Matrix Revolutions

I should start this by pointing out my position of bias. I'm not especially keen on The Matrix. It's very watchable, like a string of well made music videos. But beyond that, at a story level it was overly superficial. They managed to take a complex idea and make it carry little actual depth. Something which helped explain it admittedly, but the emotional impact and resonance of a reality shattering event is, I felt, not best expressed as instant Kung Fu.

I would say in addition that I didn't like Matrix 2: Holy Exposition Batman, but quite honestly, I don't remember much of it. I remember they took the simple mythology of the first film, dragged it into a dark alley and beat it about the face and neck. That explaining the concepts beyond simple, iconic terms turned out to be as dull as the acting involved, which takes some doing. I also remember the nine hour dance sequence in some cave. Jesus. That was fun.

I'm not even sure why I watched number 3, beyond a desire for completion. Story-wise it was the same malformed nonsense. Sucking all meaning and mystery out of the terms such as prophet and oracle. Giving mundane explanations for magical mysticism, and using it to fill the space in between explosions and punching.

What you end up with is a strange mix of Gibson (nice ideas, shame about the absence of character), 2001AD comics and anime. A flimsy broth that left me with the similar feelings to the first film: Nice action, but ultimately unsatisfying. I don't think that's particularly condemning. Failing to rise about the remit of the big-budget action movie is hardly a crime or a surprise.

The thing that annoyed me most was the idea of peace between humans and machines. Yeah, okay. The machines view humans as a cross between batteries and an infection. I know I bargain for peace with any viral illness I have before breaking out the Lemsip. They also skip over the whole "using your people for fuel" part of the whole peace business. But its okay, anyone who wants to be free will be freed, and the machines will be perfectly fine with losing the primary power source as people get to choose between living in a vat of goo nailed to a machine and like, not.

People damn Reloaded for breaking something good and pure, in the same way you can't watch the original Star Wars without an eerie sense that the whole thing lucked out on the epic quality of the whole production. For me it (and more so reloaded with its endless drivel) it largely revealed the problems that actually existed beforehand. The first film used cryptic comments to mask under developed ideas, once explained those comments felt a little silly. Whilst I, like most sane people feel it would have been better left alone, at one movie, really we're not talking about high art. It was okay, as long as you didn't look at it for too long.