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Intro:
On Wednesday I took the day off. I went to get the bus to Inverness and was just giving
up on it arriving when it turned up. I met up with my mate, watched a movie, went to his
and played a bit of Game Cube (Robotech = not bad, Soul Calibre 2 = kicks ass) then got a
lift home. What? Oh, you want to hear about the movie? Okay then...
Review:
***WARNING***
There is almost no way to discuss Revolutions without ruining some of it. Read this
paragraph, look at the score and go see it. Basically the first 20 minutes are kind
of slow, the rest is pretty action packed and the battle for Zion is amazing. Oh, and
Neo isn't a robot in case you read that somewhere. Now go see. The rest of you, who
don’t mind being a little ruined, read on...
***END OF WARNING***
That’s that over then. Okay, quick plot synopsis. Revolutions picks up where we left
off at the end of Reloaded. Humanities plan to use EMP’s to take out the sentinels was
sabotaged. The only survivor, Bane, lies in a coma. Neo, who just took out three
sentinels in the real world with his mind, is also comatose. But his brain patterns
are the same as someone who is jacked in...
Neo’s mind is in a place known as the Train Station. It’s a link between the machine
(real) world and The Matrix and is controlled by the Trainman. The Merovingian controls
the train driver, and he doesn’t like Neo and the rest of the crew of the Neb. Humanity
needs to come up with a new plan to defend Zion, without any hovercrafts but with plenty
of APC’s (giant stompy robots!).
Trinity, Morpheus etc. go to the Oracle to get answers for Neo’s problem, and Colt (I
believe, the Hammer’s captain) has to try and find a way back to Zion so they can put
their EMP to use...
Well, there you have it. Most of the things I said you find out in the first 10 minutes
so nothing is ruined. I’m also breaking with tradition here, as everything will be in
this section. Everyone in this was in Reloaded, more or less, so covering the acting
is pretty pointless.
One important edition is Bruce Spence. He’s the guy who flies the helicopter in Mad Max
2. Someone he’s got even rougher looking, and he plays the Trainman here. He’s done a
few things in the last couple of years, and is following Mouse’s tracks by playing a
minor character in the next Star Wars film.
This is a Matrix film, which means there are important set pieces. One huge chunk of
Revolutions is the battles for Zion, which none of our original heroes are involved
in. It does give Link’s wife and the Kid a purpose though. This is quite possibly the
most intense battle I have seen on screen in my life (not including the sword battles
in Lord of the Rings). The Sentinel attack gives a new meaning to the word ‘Swarm’.
There is a literal sea of them, it’s insane. And you get a real sense of danger.
Remember this is a third movie, so all bets are off. No one has the magic ‘main character’
force field up so anyone can buy it.
Now, some may think this is blasphemy, but Revolutions tops Return of the Jedi. Not
over all, I don’t want to be struck by lighting, but the run through the second Death
Star is nothing. Niobe flies the Hammer through some very tight tunnels, pulling
insane moves that the Falcon should have been pulling, and probably would have if
Han were flying her. After seeing this I wouldn’t be overly surprised if we see a
new CGI version of that run.
There’s another movie that will have to top Revolutions, and it’s not even cast yet.
I read a script review quite a while ago on “Ain’t It Cool” for Superman. The end has
a battle between two Kryptonians (one being Superman, the other being a spoiler if
this turkey of a script is made). They were smashing each other through building and
doing Kung Fu. Guess what? It has now been done, and done well. Smith and Neo fight,
I guess I’m not ruining anything there. And Smith can fly now. It’s in the air and
the hits are very hard. It also contains one of the best uses of bullet time in the
whole movie, which I won’t give away here.
And my final little point. There are some nice little in gags here. Some of the
characters have moves that are associated with them. Not directly, but if you see
the move you think “Neo” or “Trinity”. They make an appearance. Not all of them,
but raisin cookies are back too.
Conclusion:
This is a pointless movie if you haven’t seen Reloaded. It’s also one of the hardest
reviews I’ve ever written as I don’t want to ruin it. If there is sufficient demand
I’ll do a Revolutions Revisited in a couple of weeks and discuss my thoughts on some
of the more spoilerific aspects of the movie. Everything that has a beginning has an
end. You couldn’t really hope for a better ending to the trilogy. Some moments are a
little slow, and one goes on a little longer than it maybe should, but pretty much
everything here works. And the action more than makes up for any slowness. Once you’ve
watched the movie you might think some of it didn’t make sense. Think about it and it
does.
And that’s one of the things I love about the Matrix Trilogy as a whole. It’s thought
provoking. Okay, the Architects speech was verbal masturbation, but apart from that.
It gives you something more to talk about after the film than “wasn’t it cool when the
guy...” or “the ship kicked ass”. Hollywood take note. These films didn’t really aim
low and they made lots of money. STOP DUMBING DOWN!!!
MacGyver Rating: 4 Planets
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