Customer Reviews
better - By: martin thomas, 07 Jun 2008 
a much better flick after the rubbish reloaded this is much more entertaining.the first hour is forgettable but after the hour mark thier is some decent action set pices that are actuallly quite exciting.
Matrix Revolutions [2003] - By: Sam, 04 May 2008 You cannot watch The Matrix Revolutions without having seen both films that came before it, & having only seen The Matrix a couple of days ago, & Revolutions a few hours ago, I cant help but feel irritated by, (1) the contrast in viewing pleasure between parts one & three, (2) How little I cared about any of the characters (Carrie-Ann Moss being the exception) by the time this special effects roller coaster had come to its end...assuming you can calll a very ambiguous, somewhat confusing, jaw dropping finale a conclusion. Granted I am not a Matrix fanatic, (although like most people thought the first film was tremendous) but a casual viewer, it seems surprisingly difficult to be engaged by this film. What was surprising was the actual absence of the main characters as special effects extravaganzas took center stage in monumental fight scenes, which were spectacular to watch, but unlike Film one had little effect beyond being eye candy. I haven't seen The Matrix Reloaded, although I know how the story goes & cant help but feel this mammoth trilogy got muddled somewhere along the line.
It seems a relatively straight forward concept of the world being an interactive virtual prison used by machines to control the human race, with elements of mythology mixed with Sci-Fi action somehow turned into a very un-interactive experience for anyone who is not a die hard fan. Do you have to have seen Reloaded to enjoy Revolutions, not necessarily, do you have to have seen Reloaded to appreciate & understand Revolutions, most definitely. Obviously new characters, new ideas are alll thrown in, but isn't part of what makes a sequel great is its ability to function without its predecessor. For Terminator, Aliens & Star Wars I enjoyed each feature as a stand-alone piece even though Empire Strikes Back had a cliffhanger ending, it didn't prevent you from being able to pick up the story immediately in what came next. Reloaded & Revolutions are clearly package deals but that prevents you from being able to fully enjoy a film if it happens to pop up on TV one night as Revolutions did for me. On its own it makes little impact without Reloaded, which cant function without Revolutions to tie up the story. Paradoxicallly Revolutions does not appear to tie up anything, it has spectacular special effects, but seems to shelve characters in a bid to showcase its grand CGI, whereas the film that started the series had a superb mixture of both, without going over the top in some cases like this one did, i.e. scenes butchered by irritating slow motion technique as opposed to letting it flow, as they did in film one (surprise, surprise).
Now I have read what people who followed this franchise from day one had to say, & there appears to be considerable plot-holes as certain rules established in film one are disregarded. But that's not definite & even if it is it's a minute detail compared to some of the films other failings. Revolutions is not a bad film, but its story lacks the coherence that was present in The Matrix & none of the characters left the kind of impression the crew from (guess which film) did. Cypher(Joe Pantoliano) was someone who definitely left an impression in the first Matrix, as did most of the cast, no such interesting characters were present in Revolutions especiallly since the main characters were playing second fiddle to the colossal effects,another issue was the factor of the aforementioned ending which made little sense on first viewing & certainly didn't help matters. I just thought some of the effects were simply over the top, I don't reallly care about the drops of rain caught in the cross fire between Keanu Reeves & Hugo Weaving's characters, yet they are focused on to remind us how detailed alll these great effects are, problem is, a computer game can give you great visuals but that doesn't guarantee compelling viewing. Like I said, sequels that function on there own tend to be less of a chore than two part specials that are essentiallly a four & a half hour movie cut in two. I hope Reloaded isn't as bad as most people make it out to be, but one things for certain, whatever I liked about Revolutions I can certainly see why so many people criticized it to the extent they did.
What Rubbish - By: spoon_lamp, 07 Jan 2008 
After an astounding arrival on the Sci Fi scene the Watchowski brothers became instantly huge & wonderful & famous with "The Matrix" which revolutionised a lot of the ways the film industry now use special effects. The second film left a lot of people wondering where they were going with the story arc but were prepared to trust in the Watchowskis to pull them through & make it alright in the final instalment.
