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'Matrix Revolutions' Opens Today
shelleymonster writes "The Matrix Revolutions was released worldwide at 9 AM EST today. With a running time of 2 hr. 9 min., I'm expecting the /. reviews to start pouring in around 11:30. Since critics are saying things like, "Matrix finale could put you back in a coma," and, "The final episode is a slam-bang, dreary mess," I'm curious to hear some real fans' reactions." Many readers have pointed to the BBC's review; they were not amused. Were you? Update: 11/05 17:17 GMT by T : Read on for one reader's (spoiler-free) first impression.
wickedweasel writes "Just came from one of the first showings of Matrix: Revolutions (Germany, don't know why, but it started 2:30 pm here) and came by to drop some comments (no spoilers). To cut it short: not even close to the first one, and honestly spoken way worse than the second one (which wasn't _that_ bad). The ones looking for cool action will hardly find any, neither will the ones who came for the story (like me) be satisfied. Only a few good scenes in and around Zion, some quite big plot holes and unfinished threads and, most important, an unsatisfying end, to say the least. I guess I'll be flamed for my opinion by the die-hard-fans, but hear this: I once considered myself one too until I saw this."
Hitchcock would have loved the first one because of the clear cut way they told the story and used suspense to tell it.
'No officer, your men are allready dead' and after that you get the fight. It is a classic example of creating suspense like Hitchcock used it, but faster.
But Hitchcock would have hated the sequels. The story has no starting point, instead it follows the Hollywood formula of all sequels: just let the same events happen in roughly the same order (Trinity opens with a fight and someone dies and is resurected). It is like they forgot how to deliver a complex story to an audience. Instead it became a vehicle for stunning special effects. And that is something that continues in the third episode with for instance the use of rain. There is no better way to show your quality as a CG master than with the use of rain isn't there?
No. this one has 'hire me' signs all over it. Just like the second one. They did not start a new CG company for nothing. This is just a big trailer sponsored by those visiting the cinema and buying the DVD.
The should have started part two with an introduction on the use of keys and being a program. Just like they did in number one with the use of special forces.
The first movie was good, or the first half. The premise was quite interesting and innovative, and then it slowed down and turned into a Kung Fu movie. I still never understood why the tech community was so quick to embrace this series as an icon. It is not worthy. Have we stooped so low as to think the Matrix' goofy "which reality is real" premise as something worth using brain cells to contemplate? This is only a notch away from the other, equally-cerebral dilemma: "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?"
And thus began the "Matrix Revolution" of an endless array of technical FX as a substitute for a decent plot and character development.
Not that things haven't been this way since the dawn of cinema, but most movies nowadays are just big-budget, formulaic, television-level dramas designed less to make you think, less to entertain than they are to distract and take your money and serve as a vehicle for a plethora of merchandising efforts.
With few exceptions, most of the great classic movies of the last 20-30 years have been neutered in a progressive attempt to capitalize on the originals' success via a string of contrived sequels.
The same thing has happened to the music industry. Instead of great lyrics and creative musicianship, we're bombarded with cute-faces, dance moves and regurgitated hooks that are over-produced and heavily compressed. There should be a new category for this crap music, like there should be a new category for these new movies which do little more than feed our ever-increasing ADD.
Why does the Matrix inspire this type of snobishness?
"It was also very academic in some respects, which probably explains why general audiences (read "unwashed masses") won't "get" it."
Basically, if you don't like these movies you are not intellectual enough. This was the same defense offered by many Matrix "fans" to people who didn't like Reloaded. By the way, Reloaded was a dreadful movie, just because somebody doesn't like it doesn't mean their dumb or unsophisticated.
I've already seen a lot of negative reaction to this movie in the reviews and from the net. And already the apologists are saying that the "unwashed" masses are not smart enough to appreciate this "wonderful" piece of art. This type of spinning of the movie is not encouraging.
- sigs are for wimps.
The Tomatometer is currently at 38/100. In contrast, Matrix I was 86% and Reloaded was 73%.
.anacron
Maybe this is why Warner Brothers wanted a worldwide simultaneous release. They effectively mitigated their risk that the opinions of audiences in one country would adversely affect sales revenues in other countries.
