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Volume CXXXIII, Number 8 |
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Revolution failed: Matrix trilogy spins out of control
EIDER A. D. GORDILLO
STAFF WRITER
2 of 4 bears
The new Matrix Revolutions takes the notion of sequel, flips it upside the head, and kicks it.
What more do you need to know of Revolutions than this: it hurt.
What made it more painful was that the Wachowski brothers' first Matrix film had the potential to be a thoughtful thriller like The Lord of The Rings but failed to present universal themes (such as "good" and "evil" or "choice") coherently though with edge. The ambitious combination of action and plot, dangerous as Trinity's drill-through-the-window stunt, does not succeed in the sequels.
Caught in the amalgam of action, sci-fi, and soft-porn flicks (true for Reloaded), the film lacks the kind of character and direction necessary for a movie with its ambition and scope. It makes a vivid action film with a plot as saggy as a sack of rotten potatoes just as hard to digest. It would have made a fun comic book read without most of the pretentious dialogue.
One need not spoil the movie to convey that it simply fails to accomplish its idle task. What a horrible end!
The movie begins with trench coat sexy Neo, the One himself, laying on the floor in a train station, clueless and unexpressive (as if this were a surprise with Keanu Reeves). Neo rises when awakened by Sati, a little Indian girl whose parents have sacrificed their karma purpose (temporarily) and want to bring her to "the Frenchman," the Merovingian (who appeared in Reloaded as the holder of the Keymaker).
We learn later that she is the sort that hangs around the Oracle like the spoon-bending children in the first film, only she's the program in charge of majestic sunsets. She's very cute.
Picture this: a train station unusual for its cleanliness and simplicity (there were no directions or pictures on the white tiles), with train tracks that return right back to the original screen (the station). I thought I was in Super Mario World!
Now picture countless metallic squids, I mean countless, infiltrating the city of Zion through large drilled holes and fighting men in big transformer-like machines shooting swiftly in a line. I could have sworn that I was playing the last version of Contra, without the super guns or with the flame. The war and fight scenes are by far the best part of the movie and stand central to its appeal. The Wachowski brothers should have known that.
At the train station, we know that there is a train coming, and that they are unplugged from the Matrix, but where the hell are they? The between-worlds platform on which the film begins serves as the epitome of why The Matrix, as a trilogy, does not accomplish what it set out to do: it is hard to take any one world or code of reality (or anomaly or what have you) seriously. Each time a character or scene explained what in the world just happened, the gluttonous Wachowskis pile the script with yet another plot line like pancakes on a falling tower.
This was the great flaw of Reloaded, in which the point (we think) is to rescue the Keymaker, though we see in the process a chap with French as the language of his choice (or English with an exaggerated uh), an expanded replication of agent Smiths (symbolizing Freud's super ego), disappearing twins who can really fight and have both beige dreads and kickable habits, and the Architect of the Matrix, whose formulaic precision and stubbornness lead him to account the Oracle as the mother of the Matrix; a program with exemplary intuition. Quite simply, there were too many layers.
The story would have survived without the Architect, the Merovingian (although the fight in Reloaded that happens in his mansion is slick), Persephone (although another fine female could have gotten the part and just kept quiet), and Revolutions' new character, the Trainmaster (who looks more like he belongs outside of the train rather than inside).
Perhaps I was more entertained by the lactose-intolerant guy beside me gulping his milk freely and for fun, but Revolutions was missing more than its underwear: it had no pants!
This is a guy movie. Watch it for the fights, the (three, fine) chicks, and the flamboyant, electrifying-in-more-than-one-way visuals.
Best of all, you need not think about it because thematically; this movie's a dupe. The Oracle's assertion, which is also Smith's great realization at the end of the trilogy, is that everything that has a beginning has an end. I hope she's right.
And Keanu, please spare us: you should have taken the other pill.
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