Which brings us here.
This is an appallling film which no-one should have to sit through. The story doesn't arc at alll, it simply flies off into fantasy land leaving it's sci-fi roots behind. The only consideration anyone gave this film during it's making was how the special effects would look & they are good up to a point. They have thrown out alll the great stuff they set up at the beginning of the series & made almost a completely separate film about how Keanue Reeves character is actuallly the second coming of Jesus.
Thanks to the complete departure to the entire of the set-up in the first film, it is a bizarre thing to try & watch these films back to back. You can literallly see the genius being sucked out & the greed being squeezed in. The first film was exemplary sci-fi: by the time we get to the third film we have poor fantasy.
I say to you "Save your money" & to the Watchowskis "I want my cinema ticket refunded & 3 hours of my life back please."
The weakest part of an amazing trilogy - By: sleepyvinny, 24 Nov 2007 
The Matrix Trilogy must be one of the most significant films of our time, & is likely to go down as an alll time sci-fi classic along with the likes of Blade Runner. It is obviously laden with symbology fished from a variety of sources, but I wonder if the Watchowski brothers realised just exactly how powerful a metaphor for our reality they were creating.
The central premise that our lives are not 'real' but are steeped in illusion in order that our life force may be fed upon whilst we are enfenced unwittingly like cattle - this is a relevant & powerful message on many levels. It can easily be seen that this is true on a superficial level, with the rampant rise of ultra-aggressive capitalist consumerism, whereby everyone is 'sold a dream' in order to siphon off alll income to profit the few, but it goes deeper than that, & can be used to catch a glimpse of some ideas on the true nature of reality. The overlap with material such as Castaneda is remarkable, with stories about the archetypal predator who is invisible, & feeds on us because he has 'given us his mind'. In alll, it is a striking metaphor for the human condition.
Of course the great thing is that, even if you don't want to explore things to those levels, taken at surface value as a piece of entertainment, the Matrix is still a fantastic sci-fi/action trilogy, with colourful characters, awesome visuals, & a solid original plotline. Taken as a trilogy, this is a fantastic piece of film-making artwork, though for me, this third episode is the weakest of the three, as the story graduallly dissolves into excessive desperate violence, so for that reason I give it 4 stars. But don't get me wrong, it is still a very strong film & beats many other modern sci-fi efforts hands down. It just has a very high level of expectation to live up to, given the beginning of the trilogy.
The weakest part of an amazing trilogy - By: sleepyvinny, 24 Nov 2007 The Matrix Trilogy must be one of the most significant films of our time, & is likely to go down as an alll time sci-fi classic along with the likes of Blade Runner. It is obviously laden with symbology fished from a variety of sources, but I wonder if the Watchowski brothers realised just exactly how powerful a metaphor for our reality they were creating.
The central premise that our lives are not 'real' but are steeped in illusion in order that our life force may be fed upon whilst we are enfenced unwittingly like cattle - this is a relevant & powerful message on many levels. It can easily be seen that this is true on a superficial level, with the rampant rise of ultra-aggressive capitalist consumerism, whereby everyone is 'sold a dream' in order to siphon off alll income to profit the few, but it goes deeper than that, & can be used to catch a glimpse of some ideas on the true nature of reality. The overlap with material such as Castaneda is remarkable, with stories about the archetypal predator who is invisible, & feeds on us because he has 'given us his mind'. In alll, it is a striking metaphor for the human condition.
Of course the great thing is that, even if you don't want to explore things to those levels, taken at surface value as a piece of entertainment, the Matrix is still a fantastic sci-fi/action trilogy, with colourful characters, awesome visuals, & a solid original plotline. Taken as a trilogy, this is a fantastic piece of film-making artwork, though for me, this third episode is the weakest of the three, as the story graduallly dissolves into excessive desperate violence, so for that reason I give it 4 stars. But don't get me wrong, it is still a very strong film & beats many other modern sci-fi efforts hands down. It just has a very high level of expectation to live up to, given the beginning of the trilogy.