In essence, the movie sucked, they knew it, and used the gimmick of the worldwide simultaneous release to increase first-weekend sales to the point that it wouldn't matter if everyone thought the movie sucked.
I disagree, i think that was the best sceen of the movie. The "bunch of big words" were chosen very carefully so that they could be interpreted quite litteraly; however they also have many levels of meaning, if you really listen to that conversation and think about all the possibilities the architect reveals, it's a great sceen. This also opens up the concept of creating the matrix and just how precarious the control the machines have is. I think this sceen was perfect. :)
So... let's get this straight:
a) You saw "The Matrix" and liked it.
b) You saw the sequel and DIDN'T like it.
c) You STILL PAID to see the 3rd film, but you paid EVEN MORE this time.
Do you realise that THERE'S NOTHING BUT YOUR OWN STUPIDITY that's making you give Hollywood your money.
That was classic intercourse!
This is a good movie, but it's not the ending -- and the movie -- we wanted or were waiting for.
We have all been elaborating Matrix Revolutions plot in our heads (and websites) ever since we saw Reloaded. The real movie is not based on our personal plot, and this is the main source of disappointment, no matter how good or bad is the movie itself.
theefer
Rent it, but fast-forward through the intro until you see a guy wake up in a bathtub. The intro of Keifer Sutherland's character explaining the setup was obviously a Hollywood edit to dumb-down the movie for people who just wouldn't "get" what was going on from watching the story develop. Everything will eventually be explained later for the sake of the main character anyway, and it's much more absorbing if you know nothing about what's going on going into it.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
That's a particularly arrogant stance.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
The problem is, you've already seen 2/3rd of the triology. Would you really put down a book after 2/3rds, or stop watching a show after 2/3rds of the season? I wouldn't, either I'd stop rather quickly or follow it through. At least not a show with development that is, like e.g. 24. A show where you can miss 10 eps and it'll still be the same basic gag, like Friends, Seinfeld or Frasier is different.
In a triology, the second film is usually the worst. The first is "new", and the last has all the big "final/ultimate" scenes. The second is well.. it's usually just more of the same. Maybe Matrix: Revolution is an exception to the rule, but it's not really all that stupid to find out.
The problem is, I want to know what happens to Neo and Trinity. Good, bad story, I still want to
"know". Of course you might say that is silly and that it's just a movie and it doesn't matter. But if you don't care about what you're watching, why do it at all? And I want to see the last of the LotR films too, even if all the critics say it's a complete and utter turkey (which I don't think they will, but anyway). Just human nature, I think...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
None of the questions in Reloaded are answered. How does Neo really stop the Sentinels? How did Smith enter Bane? How did he get so powerful? It's all explained away with one or two sentences. We're just supposed to accept it because it's "symbolic" of something. Reloaded seemed to treat itself like a bridge to some sort of great explanation for everything in the third movie. Guess what? It never comes! What the fuck?
Neo stops the sentinels because he was enlightened by the process of becoming the One. He sees the Matrix as what it is -- an input/output stream communicating with the senses, and sees it logically instead of allowing his senses to interpret it. It's very Eastern - the idea that the world is not what you simply perceive.
Smith enters Bane by essentially hacking his brain. Realize that Neo empowered smith by destroying him, just as Smith symmetrically empowered Neo by killing him. Neo was a martyr who's death allowed him to transcend the "living" in the Matrix and realize that it was all just input. Neo's slaying of Smith was unorthodox, and showed Smith that people exposed themselves by being part of the system. So Smith uses that knowledge, and his amalgam of knowledge about human biology and such, to hack Bane's brain. It is, on one level, just a machine. They mention brain scarring and cross-synaptic firing in Bane's brain scan -- essentially, Smith rewired him, and it was possible because Bane had his brain wide open jacked into the Matrix. If you can die in the real world because you think you're dead in the Matrix, can't you become Smith in the real world because you think you've become him in the Matrix? If you accept the premise of the linking of those two worlds in the first place, this is not really a stretch.
