View From the Bushes

As I've mentioned over the last couple of days, I went and saw Matrix Revolutions today. Just before I went, I checked Rotten Tomatoes. It's nice to see that on the day of the movie that they had finally managed to assemble a decent number of reviews (38% positive). Looking over them, I saw that Peter Travers of Rolling Stone was quoted as saying "The Matrix Revolutions sucks." Now, generally I find that my tastes in movies closely mirrors his, so I was worried.

But, of course, what you're really interested in is what I thought of it (maybe interest is the wrong word, perhaps morbid fascination is closer). I'll start with what was good. Revolutions was better than Reloaded. The action while somewhat clichéd at times, but still kept me on the edge of my seat (especially the Zion battle scene). It wrapped everything with reasonable neatness, and it managed to find an excuse to bring back my favorite character, the Merovingian. The final fight in the rain between Neo and Agent Smith was very cool (though if you put an Orff style choral score behind it, I'll like anything).

Now the bad: Certain scenes did not advance the plot enough to justify their length. There were technology conflicts which cannot be reasonably explained away. (If EMP's are so outrageously effective why aren't they everywhere? Though to be fair, at least they appeared aware of this and took some pains to explain it). Several characters were demonized for no reason. They tried to get away with too much with their CGI (there's a punch in the final fight which was obviously created whole cloth). On the balance, I enjoyed it more than 2 but less than 1. I can definitely recommend seeing it as a matinee.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross