Matrix:Revolutions

[psocoptera]

Okay, one comment I am *not* going to spoiler-protect, and that's that I felt the "gore" level was increased a notch. All of the fighting was bloodier and a lot less fun than in the previous two movies, and there are a couple of upsetting graphic depictions of injury and violence. (Heck, I'm going to name names: Sofer, think twice about this one.)

Other comments (ripped off from email) behind here.

My verdict? Disappointed.

Did it have satisfying plot resolution? No.

Did it have gleefully kick-ass combat sequences with novel and exciting choreography? No.

Did it have good funny parts? Well, maybe not intentionally...

As far as I can tell, the stunning conclusion of the Matrix trilogy is that as long as some guy dies with his arms sticking out, *everything is fine*. You can *hypothesize* that maybe some whole series of events takes place to resolve the basic conflicts that have been set up and driving events for three movies, but it's basically fanfiction. That story is left to the reader to tell. What we see is that things are magically Okay Now. Look, everybody's happy! Yay!

Even within the movie, there are too many dangling threads. Primarily, what the heck is the significance of Sati? Why is she even in the movie - what role does she serve? What about the Trainman - it's like first the "getting Neo out" thing is a major plot conflict, and then it's no bigdeal. More generally, why *do* the machines agree to end the war? What *is* the Source of Neo's mystical powers?

There are some nice touches - the Oracle's yin-yang earrings, the Bane actor does a wonderful job with the Agent Smith role - but also some aesthetic missteps (slow-mo running? there's almost never an excuse for slow-mo running, and there definitely wasn't here), and a ridiculously long death sequence. Overall, it just wasn't that *interesting*, and the bloody, grim violence was no fun at all, unlike the great fight scenes in the first two. At least the rave is short this time.

Comments

[sofer.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the warning. I'm planning on seeing it Sunday, but I might reconsider, especially since it seems like not such a good movie that it would be worth the gore. Is there any particular time you think I should look away?

And speaking of long expected movies, is anyone doing anything about RotK tickets? As in, keeping an eye on when they go on sale? For all I know, they already have and I've totally missed my chance to see the first show.

[cereph.livejournal.com]

pretty much my thoughts. i had been really hoping for, well, something more, something that blew my mind, and it just didn't happen. i mean over all the second one wasn't that fantastic, and i guess i wanted the third one to justify the second. i did like in the fight scene when they were trying to get intot he club to see "merv" when trin tripped the guy and he fell to the ceiling...that was cool. but yeah.....dissapointed is the word.

[kelilah.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree with pretty much everything you said. I did like Niobe, and I liked the piloting bit. And I was hoping that they'd get there in time. But other than that, I was sitting there saying "love is boring! don't talk about it! ...wait, you have these big stompy transformer things people sit in, and they don't even get any body armor? or a windshield or something? and you're surprised when they die?" And I was really bored with the Smith/Neo fight, which is too bad, because their fight at the end of the first (and now, to my mind, the only) Matrix was one of the coolest things. And I liked Smith then, too.

I think the whole thing was just a lot of "blah BLAH blah blah," which is never good.

[kelilah.livejournal.com]

Oh, right, this is me who just got back from seeing it and am currently annoyed that I can't get at my e-mail to read what everyone else said back when everyone else was seeing the movie.

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Gah, that's annoying.

It occurred to me that, since you don't have your mail, you probably didn't see NW's post to chat about getting new passwords from him. I have forwarded that to your backup account.

[kelilah.livejournal.com]

Actually, Chaos was an immense sweetie and called me to let me know. So I'm all set! But thanks for thinking of it anyway.