feeling listless

Film There is no point writing a proper review of a film like The Matrix Revolutions. Anyone who's planning on seeing it should have seen it already and everyone else can just ignore me and go onto the next post. I'm going to be spoiling one or two things for you.

Three reasons why The Matrix Revolutions isn't all that disappointing:

(1) It's innovative. I know considering the lambasting it's been getting on other parts of the web this is a very strange statement, but would we really have been happy if the rest of the films had been exactly the same as the first film. We could all be sitting around now saying how passé bullet time is now and how we wish they were trying something new. By not including the effect in the same form since the first film we are allowed the chance to continue to marvel at that effect still. In this third film we are offered a film series of new ideas. For example, the final battle between Neo and Smith is probably the most powerful hand to hand combat sequence yet seen on film - were have we seen a whole city section being demolished in a battle between two combatants, in the rain?

(2) It's experimental. It might have been very easy to have a film still set largely in The Matrix again but we've seen that. We need to see something new. The defense of Zion is just that - and for me no less exciting or interesting. And it doesn't feature any of the main characters. Rather than following the model of so many other films which shoehorn the main characters into whatever is happening no matter how logical that is, the stars are allowed to go off and do there thing allowing the secondary characters to develop slightly. Some have seen this as a weakness, but it's really a strength. It shows the film maker's saying - bare with us - we want to show you this massive battle which we think you'll enjoy and we'll get back the Neo thing shortly.

(3) It's gung-ho. Forgoing all those really static talky scenes in Reloaded, the guns and fists do the talking here. The Merovingian tries it on again with one of his long speeches and gets the barrel end of a gun to his head. When someone has something to say they say it, rather than give an after dinner speech. It's rerfreshing.

And three reasons why it sucks...

(1) It's The Return of the Jedi. This is getting silly. In Reloaded, just as Leia, Han and the gang went off and did their thing on Cloud City while Luke learnt about becoming a Jedi, so Trinity and Morpheus went off looking for The Keymaster while Neo found out about the nature of being The One. In Revolutions, the film doesn't start properly until Trinity and Morpheus have rescued Neo from the waystation, like they went to save Han. Then everyone gets together for the final battle. Neo like Luke faces up to his biggest fear while on the planet Endor, sorry, Zion the Ewoks, sorry, humans fight off a force of insurmountable size until they don't have to because the lead ship is destroyed / rendered peaceful or inactive.

(2) One of the features of the first film was that we got a feel for The Matrix as a place. As Neo chased through the streets, we saw that this was a full on urban reality filled with human beings just trying to get by in their artificial environment. In this film the place lost all form. Yes, this was part of the story of Smith taking over, but the only inkling we got of anything changing were the monitors going on the blink. For the thread to follow through we needed to see the place in its various states of decay. And show Smith absorb the Oracle wasn't enough.

(3) What the hell happened to Neo? He allows himself to be absorbed by Smith and that's effectively the last we see of him. He stops being a human character with feelings and becomes a virus. Yes it fulfills the prophecies, but it's hardly satisfying. The final coda should be about him, the films were, I thought, about his journey. The last we see of him is being carted off by the machines. Having The Oracle saying "I don't think we've seen the last of him..." just isn't enough. They've left the door open and for some reason I feel cheated - there's nothing worse than a trilogy which decides it's going to be a franchise series after all.

... all of which said I did really enjoy much of it, and wouldn't be too cheesed if The Matrix 4 followed sometime in the future telling the story of Neo's resurrection and humanity and the machines trying to live in harmony and what actually happened to The Matrix next...