The Matrix Revolutions: a fine line between failure and brilliance

After Reloaded I thought a simple word: “Maybe.” There was a basis in Reloaded for the trilogy’s growth. The Architect’s revelation was a strong, indeed, lateral, donation to the saga’s plot. I had remarked that Reloaded felt like the first half of a film. Today, I see that I am mistaken. Reloaded was indeed the second half, and Revolutions the third. The final chapter in the Matrix saga treats itself more like a chapter than it does a book of its own. The very subtle things that taught us what the Matrix was in the first film do not return. They are assumed. The shackled and blindfolded people of the Matrix do not star (most places are conspicuously empty of those that the film is supposed to be about), the gritty environments passed over for grand meaning. The Wachowskis do not restate with any frequency the subtle themes in a manner that would rekindle our memories of the first movie or relate what we are seeing to its meaning. It marches the plot forward as though it does not feel necessary to prove itself to us again, nor make our viewing more comfortable.

The same could be said about Reloaded, of course, but there are important differences between these films. Reloaded was an opening to the continuation, and its meaning can be shaped any way by this final film. Indeed, upon Revolutions – the last one to touch the clay – the trilogy hinges. I must say now that Revolutions treads a fine line between brilliant and mediocre. Some of the dialogue is ingeniously reflective; the action scenes, while visually astounding, mingle blandly with the profundity to make it more commonly exploited fare. In its bursts of intelligence and with the glimpses of an overarching sense of symmetry, it shines. Yet past the gasps of wit and shrewdness, there is hollowness only an emotional or mental cavity can bring.

The Matrix never founded itself on characters. Characters were more often than not roles rather than people, but roles in an elaborate and reflective story that gave them as much life as they needed. In this Matrix, too many things are being destroyed rather than maintained to be coldly intellectual, and for this purpose, Revolutions has its emotional moments. Keanu Reeves and Carrie Anne-Moss stammer to abandon their sophistication in sadder times, but the result, in the end, is satisfactory. At this end, though, Revolutions fails in its discussion of love as it tries to mate a wintry approach to life with an emotional one. Love seems little more than an observation here than an actuality, and is certainly one we have witnessed only through its retelling. In some senses, Reloaded and Revolutions spend too much time pondering emotion to feel it.

The Matrix Revolutions immediately retrieves the Matrix tale from where Reloaded left it. While suggestions have abounded as to the complex meaning of Neo’s apparent control over machines, Revolutions declines to shatter its universe. Instead, it fulfills it in a poetic and thoughtful manner. A entrancing pursuit and a riveting battle between the humans of Zion and the machines ensues, and in doing so the borderland for special effects and sound is pressed further into the distance. Neo chooses a different path, one that takes him to the very centre of the war between humans and machines, but one that leads to just as much impressive imagery, as the fight between Neo and Agent Smith captivates the sky and the earth. If you awake shivering in night’s silence, bathed in sweat, thirsting for amazing action and visuals, Revolutions is the year’s most powerful and auspicious relief.

Common themes return in self-indulgent yet thought-provoking abundance. What is also clear from Revolutions is that the Wachowski brothers have constructed for themselves a complex mythology. Sometimes, however, Revolutions seems bloated, lengthy, and prolix, and while being too aware of its previous establishments it is disinclined to prove itself to us again. In the same climate it takes a moment and almost wallows in its thought. At these times its ideas are blunt and rarely transcends their simplest interpretation. And when it resorts to explosion rations, we are reminded that this film maintains the visual appeal but lacks the cognitive one of its predecessor. At other times, however, the haunting reiterations of choice and observations of humanity are sagacious, poignant and surprising. Ceaselessly quotable Agent Smith makes significant observations that hearken back in a refreshing fashion to the original Matrix. The symmetry between Smith and Neo – indeed, the film echoes itself in many directions – is brilliant, beautiful and thoughtful, and poetic. Themes of choice and humanity recur in prosaic, elegiac manner that is among the film’s most striking achievements. Here, in a shrewdly fashioned equilibrium, The Matrix Revolutions shows its intellect.

Nevertheless, the cranial ping-pong of The Matrix does not revisit us. Thoughts of the nature of reality are disappointingly withheld (after all, Revolutions has a universe to maintain - questioning its own integrity is not within the power of a franchise). At other times, Reloaded and the ramifications of its final revelation – an evocative one – are not re-drawn; fragmented and surprising considering the intricate ideological balance so painstakingly established in other places. As it is with Revolutions; at times it shows the glimmer of the a genius that has only to be whispered to be heard of the roar of the action, the kind of multifarious and textured symphony that made viewing The Matrix the utterly occupying and revelatory tapestry of thought and expression that opened our eyes and danced with our mind it was. But in Revolutions, our experience never overflows as it needs to in order to force us into reflection and approbation of the Wachowski vision.

Revolutions spends too little time in quiet contemplation to earn the mood that contributed to the harmony of arrangement and was weaved throughout The Matrix (and by quiet contemplation I do not mean conversation; some most contemplative moments of The Matrix were in its most active disposition); the events and story it watches are mythological, epic, grand. For this, the finishing of this saga does not occur in the same temper it began. Of course, this was always essential; things that do not change, die. But as a film, Revolutions’ only constant is its excitement; its reflection, its emotion, its insight all falter at times throughout it. It fails to focus on its smaller aspects. It lacks freshness and newness compared to both Reloaded and the original. It is far from a perfect film. As a trilogy, Reloaded and Revolutions are above adequate continuations of The Matrix. They prolong, certainly, but they also fail to develop. Or, while The Matrix does develop, it fails to develop its development: Revolutions surprises us no more than we expected it to. Which, of course, means that it did not surprise us at all. Yet, through it all, it is an enjoyable film, clever and cyclical, with a strong ending.

7/10. (Related scores: The Matrix Reloaded 7/10, The Matrix 10/10)