How did he get powerful? Everyone has boundaries in the Matrix. Neo is enlightened by his virtual death and transcends his senses. It gives him the second sight in full strength. Likewise, Neo destroys Smith's boundaries to 'enter' him. Smith gains the ability to 'enter' others and take them over, becoming a virus. Notice that his Neo-like powers come chronologically after he absorbs the Oracle. This is not coincidence. He needed Neo's enlightenment in full, so he took it from the only person he could get it from. But where Neo earned it, Smith had to steal it, because that's all a virus can do, is absorb. It doesn't evolve or grow or change.
Zion is the focus because its the free world; everything else is 'controlled', whether virtual or real.
Nobody is freed, Trinity and Neo die, and we're left with the same situation we had at the beginning of the first movie. We've invested our attention to these three movies all for nothing. It was pointless. Why even have Trinity live in Reloaded? She should have stayed dead. It would have been more interesting to see how Neo copes with being unable to save her last time.
Trinity isn't human when she says that dying was fine, but she should have been telling Neo how good it was instead of apologizing for dying, and thanks for the second chance to be real? I dunno, I thought that scene was a LOT more touching and a lot less fake than EITHER of the first two movies Trinity-saves-Neo or Neo-saves-Trinity scenes.
Let me try to clear this: It's not an awful movie, it's just pretty lower than what I expected. And since I'm a Matrix fan, I'll obviously watch it again in order to try to "get the good" of the movie.
Hey now, I'm articulate, and I'll defend Point Break over Revolutions. Sorry, this was just a passing mention in your message, but defending Point Break is sort of a hobby of mine. Yes, I need to get out more.
But consider: Point Break is an amazing film. Not a "good" film, but still amazing. Take three of the worst actors in Hollywood - Keanu, Swayze, and Gary Busey - and write an inane script about surfing bank robbers, and somehow produce a loud, stupid, but thoroughly entertaining and fun film from start to finish. On paper, Point Break should be just about the worst movie ever made, but somehow it isn't. Director Kathryn Bigelow put enough into it that it not only works on its own level - it does what it set out to do, perfectly - but it also succeeds above and beyond with at least one of the best chase scenes ever filmed. And unlike Revolutions, there isn't really a dull moment.
Revolutions, on the other hand, tried to be deep sci-fi and failed miserably. Unlike Point Break, which took terrible actors and made them watchable in a fun, goofy way, the Wachowskis just let the bad actors suck and made the good actors suck, too (like Fishburne's big speech in Zion). There wasn't a single scene in Zion that was better than a shitty, boring episode of some Star Trek franchise show, except you got to see nipples during the rave. Even its action scenes, besides the burly brawl and the semi collision, were pretty dull. Some of the martial arts wire work, supposedly what the Matrix does so well, was awful and laughable, so it couldn't even succeed on its own level as well as Point Break.
I actually really liked the Architect scene, though - I thought it was good "Prisoner"-esque fun, and one of the high points of the movie. Still... as counterintuitive as it might seem, I'd argue that Kathryn Bigelow could teach the Wachowskis a few things.
Personally, I was hoping that the matirx and the humans were ALL the creation of an advanced AI program at MIT, or some such, with the creators not aware in the least of the real passion of their created entities.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
It goes back to what the Architect said in the first movie, that 99% of the people inside of the Matrix accepted it, even if only at a near-unconscious level. This means that 1% did not accept it and would wish to be released.
The previous situation had those who wanted out being tossed out, but in a controlled fashion wherein they would be terminated before they could reach critical mass, sustaining a cycle. The new system, brought in through Neo's actions and manipulated into place by the Oracle, would allow those who wanted out to go out and rejoin a budding new human civilization. The machines would no longer have complete control, so the humans would truly be "free", where before they only thought that they were free.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
I'd just like to point out that this post is a classic example of the ORIGINAL definition of "troll" - posting something so incredibly stupid that anyone with a sense of humor should be able to figure out it's a joke, and then reading the replies from the people who didn't get it.
Somewhere along the way, "troll" became synonymous with "flamebait", and internet vocabularly lost an invaluable word.
I originally posted this as an AC like a dumbass.
