Categories: 2003 films | Apocalyptic science fiction films | Matrix series | Post-apocalyptic science fiction films

The Matrix Revolutions

The Matrix Revolutions is the third film in the Matrix trilogy. The film, a combination of philosophy and action like its predecessors, sought to conclude the questions raised in the previous film, The Matrix Reloaded.

The film was written and directed by the Wachowski brothers, who also directed the 1996 film Bound. It was released simultaneously worldwide on November 5th, 2003, and was the first film to debut in this manner. It was also the first film to be released simultaneously in regular and IMAX theaters. The Wachowski brothers were present in Tokyo at the opening of the movie, as were stars Keanu Reeves and Jada Pinkett Smith.

Contents

Revenues

Despite poor reviews and a weaker opening than its predecessor, The Matrix Revolutions broke box-office records for its opening weekend. Its earnings dropped over 70% in the sophomore week which is considered a sign of poor audience satisfaction. The Matrix Revolutions grossed $48.5 million in its first five days of release in the US, $139 million dollars at the US box office altogether and $456 million worldwide. This is roughly half of the The Matrix Reloaded box-office total. The Matrix Revolutions did extremely well in DVD and VHS rentals and sales in April of 2004.

Plot

We pick up where The Matrix Reloaded left off, and are treated to a few new characters as the action winds up. Bane, who has been taken over by Agent Smith, is still unconscious after triggering the EMP blast at the end of the last film, which led to the loss of most of Zion's hovercraft fleet. Morpheus is noticeably depressed after the destruction of the Nebuchadnezzar. Agent Smith's program is progressively copying itself through more and more people, and threatens not only the entire world of the Matrix, but the real world and the Source. And hundreds of thousands of Sentinels are hours away from drilling through Zion's defenses.

Morpheus suspects that Neo is connected to the Matrix in his coma-like state, but a search for Neo in the Matrix shows nothing. Morpheus is not very far off the mark, however; Neo seems to be stuck in a limbo area (Mobil Avenue subway station, Mobil being an anagram for limbo) between the Matrix and the "real world." At the station, Neo engages in a conversation with a "family" of software programs, who tell him about The Architect, the Trainman (builder and operator of the station), and why bad things happen to good programs.

Meanwhile, Seraph - "guardian angel" of the Oracle - attempts to contact Morpheus and Trinity, in order to guide them to said Mobil Avenue Station. When the Trainman comes to the station to pick up the family of software programs, Neo attempts to escape with them, but is overpowered by the Trainman (who, as the creator of the train and station, wields ultimate power over it). Seraph then takes Morpheus and Trinity to see the Oracle, but neither of them recognize her at first, because she has been forced to change bodies (the actress who originally played the Oracle passed away before filming on Revolutions began). She explains where Neo is and further divulges that the man who holds the Trainman's reins is none other than the Merovingian. The three travel to Club Hel, where the Merovingian is currently hiding out, and, after a series of obstacles, Trinity forces a gargantuan Mexican standoff and gets the Merovingian to make the Trainman release Neo.

Neo, though free to return to the real world, is troubled by images he's been seeing since waking up in the station. He goes to see the Oracle one last time. She tells him he "has the Sight" and explains that Agent Smith is his exact opposite, as well as revealing that he has control over real-world machines because his powers are connected to the Source. The conflict between the Architect and the Oracle is one of the former trying to "balance the equation" and the latter trying to "unbalance the equation." (Tellingly, each of them ejects an exasperated "Please!" when Neo asks them about the other.) She also reminds him that the war is about to end, one way or another, and that "everything that has a beginning has an end." Shortly after Neo leaves, an army of Agent Smiths arrives and assimilates Sati (the young daughter of the "software family" at the subway station) and (evidently) Seraph. They then enter the Oracle's apartment and taunt her for a bit, and the lead Smith implies that she created him. Finally he assimilates her as well, and it seems now that nothing in the Matrix can resist him.

The ship that rescued the Nebuchadnezzar's crew (the Mjolnir, though it's called the Hammer at all times) now finds Niobe's ship, the Logos, and helps her to charge it up. At this point, Bane wakes up, apparently confused about what happened with the EMP disaster. His confusion soon proves to be a ruse when, shortly after awakening, he murders the medical officer and hides her body. Neo spends several hours contemplating the images he's seeing and all he's been told, and finally surfaces to announce that he needs a ship to head to the Machine City, although he can't explain why at the moment. Roland, the Hammer's captain, refuses him, but Niobe lets him take the Logos. Trinity goes with him. Niobe then attempts to fly the Hammer through a nearly unnavigable service tunnel and avoid the Sentinel army. Shortly after the Hammer departs, the dead medical officer is discovered, but Bane can't be found - he must be on-board the Logos. But, despite the danger he presents to Neo and Trinity, they can't go back to help: the Logos has its own EMP pulse weapon, which Bane has already used to cripple hovercraft. The only safe course is to continue on towards Zion.

Neo and Trinity attempt to depart, but Bane ambushes Trinity before they take off. Neo finds them and fights with Bane, who reveals himself - rather obviously - as a manifestation of Agent Smith. After a lengthy battle (during which Trinity is knocked into a cellar-type room and locked in), Bane/Smith blinds Neo by cauterizing his eyes with high voltage electrical wires. But since Neo is "connected to the Source and Smith is from the machine world, Neo can still see him. Neo kills Bane/Smith and releases Trinity, who pilots them towards the Machine City (presumably 01).

