The Matrix Revolutions Movie Review

Is This Film Bad

The movie did not even come close to being a bad film because of how involved I was with the action, the characters, and the overall narrative. Now when it comes to The Matrix Revolutions, I have to say that I was gravely disappointed in a way, not because of how bad the movie was, but by how average it turned out being. I expected these sequels to be terrible and in doing so I learned the importance of judging the film by my own eyes rather than just taking other people’s word for it. I guess you can say that I learned a valuable lesson while watching this franchise, so I should thank The Matrix sequels for helping me evolve into a better critic. I did happen to enjoy the movie for all the same reasons as I mentioned before: The choreography, the characters, the music, and I thought the CGI was handled much better in this film than the last one. Before I get into what I did like and what I think could have been done better, I will give you a synopsis of the plot.

The Plot and Some Minor Frustrations

The film picks up right where the last one left off where Neo (played by Keanu Reeves) faints after using what I would assume to be ‘the force’ to take out a few sentinels. He gets put into some kind of coma when the crew realizes that his brainwaves read like he is connected to The Matrix. We then cut to Neo waking up inside a strange train station where he learns pretty fast that he can’t leave. Purgatory, anyone? This is where we come to my first problem: How the hell did Neo end up at this particular place after taking out a few sentinels? I was patiently waiting for an answer and the only shred of an answer I got came from The Oracle when she said that he was not yet ready to use his power on the machines and that he should have died. I thought to myself, “Hang on, he can fly around like Superman, manipulate items around him, stop bullets, and see the coding inside The Matrix, but he can’t stop three or four sentinels in the real world?” I guess the directors thought it would be nice to give Neo some kind of weakness, other than having a random train man knock his ass out, so he is not overpowered. I thought Neo’s powers extended beyond The Matrix itself, which was shown at the end of the previous film. Why is he getting his ass kicked by some random program who transports other programs so they could avoid being deleted? The guy tells Neo that in his train station, he is God, and I just rolled my eyes because earlier in the franchise Neo took on a bunch of goons that worked for Merovingian(supposedly they are older programs). We learn that this train guy also works for him, so what makes him so special compared to everybody else Neo fought? We still don’t get an explanation as to how Neo’s mind was sent to the station, other than Merovingian having something to do with it. Okay, so we are to assume that after fainting, Merovingian trapped him inside the station? So, was Merovingian just waiting around for Neo to faint so he could snatch him up and place him in Purgatory as some sort of revenge for taking what Merovingian considered to be his? Was he working with the sentinels? What the hell is going on? I thought the opening act made no sense and it felt like useless padding to make the film longer than it needed to be. A war is coming to Zion and one part of the movie centers on the war against the sentinels and the other part deals with Neo and Trinity (played by Carrie-Anne Moss) making their way to the Machine City by any means necessary. Neo knows that he has to venture there for something but he doesn’t exactly know why, so, of course, Trinity decides to join him on his quest. Morpheus (played by Laurence Fishburne) travels back with the rest of the crew to aid in the Zion battle. Unfortunately, Morpheus doesn’t have much to do in this film and it seemed like his character was just sort of there for most of the film. It didn’t bother me much since there is only so much a guy can do riding shot gun inside a ship. So that is the basic plot: War against sentinels and Neo’s journey to the Machine City. Now let me get into what I did like about the film.

The Good

1. The action is great in this film! The fight choreography is superb, the music once again makes the fight scenes much more epic, and the war in Zion was a grand spectacle to watch. The final fight between Neo and Agent Smith (played by Hugo Weaving) was one of the best fight scenes I have ever seen even if the CGI doesn’t always work and is downright hilarious at times.
2. I loved the tension in this film! There were times where I was on the edge of my seat watching in amazement if the city was going to hold off the sentinels or fall. Every scene in Zion was incredible to look at and I felt attached to every character during their struggle to survive the constant waves of machines breaching the city.
3. I felt emotional for the characters during certain scenes. I got a little bottled up at one scene between Neo and Trinity, so the characters definitely held my interest.
4. The final fight is worth it in the end. I enjoyed seeing Neo and Smith fly around the city, breaking walls, punching the living hell out of each other, and the score used during that entire fight sequence gave me goosebumps.

The Bad

1. There were some holes that never got answered and they stuck out like a sore thumb. The entire first act is inconsistent and it only raised more questions when the film tried to explain Neo’s predicament at the train station. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth when I tried to piece things together, so I just gave in and accepted the fact that the movie has no explanation. Some scenes just expect the audience to accept what they are being told without an explanation and I really had a problem with that. I didn’t like it when Neo told The Oracle something The Architect never mentioned, if he did then it definitely wasn’t on screen, about how there was a time limit involved. I clearly heard The Architect mention that if Neo did not return to the source then there would be a system crash killing everybody connected to The Matrix. He never mentioned anything about midnight or 24 hours. That was just frustrating to me. Maybe I am looking too much into this but I am just stating my thoughts on the film.
2. There were some scenes where either I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on or it looked incredibly dated. When Morpheus and the rest of the crew were hovering toward Zion while firing their guns at the sentinels chasing them I felt like I was looking at a video game with a bunch of shit flying all over the screen. I couldn’t tell what was happening half the time during that scene and I just felt cheated out of a great battle. Since I couldn’t see what was going on due to there being a thousand things going on at the same time, there was no tension. When Neo and Smith fought there were some instances where I could notice how dated the CGI looked. When Neo punches Smith in slow motion, I could tell how fake it looked instantly.
3. I felt like there was way too much slow motion in this movie, especially during the final fight. I see what they were going for, trying to make the scene more epic, but it actually made the scene drag on. I would have been fine if they used the effect a couple times but not after every other punch.

In Conclusion

The film was alright but I didn’t care too much for the ending. I will not go into spoilers so I will let you decide if you liked it down in the comments section. Overall, the movie was a fun time and I don’t get why people think the sequels are terrible. Sure, you can nitpick these movies to death, but if the movie can hold your attention and make you care for the characters and what they are going through then the movie has done its job. Both sequels did not live up to the first movie but that is not their fault. People have to understand that when a movie as good as The Matrix comes out, it is like catching lightning in a bottle. Do you know how hard it is to catch the same kind of lightning? It seems like people only hate the sequels because they aren’t as good as the first in the franchise and that is pretty sad to me. Sequels are rarely better than the original… How many sequels can you name off the top of your head that exceed expectations? Terminator, Star Wars, and a handful of others. After watching this franchise, I learned that people can be harsh on a franchise and that tends to draw people away from watching them. I took a shot and I found myself enjoying the franchise as a whole. This may be the weakest film in the franchise because of some plot holes and the ending, but that doesn’t make it a bad film. I recommend you see this film for yourself to come up with your own opinion and not listen to others who bash this movie to death. Give it a chance and you might walk away liking the movies like I did. I am going to give this movie 3 stars out of 5. It could have been more but it is an okay movie for what it is. If you enjoyed my review than be sure to share my article around on social media! I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you!