Latest “Matrix” Disappoints
Sorry: Today we’re headed for the lighter side. Or maybe I just want to show the broad intellectual and cultural scope of which this site is capable, to include film reviews.
The third and final entry in the “Matrix” triology, “The Matrix Revolutions,” opens world-wide on Wednesday (5 November), but reviewers from Variety and Reuters have already been able to see it, according to this article in the Danish daily Politiken (“Hard Handling of Matrix”). Their message? Don’t get your hopes up.
Yes, Trinity and Neo have applied a little Armor-All to their shiny black leather outfits and are ready to don the latest in ultra-cool Ray-ban sunglasses and go save humanity from a world governed by computers. (Note: I haven’t seen any of the Matrix movies, and I don’t intend to; I got this “governed by computers” information from the article.) But this time their efforts fall flat, although still slightly more entertaining than part 2, “Matrix Reloaded.” But you would expect at least that, when you bear in mind that “Revolutions” is, after all, supposed to be the big capstone, depicting the end of the grand “Matrix” story – although Douglas Adams, for one, didn’t allow his works’ scope to be circumscribed by something as trivial as the “tri” in “trilogy.” And you can expect that such linguistic considerations will be no more successful in preventing further installments of the mega-money-making “Matrix” formula.
As for this one, writes the Reuters reviewer, “Rather than finishing with a bang or with a whimper, the final installment ends up somewhere in-between.” Variety adds, “Now it is easy to see that much of what was fascinating in the original ‘Matrix’ – apart from the elegant action and sensitivity for trends – was all the information that was held back. What the converted once saw as profound is now put forth as something feeble (“flimrende“) and conventional, to the point that the whole trilogy has no more complex or fascinating an effect than ‘Star Trek’.”
But both reviewers could also agree that “The Matrix Revolutions” was nonetheless certain to make Warner Brothers and the brothers Wachowski (the producers behind the “Matrix” series) a whole lot of money.