I haven't seen revolutions yet, but I had a guess at how it would end and at least at some level I was right (appearntly neo and trinity die). I agree with much of MattW's post, but I have another dimension that seems to be supported.
I believe the architect scene from Reloaded is "the answer" to the questions that anyone has, even if it was an obnoxious scene that was probably shortened so they could fit in lots of action. The previous poster used eastern philosphy, but let's throw in some western and the concept of free will and "the soul".
I see instead the matrix as a simulation and sort of a recession test of machine intelligence where each human is plugged in to get a wide sample. It is perfecting itself, by modelling us. It passes only when it achieves long term stability. If there is a "one" and if a zion is created, then it fails. The architect is one such program designed to compensate for failure. Analysis of the failure is done by systematic reduction of possibilities to a single point of failure, in this case, someone who continuously fails to accept the system. If it can construct a system that properly accounts for human intelligence in all cases, the computer has finished learning from us.
How do you reverse engineer anything? There is only one method that does not rely on inside knowledge: you do a side by side comparison, feeding the same inputs and predicting the outputs. When the output of your created box, differs from the output of the original, you know you have a flaw and must investigate.
The problem is identified as choice, free will, thinking outside the box, creativity. The computer can beat us or fight to a standoff in all cases but loses when we do something not expected, something that can't be concluded from the facts at hand. The matrix is a specific test suite designed to quantify this behavior, understand it, and adapt to it.
Agent Smith is the embodiment of this effort, learning from Neo, trying to understand him. I believe he is the "mother" that the Architect referred to, not the oracle necessarily. The architect on the other hand is about order, organization and deduction, things that in general machine intelligence beats us silly on.
All the stuff about smith enterring bane, neo enterring smith etc. is just an elaboration of this. Neo figured it out first, Smith learned and adapted and use this on Bane. Around and around they go. One point I believe is that ALL humans, zion or not, are still jacked in, thus smith can pull his stunt quite easily with, as MattW suggested his very accurate and detailed knowledge of human biology. Not so easily can he do it to Neo, who invented the trick.
Eastern/western/etc. spiritualism are a core of the movies precisely because they are our current explanation or qualification of free will. They're not exact because we don't really know either, but they are somehow at the core of our intelligence. After all we're not particularly consistent and rational, things even lower life forms exhibit more reliably that we do, but our ability to come up with new ideas seemingly from thin air has no explanation and is quite valuable.
The problem is that this is one hypothesis you could have produced from the first, much more entertaining and consistent movie. These last two movies I think are failing us because they are simultaneously trying to demystify and answer questions, while at the same time trying to keep the mysteriousness that defined the original. It's fundamentally flawed, but this is an example of squeezing the franchise for all it's worth.
I think you got hooked on the last scene in the first movie and can't se past it-- as if the next 2 movies were somehow supposed to be focused around it. The plot evolves to become what it is.. More depth is unravelled as you go.
Neo doesn't die.
He is carried off into the machine world after he completes his quest. He is motionless after a battle, just like the second movie. Granted, Trinity is dead as dead can be. The Orcale and the last refugee give an homage to Neo with the sunset at the end, but that doesn't mean he's dead. The Oracle answers he guardian's question quite accurately: "no, I didn't see any of this... I had hope."
Overall, this was a great movie. I have some questions that I want answered, but it did a good job answering most of them. For example, the Oracle and the Architect are cordial adversaries, and Agent Smith and Neo a ying/yang brothers, whose mother is the Oracle. The reason why the movie changes focus from the people in the Matrix to the peopel in Zion is clear to me. More insight as to WHY Neo was found is unravelled and you realize this is a fight between the architect and the oracle, which are representations of order and chaos as created by the machines.
The movie is deep. Just because it changes direction does not mean that was not intended in the first place. It may take a turn or two that I disagree with, but overall it leaves me wanting one more movie... the one where the people are freed from the Matrix and Neo leads them to the promised land. Judging by the end of this
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
Almost as good as the first one? Not sure yet.
With that said, I can say that Revolution will go down as one of the best, it not the best sci-fi finale ever for a trilogy. (LOTR doesn't count, as it's fantasy). Much better than episode 6 of Star Wars, and probably better than what the finale of the prequels will be.
