| The Matrix Revolutions | |
|---|---|
Promotional film poster |
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| Directed by | Larry Wachowski Andy Wachowski |
| Produced by | Joel Silver Larry Wachowski Andy Wachowski |
| Written by | Larry Wachowski Andy Wachowski |
| Starring | Keanu Reeves Laurence Fishburne Carrie-Anne Moss Hugo Weaving Monica Bellucci Jada Pinkett Smith |
| Music by | Don Davis |
| Cinematography | Bill Pope |
| Editing by | Zach Staenberg |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Village Roadshow Pictures |
| Release date(s) | North America: November 5, 2003 |
| Running time | 129 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $110,000,000 |
| Gross revenue | $424,988,211 (worldwide) |
| Preceded by | The Animatrix |
The Matrix Revolutions is a 2003 film and the third and final installment in The Matrix trilogy. The film, a combination of philosophy and action like its predecessors, sought to conclude the questions raised in the preceding film, The Matrix Reloaded. The film was written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers. It was released simultaneously in sixty countries on November 5, 2003. Despite being the final film, the Matrix storyline was continued in The Matrix Online.
It was the first live-action film to be released simultaneously in regular and IMAX theatres. The Wachowski Brothers were present in Tokyo at the opening of the movie, as were stars Keanu Reeves and Jada Pinkett Smith.
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The film's events are immediately following those of The Matrix Reloaded and assume familiarity with the story of the last two films.
Bane/Smith and Neo are both in an unconscious state. The former is said to be merely asleep, but neural patterns indicate that Neo is somehow connected to the Matrix. Morpheus, dispirited after the destruction of the Nebuchadnezzar and discovering the true nature of the Prophecy at the end of the last film, starts a search for Neo within the Matrix. Neo is in fact trapped in a subway station named "Mobil Avenue", a transition zone between the Matrix and the Source (the Machine mainframe). At this station, Neo meets a 'family' of programs, including a girl named Sati. Her father tells Neo that Mobil Avenue is controlled by a program called The Trainman who is an exile loyal only to The Merovingian. When Neo tries to board the train with the family, the Trainman refuses, and knocks him away from the train.
Seraph contacts Morpheus on behalf of the Oracle, who informs Morpheus and Trinity of Neo being trapped in Mobil Avenue. Seraph, Morpheus, and Trinity pursue the Trainman to secure Neo's release, but he escapes. The trio enter Club Hel to confront the Merovingian for Neo's freedom. The Merovingian demands "the eyes of the Oracle" in exchange for Neo's release. Trinity loses her patience and provokes a mexican standoff, where everyone is pointing a gun at someone's head, thus forcing the Merovingian to release Neo.
Troubled by new visions of the Machine City, Neo decides to visit the Oracle one last time. She informs him that as the One, he developed a connection with the Source, the machine mainframe which both the Matrix and the Machine world are derived from. All of Neo's abilities - both in and out of the Matrix - exist because of this connection. This is how Neo was able to stop the Sentinels near the end of The Matrix Reloaded, although his lack of preparation resulted in a temporary confinement in Mobil Avenue (notably, "Mobil" is an anagram for "limbo"). She characterizes Smith (who is also growing in power) as his exact "opposite" and his "negative", who threatens to destroy the Machine city as well as the Matrix. She tells Neo cryptically that "everything that has a beginning has an end," and that the war is about to end "one way or another." After Neo takes leave of the Oracle, a large group of Smith clones arrive and successfully assimilate the unresisting Oracle, gaining her powers of precognition.
In the real world, the remaining crew of the Nebuchadnezzar and the Mjolnir (also referred to as "the Hammer") encounter Niobe's deactivated ship, the Logos, and its crew. They successfully reactivate the ship and begin to interrogate the now awakened Bane, who claims he has no memory of the events of the earlier battle. After contemplating his visions, Neo announces that he needs a ship to travel to the Machine City, although he cannot explain why. Niobe, who was told by the Oracle that she would have to make a choice to help Neo or not, lets him take the Logos. Trinity decides to accompany Neo.
The remaining crews plan to return to Zion, and avoid the Sentinel army by allowing Niobe to pilot the Mjolnir through a series of service tunnels, which are nearly impossible to navigate. Shortly after departure, they discover that Bane has murdered a crew member and has hidden aboard the Logos. However, they are unable to warn Trinity and Neo. Before the Logos can depart, Bane ambushes Trinity and takes her hostage. Neo fights Bane, who reveals himself to be a manifestation of Smith. During the struggle, Bane manages to blind Neo by cauterizing his eyes with a severed electric cable. In spite of his blindness, however, Neo can see Smith inside Bane as a fiery form, and kills Bane. Neo releases Trinity, who pilots them towards the Machine City.
In Zion, the defenders deploy infantry armed with rocket launchers and Armored Personnel Units in order to protect the dock from the incoming assault. The dock is invaded by a massive horde of Sentinels as well as two giant drilling machines. The APUs fail to keep the Dock, with their leader Captain Mifune fatally wounded. With his last breath, Mifune tells Kid, who was refilling his ammunition supply at the time, to open the gate for the Mjolnir. Encouraged by Mifune, Kid gains the courage to fight and open the gate. Just as the remaining humans are about to be overwhelmed, the Mjolnir, with more Sentinels at tow, arrives at Zion and sets off an EMP that disables all the Sentinels as well as the remainder of Zion's defenses. The humans are forced to fall back to the temple entrance and wait for the next swarm.
