The Matrix Revolutions: SPOILERS
Nov. 8th, 2003 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kate_nepveuYou know, I knew The Matrix Revolutions was going to suck. On Wednesday, I collected particularly apropos quotes from reviews:
A primer for those with lives: When last we saw Neo, he had just saved the life of Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and stopped a ravenous mass of robotic "sentinels" using only the power of his mind. Since this happened in the "real world" rather than in the computer construct of the Matrix, this was, like, whoa.
Robert Ebert, in the Chicago Sun-Times:
My admiration for "The Matrix Revolutions" is limited only by the awkward fact that I don't much give a damn what happens to any of the characters.
Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post:
But you have to ask: Why is this [Zion] sequence more than an hour long? It could be five minutes and there'd be plenty of time left for old-fashioned stuff like, you know, story and character, both of which are given scant attention over the movie's long, relentless running time.
A.O. Scott in the New York Times:
Mr. Reeves, perhaps worried that he was showing too much range, has purged himself of all expression apart from a worried frown and a sorrowful grimace.
And those were just the snappy ones. There was a lot more indicating that it, in a word, sucked.
And yet I went to see it anyway. I even paid for it. What was I thinking?
As a public service, I offer—
What happened in The Matrix Revolutions:
- Neo is caught in limbo. Trinity, Morpheus, and that Asian guy
whose name I heard as "Serif," but is apparently Seraph, shoot
their way into the Merovingian's club and get him released.
This part actually doesn't suck.
- Neo sees the Oracle (later assimilated by Smith) and decided to
go to the Machine City to talk to the Source. Trinity goes with
him. Bane (possessed by Smith) hides on the ship and burns Neo's
eyes out before Neo kills him. Having lost his physical eyes, Neo
can now see code.
There is still no explanation how Smith can possess Bane. However, the actor playing Bane does a beautiful Hugo Weaving impersonation, to the point where I wondered if Weaving was wearing a really good mask.
- Niobe flies to Zion with a gazillion Sentinels on her tail.
Meanwhile, a gazillion more Sentinels have invaded Zion on the
heels of a digger. There is a brutally long and stupid battle scene
with every war cliche you can think of: it absolutely cries out for
the Red
Mike treatment. Niobe makes it into the city and blows an EMP,
which knocks out the two gazillion Sentinels and the digger. Except
it also knocks out all Zion's machines, and look—another
gazillion Sentinels!
Did I mention this was brutally long and stupid?
- Neo and Trinity make it to the Machine City, but Trinity dies,
making a ten-minute dying speech with several metal rods through
her torso. This is one of the many times people talk about Love,
which has basically no actual story relevance.
Kate bangs her head against Chad's shoulder.
- Neo makes a deal with the Source to kill Smith for peace. He
plugs back into the Matrix. There is a brutally long and stupid
battle between one Smith—just one—and Neo.
Did I mention this was brutally long and stupid?
- Neo eventually lets Smith assimilate him too, after Smith says something Oracle-like and appears confused, and then blows up his assimilated self and all the other Smiths from the inside. Everyone assimilated by Smith gets restored except for Neo, who gets carted off on a barge by the Machines (strangely missing the three queens and the sword). The Architect (still not Donald Sutherland) shows up to tell the Oracle that yeah, those who want to leave the Matrix can, but does she really think this peace is going to last? The Oracle looks mysterious and says long enough, and she thinks we'll see Neo again sometime.
I'd expound further on all the ways this movie sucks, but I'd like to go to bed sometime tonight.
Oh, one last thing: the credits list a character named "Deus Ex Machina."
There, now you can save your money.
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-08 07:55 pm (UTC)Not good, certainly not good enough to bear the weight of what had gone before; but not that bad.
It gets a lot of kudos for me for killing Trinity, even if stupid dialogue abounded thereunto; it gets a fair amount of kudos for having a bunch of heroes who all through the trilogy make poor decisions and suffer for them. Neo, not to put it too bluntly, just isn't very bright, and is rather well and consistently portrayed as such.