Contrary to what other people say, I don't believe there are any holes at the end of the movie.
*** SPOILER ALERT ***
First of all, for all of those that said that the machine didn't care that their food could go bye-bye, well, that's not a plot hole, it was EXPLAINED why they accept so in the architect rant at the end of the 2nd one.
Second, why should we know what happens with Zion? Do you really need to see them have another rave of something? They'll rebuild what they can, and that's it. No need to do some cheesy crossfades of clips of people rebuilding the city. Those who want to be unplugged from the Matrix will be, and will live with the humans, as the Architect and the Oracle say at the end. What Neo, and Trinity and Morpheus and everyone wanted most of all to give is CHOICE. CHOICE to be part of the Matrix or not. It's not as if people were badly treaten inside the Matrix. They were happy and everything. The difference between what will go on after the end of the 3rd movie and what was going on before is that humans were hunted and killed when they rejected the Matrix, as they serve no purpose to the machines anymore. Now they will be allowed to be free. It's not as if everyone is going to disconnect from the Matrix all at once.
Anyway, having everyone disconnect would be a really bad idea because after all, the earth is destroyed, there's no hope to get it cleaned up and livable. If they want to live in that mess, FINE, now it's THEIR CHOICE TO DO so. They're not forced to be in the Matrix anymore.
Also, face it Neo is dead. For once, the hero dies in a movie. And I'm glad he did, because seeing him back with the rest of the people Zion would just feel so cheesy. Anyway, for those who doubt he's dead, I'm pretty sure there's gonna be an entry on IMDB soon about how this film as a connection with King Arthur's story. Notice how when his body was carried at the end on a machine ship it looked oddly like when Arthur is laying on a ship and going to the sea when he dies?
So how could any of the sequels have the same kind of suspense? We already know a lot of the story, so there isn't nearly as much room for surprise.
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
I believe the Matrix is largely incomprehensible unless one has at least a reasonable familiarity with S0ren Kierkegaard ("SK") and crisis theology. In fact, I'd argue that the series narrows down from its expansive view of philosophy in the first two movies to, in both the EtM video game and M:Rv, a tight focus on Kierkegaard's conception of freedom as radical choice. By contrast, M:Rld went all over the philosophical map, my favorite example being that the Zion council seems to be populated entirely by Jamesian Pragmatists (including Cornel West, whose most interesting work was a sustained discussion of American Pragmatism).
Just a few Kierkegaardian references in the Matrix:
- In EtM (which crystallized my understanding of TM as Kierkegaardian), Ghost quotes SK on faith and absurdity. In the game, the tripartite crew of Sparks, Niobe, and Ghost are almost certainly representative of SK's view of human life as aesthetic, ethical and religious, respectively. (The three Demiurges -- the Merovingian, Architect, and Oracle -- seem to recapitulate this schematic.)
- The Christ parallel in Neo is so blatant as to hardly be worth mentioning, but his death deserves some observations: he died to redeem Man (and Machine), since Trinity's death precluded his doing it out of love for any one individual; his death redeemed M&M from Smith (who seems, amongst many other things, to represent Original Sin, being the ultimate descendent from the war between M&M); his death also freed the condemned from hell (when the Architect agrees to release programs and persons who wish to leave the Matrix).
- When Neo dies, the machine-ruler says, "It is done." This is the same thing Christ says in John 19:30 (and is also used two more times in the Bible -- after the world is created in Genesis, and after it is destroyed in the Revelation). Smith is then rescinded from the world, the Matrix is created anew, and peace descends upon Zion. Apart from begging the infralapsarian question, this reinforces the idea of Neo as propitiation (as many Christians see Christ dying to expiate the sins of Man). I'm a bit uneasy with this part because Neo is shown as bargaining for salvation -- something that is completely incoherent in most versions of Christianity, and more importantly, within Kierkegaard. At the same time, I have to wonder what happens to Neo at this point. In John, Christ says, "It is done," then commends his soul to God. Does this imply that Neo has joined with the machine-ruler? Is one of the reasons peace descends because Neo has joined the machine-consciousness and broken the old covenant of slavery? Is he a mediator between man and machine (viz 1 Tim. 2:5-6)?
