Friday, October 17, 2014

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Directors: Wachowski Siblings
Writers:    Wachowski Siblings
Cast:         Keanu Reeves, Hugo Weaving, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne

The human city of Zion defends itself against the massive invasion of the machines as Neo fights to end the war at another front while also opposing the rogue Agent Smith.


The final film in the Matrix Trilogy is the weakest of the three. The problem with it is that after the meeting Neo had with the architect at the end of the Matrix Reloaded, everything was up in the air with some people even interpreting that Zion was another Matrix within the Matrix. In terms of philosophy and plot twists, reloaded was great and what happens after that in Revolutions is a bit of a letdown. It is kind of all over the place with a preference to Eastern philosophy with some ramblings on Karma, Love, Light & Darkness and all that. There is also some allusion to Yin-Yang with respect to the place of Neo and Smith in the whole setup. All that said, the action sequences are better than the one in Reloaded basically because there is some clear narrative to it rather than a show-off feel.

Some people still cling on to Zion being another Matrix interpretation and I don't think it stand up to scrutiny based on what they show in Revolutions. I think we can more or less trust what the Architect explains in Reloaded and the choice that Neo makes at that point is supposed to make everything unpredictable. He chose to return to Zion instead of helping the architect in rebooting the matrix and picking up survivors from Zion to repopulate it. This meant that machines are going to kill all in Zion and system crash of Matrix will kill all connected to it and thus destroy all mankind. As machines lay siege on Zion, Neo go to the machine city to offer the peace treaty as both Machines and Humans now have a common enemy in Agent Smith. Neo sacrifices himself and that is about it. The final scene has Oracle and Architect having a discussion on the situation at end where the Zion and Matrix coexist. People who want out from the matrix are free to join Zion and I suppose the war will again start once people from Matrix start to move in trove to Zion. 

All that said, it is still a great watch even though you kind of feel there wasn't much in it when compared to the other two films. The philosophy associated with it is a bit binary and Hippie. The acting talentlessness of  Keanu Reeves also come to the fore and script also presents plenty of cliched sequences, especially in Zion. When I saw it for the first time there was much time gap between the other two. This time round I saw all three pretty close together and I enjoyed it more than the other times.

Rating: 3.5/5 

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