Review Copyright Rose Cooper, 2003

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To say that The Matrix: Revolutions was better than The Matrix: Reloaded is like saying kissing your cousin is better than kissing your brother. Either kiss leaves you feeling rather disturbed. THE STORY (WARNING: **spoilers contained below**) Depending upon whom you ask, The Matrix: Revolutions is a deep psychological examination of life, the universe, and everything - or a letdown of the first, most promising movie, with a kickass 17 minute action sequence near the end. I land firmly in the latter camp. In this, the third and final [yeah. right.] chapter of the Matrix trilogy, Neo (Keanu Reeves) faces his destiny as The One, with the help of lady love Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), former Fearless Leader and now wide-eyed follower Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), current firebrand Niobi (Jada Pinkett-Smith), the soothsaying Oracle (Mary Alice), and Zionites near and far, as the battle of man vs machine - and more specifically, Neo vs renegade Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) - comes to a head. THE UPSHOT There I was, ready to just let go of the bitter disappointment I felt after watching Reloaded, the lame followup to the brilliant original, The Matrix - and just flow with the cool action sequences in this, the second sequel. After all, that's what got me going in the original; big deal, I told myself, that the promise of exploring the whys of human nature and how we so easily accept smokescreens, fell far short in the first sequel, and weren't even bothered with in the second. Revolutions, I contented myself with, was about the rollercoaster of it all. So why'd I have to spoil my blissful, blue-pill denial, with a second viewing? I really shouldn't have gone to the theater the second time around - proof alone that Revolutions is unworthy of a greenlight - because the second viewing revealed the flaws that became murky as I got caught up in the spray of CGI bullets near the end of the movie. Aside from Mary Alice (the new Oracle; she did a spectacular job of stepping in for the late Gloria Foster) and Jada Pinkett-Smith (who, much to my surprise/dismay, made Laurence Fishburne look as ineffectual as I've seen him since the dismal Event Horizon), none of the players really did much to dissuade me from the notion that the Matrix series, overall, was much ado about nothing. Pity, that; because it started out with so much promise. The Matrix was so utterly memorable, that the letdown of Reloaded resonated more bitterly with me. I didn't expect much of this third episode, but was hoping against hope that it would be more like The Last Crusade than The Temple Of Doom. It was, but that's little comfort to what could have been. Neither of them were Raiders. In the end, it mattered not that Neo devolved into a cartoon character, written into a corner by the Wachowski Brothers [once you declare your hero, in the first installment, to have God-like powers, why o why would you keep insisting on pointless, increasingly dull, martial arts sequences?]. Or that a non-Warm-Place Trinity, could've made for a more interesting Neo than did Neo the second and third. Or that the Reloaded and Revolutions Morpheus would've gotten bitchslapped by the Matrix Morpheus for basically just standing around, doing nothing. Or that Agent Smith made the Matrix itself redundant (and the CGI fight between Neo and Smith made the CGI in Spiderman look like high art). Or that Tank ran circles around Link (Harold Perrineau) as an Operator, or that The Kid (Clayton Watson) was an unnecessary irritant, or that Sigourney Weaver looked fiercer in that contraption than did Nathaniel Lees. No, what matters most is that - at least until the Wachowskis decide they need a bigger bankroll - the Matrix series is finally put out of its - and our - sorrowful misery. Pity that. BAMMER'S BOTTOM LINE I wish I could take the blue pill and forget all about the sequels. THE MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS:   back to top And that's the way I see it. Rose "Bams" Cooper 3BlackChicks Review™ Copyright Rose Cooper, 2003 EMAIL: bams@3blackchicks.com    ICQ: 7760005 http://www.3blackchicks.com/