I think my biggest problem with Matrix Revolutions is how few surprises it has. Change the names, and the plot maps pretty close to exactly onto Return of the Jedi; I though Niobe's chase through the trenches went beyond overt Star Wars homage into rip-off myself.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-09 10:14 am (UTC)This may be why I don't see what purpose was advanced by killing off Trinity.
(Tangent: what a terribly didactic view of what love is. And very sexist from one angle; all of these kick-butt women kicking butt to save their menfolk and not because they believe in Zion or whatever. Niobe is slightly ambiguous on this end--but even she's stuck with a pointless love triangle.)
As far as Neo being portrayed as making bad choices, well, this may be showing that I don't remember the movies that well, but with all those people going around saying "I believe in him" and such, that was hardly my main impression.
Probably my biggest problem with the movie as a whole is the slight-of-hand it pulls in substituting Smith for the Machines' slavery as the evil, and then handwaving away that slavery in one line at the end.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-12 08:47 am (UTC)I'm not saure there is any purpose there beyond subverting the Twue Wuv Conquering All elements of the endings of the previous two movies, that dying in the real world actually kills you, and so on. Which is not much in real terms, but shows at least a modicum of self-awareness.
(Tangent: what a terribly didactic view of what love is. And very sexist from one angle; all of these kick-butt women kicking butt to save their menfolk and not because they believe in Zion or whatever. Niobe is slightly ambiguous on this end--but even she's stuck with a pointless love triangle.)
Oh yes, agreed entirely.
As far as Neo being portrayed as making bad choices, well, this may be showing that I don't remember the movies that well, but with all those people going around saying "I believe in him" and such, that was hardly my main impression.
I was being charitable; he's visibly screwing up on logical inference almost all the bloody time, and I'd rather believe it's an accurate portrayal of a not very bright character than such utter shoddiness as it would take in the portrayal if that was meant to be a competent hero.
Probably my biggest problem with the movie as a whole is the slight-of-hand it pulls in substituting Smith for the Machines' slavery as the evil, and then handwaving away that slavery in one line at the end.
Yes, the DEM says those who want out will be let out, but hoew the heck are the great majority of people to know ?
The more I think of it the less I like the moral underpinnings of the thing. What Neo sets out to do in Revolutions is essentially to find a way of achieving what he would have achieved by going through the right door at the end of Reloaded; myself, I consider what was, in the terms the Architect offered, sacrificing everybody in the Matrix for the sake of Trinity to be a deeply evil act; and what he gets to do in this third film is basically cheat the consequences of that choice. And it would have been nice had we been given the slightest clue of what the heck the Architect was actually up to. I can make it make sense but I have to infer and speculate rather a lot to do so.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-12 07:13 pm (UTC)I disagree about Trinity, but you sound like you want to try and think well of it, so I'll leave it.
Nobody eats the outside of an onion
Date: 2006-04-27 05:54 pm (UTC)Trinity's death, in my humble opinion, is supposed to symbolize the utter wretchedness of Neo's ultimate physical fate.
But it's only a physical wretchedness. The hints at telekinesis and out of body experiences should provide the audience with sufficient reason to provide that "willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith", which then opens the door to another world of possibilities. Much like Neo choosing a door. It is not the choice that matters necessarily, but that a choice was made, and when, and for what reasons.
Because that's why the movies were about, weren't they? About faith? The resemblance to Jesus, Luke Skywalker, Buddha seen through Neo is undeniable. It's downright obvious, as rysmiel rightfully points out.
He may be blind, alone, and deep behind enemy lines in physical form, but he is protected by his faith. Not faith as in religion, not faith as in the opiate of the masses, but faith as in belief. Impossible or not, Neo is experiencing true hallucinations. Miracles.
None of this is explicitly mentioned anywhere in the movie. It is in fact a matter of faith that it can be seen there at all, but could probably be supplanted by knowledge of the divine. Faith is not something that can be taught, I think. It is not a logical act. It is a purely reactive emotional mechanism. It paints the world how we want to see it as opposed to how it actually is. The difference then between having faith and having knowledge of the divine, is the choice to believe what is presented to us as a matter of faith.
