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Review:
 Where
the $%Ø∂ is Whitney Houston? When Gloria Foster died of natural
causes during the making of the second installment of this
trilogy, the Wachowski brothers had an excellent opportunity to do
something really cool, like replace her with Whitney Houston or
Hally Berry or someone just as hot. But then, who cares? Well, I
do. I mean, I’ve nothing against Mary Alice, she’s actually done
lot’s of great work over the years. We’re here for the special
effects, primarily, but the plot means something too, and why
ANYONE would WANT to look like an old woman is a mystery beyond
the imagination of most old women.
But as to the plot, this has some improvements over the last
installment. It actually has one.
To recap: Back in 1997, a Spanish film called "Open Your Eyes"
opened in it’s home country(it was remade as ‘Vanilla Sky’), and
the gimmick was that the world of the hero wasn’t actually real.
The concept was out, and as sometimes happens in Hollywood,
several movies came out simultaneously a couple of years later on
the subject of "Help! I’m being held prisoner in a video game!!!"
The biggest of which was "The Matrix."
1999 was a bad year for Warner Bros., and of course, the brass
at the WB wanted to have a sequel to it’s only major hit. So…they
gave producer Joel Silver and the Wachowskis a ton of money and
carte blanche to do whatever they wanted, and as we know, they
did.
What they did was a marketing bonanza. Several video versions of
the first movie, then an animated DVD which claims, and fails, to
explain the plot some more, then a video game which if not played
makes much of the first sequel incomprehensible. Then there’s the
first sequel, now the second sequel. This is almost as bad as
"Star Wars."
But this isn’t ancillary profiteering, this is about the
"Matrix Revolutions," and whether it’s watchable or not. The
answer is yes.
REVOLUTIONS opens with Neo in a sterile train station between
the machine world and the Matrix. He meets Sati (Tanveer Atwal)
and her parents, who tell Neo they are programs waiting for the
Trainman (Bruce Spence). Sati is going to stay with the Oracle
because she’s not part of the system but just there. This leads to
the films only good joke. But we don’t want jokes, and after the
second one, we don’t want philosophy. We just want fight and
chases. We get ‘em.
The fight scenes are for the most part brilliant. Fight
choreographer Yuen Wo Ping and accomplished visual effects
supervisor John Gaeta, are in their element here, and from the
gunfight in the Merovingian’s(Lambert Wilson) coat room to the
climactic battle for Zion, we get a visual treat like no other.
But to do this there must be sacrifice, and the characterizations
have been cut down. There’s no room for character development
anymore. Except for Neo(Keanu Reeves), Morpheus(Laurence Fishburne),
Trinity(Carrie-Anne Moss) and the beloved Agent Smith(Hugo
Weaving), the main characters remain pretty much unknown or
one-dimensional.
It’s a long slog, and one definitely needs to see the other two
movies again
before seeing this, and I’m not sure it’s worth all the effort,
but if you already have spent the bucks, why not?
Is this the end? Clayton Watson, who plays "The Kid," has a
contract in hand for a second trilogy. Oh well.
Eric Lurio
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