- The Trainman is deeply concerned with time: when we meet him in EtM, he tells Niobe how many hours Zion can be expected to last against the machine onslaught. ("72 hours. That's exactly how long Zion lasted last time.") In M:Rv, he is obsessed with punctuality, and has an intimate connection with time, shown by the many watches he wears on his wrist and his intimate knowledge of train schedules. This emphasis on time seems designed to evoke SK's discussion of time in his Concluding Unscientific Postscript, in which he directly discusses the entrance of eternity into time. (The Oracle's line in EtM, "The path of the One is made by the many," echoes SK's assertion that the many discrete points of temporality create the possibility of eternity.)
- Kierkegaard's doctrine of radical choice permeates the script, culminating in the Smith v. Neo showdown. I suspect that Smith is meant to represent (amongst many things!) existentialism, just as the Age
"Freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more."
The answers to the big questions that you're left with after the 2nd movie are glossed over in literally one or two sentences. "oh ummm there's some magic mumbo jumbo 802.11b wireless brain chip or something, and the French guy has some magic subway train. There's your explanation, on to the hour-long action sequence!!"
/. you aren't very smart.
Oh, and the hour-long action sequence we got!
That had to be the absolute worst battle sequence I've seen in those movies my brain has allowed me to remember.
And if you don't want more spoilers than that, don't read on. But if you don't want spoilers and are reading this on
The entire horrible problem with that insipid scene can be summed up thusly: There were too fucking many squids and the humans didn't die.
Of course I'm long winded and irritated at the recent pain.
The scene should have been at most a minute long. Drill drops through. Squids come through, and are temporarily held back by the concentrated gunfire of the defenses. Some eventually break through forcing the humans to spread their fire, allowing more to come through. Eventually there's a massive swarm, an opaque cloud streaming from the hole and gathering around the ceiling. This all takes about 50 seconds.
Now, in the good version of the movie -- this titanic swarm in which you can barely distinguish individual squids -- spreads out, swoops down, and fucking envelopes the human army. Within moments, every last defender in the docks has been disemboweled. Giving the humans the benefit of the doubt, this takes about ten seconds.
Geek note: You can see the squids fighting this way in Second Renaissance in the Animatrix, and it looks viciously effective against infantry. It takes them a bit longer to cut through actual armor like the humans had in the short, but is still deadly. So in the good version of the movie, give the humans thirty seconds.
But instead the squids start flying around in tightly packed tubules of squids, like gigantic robotic recreations of The Abyss. And I mean flying around not attacking. I just feel I should emphasize that. Because they're flying in huge thick clouds, they're impossible to miss. So they're taking gigantic losses while just flitting around, and this is what they spend most of the godly interminable scene doing. Eventually the squid in the front of this tremendous mass will see a human looking at him funny, and will attack head-on bringing all ten thousand of his buddies behind him. The human will fire at the front of the squid-stream with their high-velocity high-rpm weaponry that goes right through the squids killing masses until one chickens out and pulls off. Repeat for way too god damn long.
Sometimes a squid will break off and flit about on its own. These are the only ones that manage to kill anyone, mostly from surprise. But even they mostly just fly around. Even when the big drill got a leg blown up, only a squid or two decides to notice that someone is firing rockets at it.
Which reminds me: Before the battle, the commander guy keeps talking about how important it is to target the bores so they can't dig through into the city. So when the tip of the drill emerges through the roof of the dock, I'm loudly thinking That's the bore's bit! That's what you want to destroy! Shoot it! But the humans just sit there until squids start pouring out.
So at least partially due to their own stupidity, the humans lose anyway. There's just too many squids. Which is the problem. Whether for rendering reasons or because it was the only way to make the scene longer than two seconds the result is the same: The squids end up with AI that is a cross between Galaga and Centipede, only not as smart.
Cut down the squids a lot. They said two hundred thousand or whatever, but it's okay to lie when you only bother to put in twenty humans. Make them (sq
The enemies of Democracy are