smith.
"No one can be told what the Matrix is, you have to see it for yourself." Anyone who has not seen the Wonderland world of the Brothers Wachowski will find Revolutions extremely hard to follow. The Wachowskis have created an entire mythos, where every name that gets dropped is a hyperlink to another mythology, where every idea is a footnote to philosophy (just surf over to the official website to see how highbrow an action-flick can get).
Neo has become trapped in the Matrix. He is imprisoned by a new villain who crosses between the Machine World and the Matrix like the ferryman and the River Styx from Dante's Inferno. Thus, Morpheus, Trinity, and Seraph descend into "Club Hell" for a final reckoning with some old foes from Reloaded. Along the way we meet new characters and see visual effects worthy of the Cyber-underworld. Neo sees the Oracle again. He learns that he has always known his true destiny - he must venture to the Machine World and encounter Smith once and for all. Meanwhile, the city of Zion prepares to defend against the impending invasion.
Revolutions is a better film than Reloaded. The acting is stronger and the characters seem to interact more dynamically than the alternating monologues that weakened Reloaded. In the original Matrix, the verbal sparring between Morpheus and Neo matched the physical sparring, and the effect was more Socratic. In Reloaded different characters talk at Neo, and at us, attempting to interpose their perspectives - too much like Smith's own agenda of domination through duplication.
Revolutions is tighter cinema. The dancing scene in Reloaded, for example, could be completely omitted without detracting from the film. Revolutions, on the other hand, economizes on everything and even the longer shots are effective. For example, at one point two characters have to hide in an old house from an the inevitable Smith. We wait with them and the result is terror.
Throughout the trilogy dozens of questions and beliefs are raised and the challenge of answering them all is more spectacular than any of the special effects that mesmerize moviegoers. The final resolution steps away from the more cerebral tone of the original Matrix but genuinely offers something more emotional and sympathetic. The feel is more animé than Hollywood. The Japanese genre tends to end in cataclysmic poignancy instead of feel-good formula.
Revolutions does offer an answer to the questions of the Matrix Trilogy, but expect the Wachowskis to show and not tell. Cause and determinism may suggest that everything must come to an end, but the choice of hope has the power of reality-altering possibilities. And one such possibility is that if you find yourself in a theater with green writing dripping down, you're going to have more fun than your virtual life can handle.