Revolutions - Spoilers. Sorry SPOILERS!

You’ve been warned

DEAR GOD DON’T READ BELOW IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE FLICK

OK, I think I’ll agree that it rocked (small letters).

Likes -

Visuals The action sequences were as cool as a comic book, which IMO is saying a lot. I was always shocked at how much could be implied between panels in the good old X-Men and Superman books back in the ’80s. Revolutions had much the same quality. The classic showdown between Smith/Neo was ripped straight from the pages.

Zion finally showed some scale; some idea of an immense colony. Likewise, I finally was able to care that those poor bastards living underground were going to be slaughtered. The whole Hammurrubi race to the door, and the EMP end to the first wave/ prelude to the second wave was a pretty good twist.

I also was impressed with the Neo/Trinity flight to the Machine city - great sense of scale, great use of the sun.

At the end, it seemed to me to be somewhat significant that the Architect/the Oracle were in a park. The Matrix never resorted to using something artificial, like insisting there was no outside - the characters were constantly inside/outside, but in that kind of monochrome urban park that isn’t found outside of New York/Chicago type cities. There was no sign until the end that the Matrix acknowledged anything other than humanity as being worthy of simulation.

Acting
Look, possibly my favorite twist was when Smith took over a human, and came into the real world. It was uncanny to see two folks play the same character in essentially the same way. Good stuff. But it was hard to believe that it took so darn long for Neo to realize it was Smith. I mean, the guy was trying to call him and calling him “Mr. Anderson”…

Plot Points
Smith as a virus, completely remaking the Matrix in his image. But this was contrasted with Smith as a program, not a human in the final fight. “Why Won’t You Die?” asks Smith over and over and over. “Because I choose not to” responds Neo - Choice, the one truly human trait.

Kelly brought up Foundation a while ago, and the whole idea of predestination playing a role with current events. I’ve spent more than a few useless cycles dwelling on this, so bear with me: Much like faith ultimately comes down to a choice without proof, so does the predestination argument. There is no way to know for sure that life occurs according to a set pattern. It may, but real knowledge that it does falls outside the realm of human knowledge.

The Oracle hinted at this - “You can only see as far as a choice you don’t understand.”

What keeps drawing me back is how this lack of comprehension of simple choice, of the idea that humans do not have to accept the logical conclusion of actions (Neo’s success in the Matrix came when he realized it was all an illusion he could bend to his will) could so completely and totally destroy Smith, but did not destroy the Oracle or the rest of the NPC’s (or programs). Was the Matrix really sentient? The couple waiting for the Trainman in the station had as complete a grasp of their reality as most humans, but I’m continually drawn back to his “It’s just a word” references to Karma and Love.

Dislikes -

Look, call me old-fashioned but I’m kind of disappointed that after almost 8 hours of this crap that there are huge loose ends. What the hell happened to Neo? What was the Oracle’s thing about with the “Are you going to let out those who want out?” I don’t think it would have hurt much to let us know if Neo was dead or alive.

And what the hell was that with Trinity at the end. She spent about a half hour too long dying after the Logos had crashed. And it was painful to watch Keanu Reeves try to cry, not even given the fact his eyes were burned out and he had on that groovy headband.

Final thoughts -

It ain’t over. Too many loose ends, and too much an uneasy truce. Plus, the sun ain’t shining on the Humans yet.

Posted by jank at November 6, 2003 1:37 AM