The world is not fundamentally rational, despite having elements of rationality. The One said, and I shall say it in kind to the demon guarding the stars, "I'm going to hang up this phone and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you, a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries, a world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you". A world built on faith, not on a physical materialism. Jesus said God lives in us, not in a temple. Buddha said the same thing. Luke believed in himself, trusted in his emotions ("Stretch out with your feelings, Luke."). Neo just says it in a new way. Rules and controls, that's what the darkness feeds us. It tries to make us believe that the world is rational, when clearly it isn't. If you need proof consider that we exist at all; is that not a miracle? Even if you're the most fundamentally materialistic person the world has ever seen you cannot deny that that the world exists at all is miraculous. Consider the Anthropic Principle in greater detail if you are still unsure.
In confession, I loved all three movies and just finished watching Revolutions again just the other night.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-08 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-09 02:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-09 06:31 am (UTC)http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0724656/
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 09:21 am (UTC)Don't I feel stupid, now.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-09 04:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-09 06:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 09:23 am (UTC)I seriously need to sit down and right up a five paragraph plot summary of the sequel that's in my mind. I have it about halfway plotted, and believe me, it's better than that screened drek.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 09:49 am (UTC)(To make sure the warning got through loud and clear, the crew of Event Horizon sent their message in Latin.)
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 10:28 am (UTC)Bear in mind that memories are dull, both because it was a long time ago, and because I've dumped so of those memories in favor of something more useful, like the bimonthly price fluctuations in Tibetan yak manuer, but:
Not only did they send their message in Latin for clarity, but the crack linguists on Earth *mistranslated it* (or missed that it was Latin entirely, I forget-- thinking about it, I think the ground station experts just missed it) and the crack linguist aboard the rescue ship missed it until two thirds of the way through the movie, too.
It is never explained why a rescue boat needs a crack linguist.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 11:59 am (UTC)"Brutally long and stupid", check, check, check, and also add "could it be cheesier?" and "why, by the way, were The Worst Computer Virus Ever and The Greatest Master Hacker Ever still fighting physically!?" as side orders, please. I didn't have much hopes for the rest of the movie, but that scene could have been awesome, a triumph of imagination... or at least something I could respect. Instead, I got back-lighting-lightning-effects and evil-laugh-in-the-sky.
But I digged the Bane actor as well. That was impressive.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-10 09:50 pm (UTC)So we saw it, and yes, it did suck. We had to come home and watch extended version Fellowship to cleanse our palates...
Trent
no subject
Date: 2003-11-11 04:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-11-12 06:04 pm (UTC)-Trent
Smith as Bane
Date: 2003-11-11 08:37 am (UTC)Just as a point of information, Bane was in Reloaded a couple of times, most pertinent being when Smith took over his body while he was trying to get back to Zion and still in the Matrix. Smith was "phoned" back into Bane's body instead of the Matrix representation of Bane. There has always been an issue about Agents being near phones when people were trying to get out of the Matrix, presumably because the people of Zion knew that the Agents could get back to Zion. But that's just a theory of mine, and I'm really not all that versed in Matrix explanations. :)
Re: Smith as Bane
Date: 2003-11-11 04:20 pm (UTC)Anyway, your explanation may well be what the movie intended, but trying to figure out how it works makes my head hurt, so nevermind. =>
Re: Smith as Bane
Date: 2003-11-14 11:35 pm (UTC)Lets all remember that it is only your MIND that is in the Matrix, Not your body. Your body in the Matrix is simply your "Residual Self Image"..the mental projection of your digital self. Your body lies plugged into the matrix on a nice comfy chair thingy back in the real world... So when u pick up a phone, ur mind is transported out of the matrix and back into ur body, in the real world.
When Smith assimilated Bane, Smith became Banes NEW residual self image...but he was for all intensive purposes, still Bane. So when Smith put the phone to his ear, The program smith entered the mind of Bane in Banes body in the real world.
I suck at trying to explain things... but read it a few times and it makes sense ;)