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THE
MATRIX REVOLUTIONS
5/10
USA 2003
: “The Wachowski Brothers” (i.e. Larry & Andy WACHOWSKI) : 129 mins
Don’t be fooled
– the Matrix movies do not constitute a trilogy. As with
Quentin Tarantino’s more neatly bisected Kill
Bill, The
Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions (neither title
has anything to do with their contents, incidentally) are rather two halves
of the same film, a single sequel to the 1999 original. Revolutions
begins where Reloaded left off, with no attempt to provide
any kind of summary of what’s gone before. Which means anyone coming to
this film ‘cold’ is unlikely to be able follow any of it… then again,
even those who’ve seen the first two pictures may not be any the wiser.
Because the movies’ mythology surely only make senses to the Wachowskis
themselves – and Revolutions sees them so far up their own backsides
that even they might struggle explaining the ‘story’.
Suffice it
to say that Neo (Keanu Reeves) is on his way to fulfilling his (supposedly)
pre-ordained role as the saviour of a human race almost totally enslaved
by hyper-advanced machines. Aided by love-interest Trinity (Carrie-Ann
Moss) and mentor Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), Neo enters the anything-goes
CGI fantasy-land of ‘the matrix.’ Here, guided by the gnomic utterances
of ‘The Oracle’ (Mary Alice), he squares off against the countless clones
of nefarious Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) – a renegade program whose capacity
for self-multiplication may threaten even the all-powerful computers who
created him.
Or something…
It soon becomes apparent that attempting to keep up with Revolutions’
labyrinthine plot is pointless and unlikely to yield much tangible reward.
The whole film is a mess of loose ends and unanswered questions, full
of characters who seem to be hugely pivotal one moment, only to drop off-radar
the next – Lambert Wilson’s louche ‘Merovingian’ from Reloaded is
back, along with his ultra-glam consort Perspephone (Monica Bellucci),
but they again have virtually nothing to do. Likewise the gangling, wild-eyed
hobo known as the Trainman (Bruce Spence), a minor villain who performs
some mysterious but enormously significant function. Perhaps the Wachowskis
are following the lead of George Lucas, who’s been naming even the most
minor character in his latest Star Wars epics (Yarael Poof, Lott
Dodd, etc) knowing that all will feature in the films’ endless spin-offs
(video games, novelisations, fan-fictions) and ‘merchandising opportunities.’
The Matrix
Revolutions is, first and foremost, a pretentious mess – and a colossal
waste of money. But it isn’t unwatchable. In fact, when Moss or Weaving
are on screen (they never appear together) the movie lifts up several
notches – just like Ian McKellen in Lord
of the Rings and Christopher Lee in Attack
of the Clowns, they’re sufficiently strong actors that they can
take dialogue as atrocious as Wachowskis’ and make it sound moving (Moss)
or drily comic (Weaving). The late Gloria Foster – who played The Oracle
in Matrix I and II – could work similar magic, and while
Alice is an OK replacement, Foster is sadly missed.
Otherwise,
the film see-saws between insufferable, repetitious mumbo-jumbo dialogue
scenes and some quite striking action/special-effects sequences, culminating
in Neo’s arrival at the awe-inspiring ‘machine city’ where he’s plugged
into the Matrix for a final showdown with the smirking Smith. As in Reloaded,
the surreal sight of the multi-Smiths gives the movie a temporary air
of conceptual art- having dozens of identical agents watching the one-on-one
fight from every office-block window in the artifical Matrix city is an
especially nice touch.
The last section
of the fight, meanwhile, is nicked from a good source – David Cronenberg’s
1980 Scanners, all exploding eyes and ambiguous personality transfers.
Scanners, of course, remains as powerful, idiosyncratic
and intriguing two decades on – just as Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers
(1997), to which Revolutions’ massed-battle sequence nods,
seems more and more brilliant and prescient with each passing year. The
Wachowskis’movies, however, are just a fad: hyped towards big numbers
at the box-office, but ultimately as hollow and meaningless – and perhaps
even pernicious - as the Matrix world itself.
16th
November, 2003
(seen 13th November : UGC Boldon Colliery)
by Neil
Young
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