Back at Zion, meanwhile, the entire army is deployed: 130 APUs, human-controlled giant robots with high-gauge weapons, and support personnel with ammunition resupply; and two-man infantry crews, one armed with a rocket launcher and the other (again) carrying the ammo. The drills and Sentinels breach the dock and start to swarm it, using hive strategy to protect the drills and wipe out defenders. At the same time, the Hammer accidentally tips itself off to a large Sentinel army in the tunnel system, and is swarmed on the way back to Zion. At the last minute, they arrive at Zion and break through the gates, setting off an EMP and disabling all electronic equipment in the area. While this finishes off the Sentinels, it also disables most of Zion's defenses (though, arguably, there wasn't much to save by the end of the battle anyway). The humans are forced to fall back to even more immediate defenses and wait for the next swarm that will almost certainly kill them all.

Nearing the Machine City, Neo and Trinity are attacked by the city's defenses: Sentinels, supplemented by cannons which shoot bombs of the type used on the Neb and the Vigilant in the previous movie. Neo is able to destroy the bombs with his powers, but the Sentinels are too much for him. He tells Trinity to fly the ship above the clouds, a process that (in an echo of the previous scene) shorts out both enemy and allied hardware--first the Sentinels, and then the glowing pods that keep the Logos hovering. The ship's momentum takes it through the artificial clouds and for the first time we are given a glimpse of the sun as it appears in the real world (Trinity: "Beautiful.") Unfortunately, gravity prevails, and they are not able to restart the ship before it crashes into one of 01's black spires. The impact drives metal rods through Trinity's body; she gives Neo a three-minute-fifty-second pep talk and then dies. Grieving yet steadfast, Neo continues on, and strikes a bargain with the Deus Ex Machina, which is evidently in charge. Neo offers to stop Smith (who has by now assimilated everyone in The Matrix) in exchange for peace between machines and humans. The second wave of Sentinels attacking Zion instantly responds by standing down and holding their positions, waiting to hear what happens. The Deus Ex Machina provides a connection to The Matrix, and Neo jacks in.

Neo faces off against the Smith that is copied over The Oracle. Neo appears to be on the verge of defeat until The Oracle briefly overpowers Smith to deliver a message: "Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo." Neo realizes that Smith hasn't been kidding by referring to Neo's death by saying "It is inevitable" at least once per movie; now it is Neo's turn to say it. He allows Smith to copy himself onto him, which results in the destruction of both and returns all assimilated Matrix denizens to normal.

How or why Smith is destroyed is never fully explained. One suggestion is that Neo is considered positive and Smith negative; combining them results in a destruction of both. This has precedent: The Oracle describes them as adversaries, matched and somehow linked together; Smith is Neo's opposite, created by The Architect in an attempt to "balance the equation." In destroying his opposite, Smith has destroyed the reason for his existence. Others believe a more literal explanation: since Neo is 'logged in' through the Deus Ex Machina, when Smith assimilates Neo he inadvertently connects himself to the leader of the Machine World, and it then uses Neo as a conduit to destroy Smith. We see this as a power surge into Neo's real-world body that destroys the Smith layered onto Neo's Matrix body and then spreads to the other Smiths. Either way, Smith discovers himself in a Catch-22: by finally beating Neo, Smith himself is destroyed.

The Architect agrees to free the one percent of humans that are capable of accepting the reality outside The Matrix (revealed by The Architect in The Matrix Reloaded). The ending of The Matrix Revolutions is discussed heavily within its large fanbase. The film ends with what some have interpreted as a Matrix "reset", others as a whole new beginning, as a sun rises, supposedly programmed by the exile program-girl Sati. The hue of the artificial world is no longer a drab green, but a golden red, like the Source itself. Zion is spared and its inhabitants live. There is peace between Human and Machine, that is made clear; and some of the characters are even alive (though Neo's unmoving body must be carted off by machine). The rest remains in shadow. But since in-development MMORPG The Matrix Online is a direct sequel to the movie trilogy, taking place in the situation Neo's efforts leave behind, answers are hopefully forthcoming.

The film goes to credits, not with Rage Against the Machine or any sounds of rebellion, but with a huge choral and orchestral suite emphasizing the mythological elements of the trilogy (Literally titled 'Navras'). Continuing throughout the credits, the mood of the music is heavy, but resolute, and we are reminded: "everything that has a beginning has an end." The Oracle suspects that Neo will return again because this new harmony, like all things, will imbalance.

The film has many references to Hindu philosophy, to mention in particular, the concept of karma. The issues of free will and determinism are raised. The lyrics of the closing music are based on Sanskrit slokas .

Soundtrack

In contrast to the movie's predecessors, very few "source" tracks are used in the movie. Aside from Don Davis' score, again collaborating with Juno Reactor, only one external track (by Pale 3 ) is used.

Although Davis rarely focusses on strong melodies, familiar leitmotifs from earlier in the series reappear. For example, Neo and Trinity's love theme- which briefly surfaces in the two preceding movies- is finally fully expanded into Trinity Definitely; the theme from the Zion docks in Reloaded returns as Men in Metal, and the energetic drumming from the Reloaded tea house fight opens Tetsujin.

The climactic battle theme, named Neodämmerung (in reference to Wagner's Gotterdämmerung), features a choir singing extracts from the Upanishads. These were brought to Davis by the Watchowski Brothers when he informed them that it would be wasteful for such a large choir to be singing simple "ooh"s and "aaah"s. These extracts return in the denuement of the movie, and in Navras, the track which plays over the closing credits (which may be considered a loose remix of Neodämmerung).

External links

Official site for the series
The Many Meanings of The Matrix, Larry Wachowski in a dialogue with Ken Wilber.
Lyrics to Neodammerung, including translation

Categories: 2003 films | Apocalyptic science fiction films | Matrix series | Post-apocalyptic science fiction films