Perhaps They Should Have Quit While Ahead

“No one can be told what the Matrix is...you have to see it for yourself,” intoned Laurence Fishburne as the mysterious Morpheus in 1999’s mind-blowing, eye-popping film, The Matrix. Indeed, laudatory word of mouth from applauding moviegoers proved he was nearly prophetic: the film exceeded expectations and though it’s impressive box office (over $171 million) was barely a third of what Star Wars: Episode I grossed that same summer, it took the wind out of George Lucas’s sails and had many people placing the new upstart movie series at the top of the list over the more venerable film franchise featuring Jedi warriors, light sabers, and R2-D2.

But along came the sequel, The Matrix: Reloaded, which disappointed many with its sound and fury signifying very little. After it debuted in mid-May, I noted the film was left so wide open at its conclusion that it was difficult to fairly judge its success or failure as a worthy follow-up to The Matrix. Now that the third installment, The Matrix: Revolutions, has been released, it might be fair to say that the writing-directing-producing tandem of Andy and Larry Wachowski should have quit while they were ahead.

This installment picks up exactly where the last one left off, with the last human city, Zion, under threat from the malevolent Machines, while their pseudo-savior, Neo (Keanu Reeves), lies prostrate in a coma.

Apparently, Neo is caught in a nether region (purgatory?) between the two worlds of the Matrix and the real world, and it’s up to his friends, Morpheus (Fishburne, as a friend of mine so correctly put it, looking more and more the part of a retired boxer rather than the sleek, cool mentor we came to know in The Matrix) and Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss), to rescue him.

Revolutions opens well enough, with an interesting sequence between Neo and a family also stuck awaiting passage from the realm in which Neo finds himself trapped, and a clever scene in which we’re introduced to the new face of the Oracle (Mary Alice, taking over the role from Gloria Foster, who died unexpectedly after finishing work on Reloaded). But unfortunately things go quickly downhill as we sense a lack of urgency from all parties involved. Although the fate of the last human city, Zion (and indeed, the fate of all humanity) hangs in the balance, there is little dramatic tension mounted in this film.

Some of this may be attributed to the escalating powers of both Neo and his main foe, Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving, baring his teeth once more as the arch villain). It’s what I call The Superman Syndrome: if your hero is so much more powerful than everyone else, you need a villain even stronger in order for triumph to seem extraordinary... and if the two characters are so extraordinary, there’s little to which the audience can relate, and thus there’s very little sense of true jeopardy or drama.

Ultimately, as a fan of the first film The Matrix, I’m left feeling that the initial 1999 offering from the Wachowski Brothers is far superior to either of the two movies that followed it. In fact, if one wants to argue that the movie trilogy follows the hero’s journey, my belief is that the first film captures this much more satisfactorily than do the rest of the films: our protagonist is introduced to the real meaning of life, then presented with his place in the world and then realizes and takes hold of his true place in that world. Alas, very little of the subsequent adventures of Neo and his kung-fu kicking friends has proven to be any more enlightening or (and this is perhaps even more condemning) any more entertaining, than what was so thrillingly presented in the original film.

The Matrix: Revolutions is rated R for sci-fi violence, profanity, and some sexual situations.