| about
trismugistus.com
and digital-bondage.net
are my web sites.
trismugistus.com
is where I upload my anime, manga and tv&film reviews,
and also where I occasionally post short stories and longer
works I've written.
digital-bondage.net
is my wallpaper site and provides anime, manga and other
desktop wallpapers in a variety of resolutions. I also
have a few tutorials and some resources, such as psds
for you to download.
I also run a site called scan-city.org,
which provides scans from the latest japanese anime magazines
for you to download and use in your wallpapers.
You can also read my blog here
or check out my anime list here. |
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| the matrix: revolutions
review |
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| details |
| The Genre: Science Fiction |
| The Format: DVD |
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| The plot: Somat or other about Jesus or something.
I dunno, it's not very good. |
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| opinion |
| Oh dear.
Oh dear, oh dear.
Y’know, I’ve had this review sat on
my hard drive as a work in progress for the longest
time. Generally, when I review something, there
are two parts to it. There’s the written review
and there are the pictures.
The pictures I get either from the covers of the
thing I’m reviewing, or I take scans/screen
captures if it’s smaller scale. Normally what
happens is I watch or read what it is I want to
review at least twice, then I write the review and
then I take the pictures.
Occasionally I take the pictures first, but this
normally flags up the fact that I’m going
to struggle to write the review. If I’m not
instantly inspired to write something it’s
kinda like me giving myself some breathing room
- it allows me some time to think about what I’m
going to put. |
The reviews are normally in the ballpark
of 1,000 words and for me, with my rampant
case of verbal diarrhoea, that’s not
a problem. I could write a thousand words
on what I had for breakfast. The only time
I struggle is when something is just so good
I can’t think of anything to say.
Or if it’s so bad I just don’t
know where to start.
The captures for this review have been on
my hard drive since September 2004. In order
to give that some context I’m sat writing
this in June 2005. That’s some 10 months
of gap - nearly a year even.
So is it, you may be wondering, because Matrix
Revolutions is such a great and amazing film
that I couldn’t find enough to say?
Well actually, this review is so non-current
to the release of the film on DVD that I’m
sure you’ve already read loads of reviews
about it. |
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I very much doubt any of them were positive,
and I’m afraid I totally agree with them.
This film is awful.
It’s neither a good ending to the matrix
trilogy, nor is it a very good film overall. It’s
stilted, un-entertaining and just plain boring in
parts. The ending is both predictable and un-satisfying
and the journey to get there is lumpen and slow.
I’m a big fan of the first matrix film. It
was both a visual tour-de-force and the story was,
if not original then very well done. It was entertaining
and fairly intelligent, but it avoided the trap
of becoming pretentious.
I also enjoyed the second film. I mean, nothing
really happened in it, as such, but it was kinda
entertaining in a switch your brain off way.
However, this last film has all of theses failings
and more. It’s visually stunning, yes, but
we’re used to that now- in fact possibly bored
of it. Computer generated imagery is starting to
feel cheap and over-used. |
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The story element is as weak as in the second
film and it reaches an ending that truly disappoints.
It lacks any kind of proper closure and feels like
a complete cop-out. It also came across as being
extremely pretentious.
There are strong undertones of Christ-like messianic
stories, with neo moving further down the path to
god-hood. And Christ-like is truly the word with
the ideas of suffering and sacrifice really hitting
the mix. But not in a good way. The sacrifice seems
almost arbitrary and chucked in simply in order
that they don’t get asked to make a Matrix
4.
Part of the problem is that the bad guy is kinda
unclear in a way. It’s not unclear in that
you do know it’s Agent Smith, who is an anti-Christ
to Neo, but it is unclear in that it used to be
the machines. It used to be the system. The point
of the matrix was that Neo fought the system.
But through the second film and now reaching its
conclusion in this last film, Smith has become bigger
than the system. And it feels like a cheat. Neo
beat the system, but that’s ok cos he’s
good. Smith beat the system, but that’s bad
cos he’s evil.
Nah, I just don’t buy it. It’s a cheat
because they didn’t really have anywhere to
go. Neo had already beaten the system and they could
have done something interesting, but no, instead
they created a bad guy and had Neo fight him.
It could have worked, but I just don’t think
the Wachowski’s are good enough writers. They
just couldn't take things in a sufficiently interesting
direction and so we’ve ended up with a good
guy vs. bad guy type of film. |
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Very disappointing.
The matrix seems to have evolved from existentialist
angst, through pretentious mumbo-jumbo and
finally ended up somewhere in cheesy superhero
territory. Not good.
Well, this rampant diatribe possibly hides
a couple of gems within the film. There were
a few moments I liked - some of the battle
stuff is entertaining, and smith being smith
is always good for a bit of a laugh. There’s
also a nice moment when we see above the choking
fog that enshrouds the world. But these bits
are few and far between.
The bits of cgi are suitably impressive and
certainly there’s a lot of wow factor,
but unfortunately it feels too much like the
old stuff being re-trodden. If there’s
one moment that typifies this it’s the
scene in the bondage club. |
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For some reason or another Trinity, Morpheus
and that martial artsy bloke from the second one
are after the Merovingian guy, who’s hanging
out in a bondage club (as you do). So they need
to shoot their way in, natch and guess what? It’s
all done in slo-mo with impossible, wirework type
stunts going on. Stop me when it sounds familiar.
When they get to him, there’s a bit of the
old chinwag and then a big standoff scene. Again,
stop me if you’ve seen this before.
It looks good, certainly, but we’ve already
been here and done that.
Now, the matrix did introduce me to something I’ve
never encountered before. But it wasn’t anything
to do with the film. The bonus disk was fucked.
I’ve never actually had a disk that’s
fucked before. It just wouldn’t play on my
machine for some reason.
It probably gives you some idea at how much I disliked
this film that I really couldn’t be arsed
to get a replacement. |
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| back
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|
| summary |
| The Summary: Crap |
| The Score: 0/5 |
| The Pictures:
(click for larger versions) |
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