The Matrix Revolutions

November 26, 2003

Every day, I get more and more evidence the American public is on CRACK.

A post shared by Lara (@knobbygirl) on Nov 26, 2017 at 1:09pm PST

The Matrix Revolutions was a perfectly good ending to a perfectly good trilogy. I can’t, for the life of me, understand why the movie was so roundly panned by critics. Every review carries complaints about the lack of a plot, about their lack of empathy for the characters, or the too long fight scenes. At first, I thought that the major stumbling block that the public hit with this movie was the sheer complexity of the philosophical issues. I immediately assumed that the general public was too “stupid” and “uneducated” to get the metaphysical complexity of the story. But wait a minute – that can’t be right, can it? The public had no problem embracing the same scale of complexity within the original Matrix, did they?

The Matrix seemed a very tightly defined arc, with a definite beginning, middle and end. Little did we know, it was ALL beginning. Nothing is left open to interpretation in the first film. As the second and third film unfurl, more and more of the plot is left open to interpretation. The only action set in stone is Neo’s sacrifice. The audience is left to explore the ramifications of the sacrifice on their own. None of the questions asked earlier in the series are answered. I have yet to talk to two different people whom will interpret the ending the same way. Neo’s sacrifice was like that of Christ, dying so that humans could live. Or that Neo was Muad’Dib from Dune, a blind savior leading his people through the desert. Or that Neo was following, albeit unintentionally, the architect’s instructions by re-entering the source, thus showing that even if your path is pre-determined by a higher power, it is at least nice to *think* you have a choice. Or that Neo was only able to save Zion because he realized that Zion could not exist without the Matrix – that the programs in the Matrix were just as much prisoners of the machines as the humans are. Or that Neo was only able to choose selfishly to save Trinity (and the human race in the process) if he had experienced love. Or that Neo’s triumph was a parable about the dissolution of Communism. Or that Zion was a part of the matrix all along, that’s why Neo could stop the sentinels. Or that Neo didn’t *really* die and he and Trinity will live happily ever after, because the two sequels took place before the ending of the first movie.

All of the above theories, except maybe that last one, are the result of a rational thought process that is making an attempt to wrap up a very open ended series of events. The American public does not want to continue to think for 10-15 minutes after a movie is over – they wanted to be able to sum up what happened in 3-4 sentences when a co-worker asks them about it the next day at the Water Cooler. The American public is not so much “stupid” or “uneducated” – they are just straight up LAZY.

I’ll get down off my soapbox now and get back to the film itself. Lots of action – good action. I was holding my breath during the machine invasion, although I started to get that Blair Witch headache from all the shaky movement. The APUs kicked ass, but weren’t those the same thing Ripley used in Aliens?

Michelle Rodriguez is one tough bitch. If she would have lived, I think she would have had to fight Link for Zee’s honor.

Club Hell was awesome. I want to go somewhere like that. I guess the closest thing here in the Metroplex is The Church. I guess that will have to do. I found an interesting parallel between the matrix and Zion…a party in the Matrix is a total S&M Freakshow, while a party in Zion (Ex: The Mud Orgy) looks a lot like a Grateful Dead concert…interesting…

In any case, the only part that was utterly retarded was the last three minutes – the epilogue with the Oracle, the Architect and Sati. Great. It was all a big chess game and now this little brat can make sunsets. Woopedy fuckin’ doo. That short scene almost unraveled the entire tapestry of the film.