The Matrix Revolutions

Matrix Revolutions has a more tangible and meaningful plot, less pseudo-philosophising and less gratuitous action for effect than in The Matrix Reloaded. I’m satisfied with that. You’ll find yourself yawning through the first hour, but the subsequent “war of the machines” is amazing. If there were more emotion in the final digital fight between Neo and Smith, Revolutions would have been a class better than Reloaded. The film’s ending has an appropriate amount of the pseudo-depth that the whole saga has been faking. Those who thought that there was something big behind everything will be disappointed. Unavoidably disappointed. Three and a half stars. (29/10/2003)

Rating the entire trilogy. Like in Reloaded, there are moments that really pissed me off, but as a whole it’s amazing, and the climax, when white is reunited with black, can’t be described other than superb, unexpected (though actually inevitable) and incredibly deep… PS: In the great order of things, the Battle of Sion is just eye candy, but that doesn’t alter the fact that it made my jaw drop. (22/08/2010)

As I wrote in "Matrix Reloaded", these two movies should be evaluated together because they work best together. Yes, it is sometimes too commercial and on the other hand sometimes too philosophical without actually saying anything. One is actually just going in circles and there is nothing to grasp. However, when it comes to the final scene, where Neo has to reach the main brain and either win or lose, it always touches my heart and gives me chills. It definitely didn't fulfill what the first movie promised, but I can't help it, with distance I'm not actually that disappointed. (26/01/2014)

The action is bombastic and, most importantly, the seemingly endless battle with the machines has the makings to enter the company of some of the most iconic scenes. But that script! Compared to the lacklustre second part, it’s considerably sharper, with less bullshit, and subordinates almost everything to the great effect, or rather to the exterior, but it again fails to impress the viewer in any way or with any idea, to squeeze at least a pinch of emotions out of them... I admittedly rode the wave of the spectacular action, but I actually kept waiting and waiting and asking myself what the hell can come out of this? And then suddenly the end came and all I could feel was disappointment. That was supposed to be it? Is this what everyone's so crazy about? After the fantastic first one, the directors must have run out of breath and Reloaded and Revolutions are just a bloated bubble, we can only shake our heads in disbelief. This time, there was no déja vu. (29/09/2011)

Revolutions, while retaining most of the ills of the second installment, quite adeptly reduces their intensity. The digital sequences now primarily involve clashes of dirty metal, which is easier to animate and thus doesn't take away from the intensity of the Battle of Zion with mangled CGI. Plus the exoskeletons are really cool. The dialogue here is aware that we're about to close up shop, so it's finally going somewhere. Oh, and the Zion Respect Festival scenes are thankfully pretty strictly limited to war sequences in industrial dock settings. But why five stars? In Revolutions, The Matrix has finally managed to conclude a truly ultimate cyberpunk masterpiece (or rather, esocyberpunk masterpiece) and has stopped dodging the fact that the only options are that reality is nothing or that reality is everything. Codes are reformatted into atoms, minds create matter, all as a result of electrical connections between neural systems. It's all about electricity. The Matrix is actually a bit of an anti-humanist series, telling us how humanity's only goal is to destroy the machines, while the machines' main goal is to adapt to humanity, which makes them undergo more than just one problem, including fatal ones. (09/03/2021)