Nearing the Machine City, Neo and Trinity are attacked. Neo uses his power to destroy the incoming bombs, but Sentinels overwhelm the ship. To evade them, Trinity flies the Logos up into an electrical storm cloud. This manages to disable the Sentinels, but also disables the ship's engines. Above the cloud layer, Trinity gets a glimpse of real sunlight and blue sky. The ship then free-falls directly toward the Machine City, and despite Trinity's attempts to ignite the engines, the ship crashes. The impact of the collision fatally wounds Trinity, and she dies in Neo's arms.
Neo emerges into the Machine City to strike a bargain with the machines, personified by the Deus Ex Machina. Neo warns the machines that Smith (who has by now assimilated every human and program within the Matrix) is beyond the machines' control, and will soon assault the Source. He offers to help stop Smith in exchange for a ceasefire on Zion. The machines provide a connection for Neo to enter the Matrix and confront Smith. The world is now wholly populated by Smith copies - the clone with the Oracle's powers steps forth, claiming he has already foreseen his own victory.
The city's population of Smiths stands by and watches while Neo and Smith square off. Fighting on the streets, through buildings and into the sky, they finally brawl in a flooded crater. Neo is eventually outmatched by Smith but refuses to give up the fight, and a frustrated Smith continues his attack until Neo is too badly hurt to go on. Smith announces "everything that has a beginning has an end." Hearing the Oracle's parting advice again, Neo baits the scared Smith into assimilating him. Neo's final words to Smith are, "It was inevitable," quoting Smith's oft-spoken admonition.
Smith's assimilation of Neo is seemingly successful, and when the Oracle-Smith asks Neo-Smith whether it is over, he receives a nod and smile as reply. Back in the Machine city, Neo's body spasms as a surge of energy enters his body through the Matrix connection. Starting with the Neo copy of Smith, a white light begins to rip the clones apart from the inside out, similar to the destruction of Agent Smith at the end of The Matrix.
With the elimination of the Smiths, all the programs and humans that were possessed return to normal, including the Oracle. The Sentinels that are about to attack withdraw from Zion. Neo, having sacrificed himself to save both the Machines and humans, is unplugged from the Matrix and his body is respectfully carried away by the Machines.
The Architect, upon meeting the Oracle, tells her that she "played a very dangerous game" by attempting to change the way the Matrix functioned. The Oracle responds by saying that she understood the risk and knew it was worth taking. The two reach an agreement to unplug any humans who want to be freed. The closing shot of the film depicts a new dawn on the world of the Matrix, free of green tint, created by Sati.
Actress Gloria Foster, who played the Oracle in the first two films, died before the completion of her filming for the third and was replaced by actress Mary Alice. Her changed appearance is addressed in the movie's plot, and the directors state they had coincidentally explored such a change early in the script's development.
The movie was filmed concurrently with its predecessor, Reloaded, and live-action sequences for the videogame Enter the Matrix. This took place primarily at Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia.
Sound editing on The Matrix trilogy was completed by Danetracks in West Hollywood, CA.
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. It is also the only of the three films not to include music by the political, and aptly named for the series, band Rage Against the Machine.
Although Davis rarely focuses 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 teahouse fight between Neo and Seraph opens "Tetsujin", as Seraph, Trinity and Morpheus fight off Club Hel's three doormen.
The climactic battle theme, named "Neodämmerung" (in reference to Wagner's Götterdämmerung), features a choir singing extracts (shlokas) from the Upanishads. The chorus can be roughly translated from Sanskrit as follows: "lead us from untruth to truth, lead us from darkness to light, lead us from death to immortality, peace peace peace" [1]. The extracts were brought to Davis by the Wachowski brothers when he informed them that it would be wasteful for such a large choir to be singing simple "ooh"s and "aah"s (according to the DVD commentary, Davis felt that the dramatic impact of the piece would be lost if the choir was to sing 'This is the one, see what he can do' in plain English). These extracts return in the denouement of the movie, and in Navras, the track that plays over the closing credits (which may be considered a loose remix of "Neodämmerung").
The budget of the movie was an estimated US$110 million, grossing over $139 million in the United States and approximately $425 million worldwide,[2] roughly only half of The Matrix Reloaded box-office total. The Matrix Revolutions was released on DVD and VHS on April 6, 2004. The film grossed $116 million in DVD sales.
The movie was met with generally poor-to-mixed reviews from critics. Revolutions scored only 37% on movie review aggregation site RottenTomatoes (28% when filtered to include only professional reviewers).[3] Metacritic's average critic score was 48/100.[4]
The Matrix Revolutions grossed $83.8 million in its first five days of release in the U.S.[5] It had a weaker opening than its predecessor that some have attributed to a more subdued marketing campaign in comparison to the summer blockbuster event, The Matrix Reloaded.
Praise of the movie generally focused on the strength of the movie's action sequences and special effects.[6][7] Some considered it "a better movie" than The Matrix Reloaded,[8] which some said "raises the bar a notch or two" since the original movie, The Matrix.[9]
Common criticisms of the film were that it was anticlimactic[10][11] and self-indulgent; in one scene, the heroes run in front of three giant banners sporting the Powerade logo, a sponsor of the films.[12] Nevertheless, critics regard the movie as less philosophically obtuse than its predecessor, Reloaded.[13][14] Many critics had difficulty finding closure pertaining to events from Reloaded, and were generally dissatisfied.[15][16] Its earnings dropped 66% in its second week.[5]
The films were received in high praise of its conceptual complexity by some scholars and philosophers, as seen in the video The Roots of the Matrix. Philosopher Ken Wilber stated that The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions had expanded on the "simple dualism" of the first film — The Matrix — thus transforming the trilogy into a piece of "complex literature" with the second two installments of the trilogy.
| Preceded by Scary Movie 3 |
Box office number-one films of 2003 (USA) November 9, 2003 |
Succeeded by Elf |
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