Recent Articles

The Matrix Revolutions

The Matrix Revolutions is the third film in the Matrix trilogy. The film, a combination of philosophy and action like its predecessors, sought to conclude the questions raised in the previous film, The Matrix Reloaded.

The film was written and directed by the Wachowski brothers, who also directed the 1996 film Bound. It was released simultaneously worldwide on November 5th, 2003, the first film to do so. The Wachowski brothers were present in Tokyo at the opening of the movie, as were stars Keanu Reeves and Jada Pinkett Smith.

Revenues

Despite poor reviews and a weaker opening than its predecessor, The Matrix Revolutions broke box-office records for its opening weekend. Its earnings dropped over 70% in the sophomore week which is considered a sign of poor audience satisfaction. The Matrix Revolutions grossed $48.5 million in its first five days of release in the US, $139 million dollars at the US box office altogether and $456 million worldwide. This is roughly half of the The Matrix Reloaded box-office total. The Matrix Revolutions did extremely well in DVD and VHS rentals and sales in April of 2004.

Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

We pick up where The Matrix Reloaded left off, and are treated to a few new characters as the action winds up. Bane, who has been taken over by Agent Smith, is still unconscious after prematurely emitting the EMP blast at the end of the last film, which led to the death of several other ships' crews. Morpheus is noticeably depressed after the destruction of the Nebuchadnezzar. Agent Smith's program is progressively copying itself through more and more people, and threatens not only the entire world of the Matrix, but the real world and the source. And hundreds of thousands of Sentinels are hours away from drilling through Zion's defenses.

Morpheus suspects that Neo is connected to the Matrix in his coma-like state, but a search for Neo in the Matrix shows nothing. Morpheus is not very far off the mark, however; Neo seems to be stuck in a limbo area (Mobil Avenue subway station, Mobil being an anagram for limbo) between the matrix and the "real world". Seraph calls Morpheus and Trinity to attempt to catch the Trainman, who built the Mobil Avenue station, but he eludes them. When the Trainman comes to the station to pick up the "family" of software programs, Neo attempts to escape with them, but is overpowered by the Trainman (who has the power of god the station and train he created). Seraph then takes Morpheus and Trinity to see the Oracle, but neither of them recognize her at first, because she has been forced to change bodies. She despatches them to go find the Merovingian at Club Hel. After a series of obstacles, Trinity forces a gargantuan Mexican standoff and makes the Merovingian, with a gun to his forehead, send the Trainman to release Neo.

Neo returns to the real world, but is troubled by images he's been seeing since waking up in the station, so he goes to see the Oracle one last time. She tells him he "has the Sight" and explains that Agent Smith is his exact opposite, as well as revealing that his special powers in the real world are because he is now connected to the Source ever since seeing the Architect. The conflict between the Architect and the Oracle is one of the former trying to "balance the equation" and the latter trying to "unbalance the equation". (Tellingly, each of them first responds "Please!" exasperatingly when Neo asks one about the other one.) She also reminds him that the war is about to end, one way or another, and that "everything that has a beginning has an end". Shortly after Neo leaves, an army of Agent Smiths arrives and assimilates Sati (the little girl from the station) and Seraph. They then enter the Oracle's apartment and taunt her for a bit, and he implies that she created him. Finally he assimilates her as well, and it seems now that nothing in the Matrix can resist him.

The Mjolnir, aka The Hammer, where most of the main characters are onboard, finds Niobe's ship, the Logos, and helps her to charge it up. At this point, Bane wakes up and pretends to act confused about what happened with the EMP disaster. Soon afterwards, he kills a medical officer and hides her body. Neo spends several hours contemplating the images he's seeing and all he's been told, and finally surfaces to announce that he needs a ship to head to the Machine City, although he can't explain why at the moment. Roland, captain of the Hammer, refuses him, but Niobe lets him take the Logos. Trinity goes with him. Niobe then attempts to fly the Hammer through a nearly unnavigable service tunnel and avoid the Sentinel army. Shortly after the Hammer departs, the dead medical officer is discovered, but Bane can't be found - he must be on-board the Logos; however, because the Logos has it's own EMP pulse weapon, they can't go back for them, for fear of Bane using that again.

Neo and Trinity attempt to depart, but Bane ambushes Trinity before they take off. Neo finds them and fights with Bane, who reveals himself as a manifestation of Agent Smith. Bane manages to blind Neo, cauterizing his eyes with high voltage electrical wires, but Neo is able to see Smith as a gold outline, since Neo is connected to the Source and Smith is from the machine world. Neo kills Bane, and Trinity pilots them towards 01 (the Machine City).

Back at Zion, meanwhile, the entire army is deployed, including human-controlled giant robots with high-gauge weapons (known as APUs), as well as teams of rocket launchers and reloaders for the robots. The drills and Sentinels breach the dock and start to swarm it, using hive strategy to protect the drills and tactically attack the defenders. At the same time, the Hammer accidentally tips itself off to a large Sentinel army in the tunnel system, and is swarmed on the way back to Zion. At the last minute, they arrive at Zion and break through the gates, setting off an EMP and disabling all electronic equipment in the area. While this finishes off the Sentinels, it also does for most of Zion's defenses, and the city is forced to fall back to even more immediate defenses and wait for the next swarm that will almost certainly kill them all.

Nearing 01 Neo and Trinity's path of travel is diverted so as to escape an onslaught of sentinels. Neo is able to destroy many of them with his mind, but they overwhelm even his skills. Neo instructs her to fly above the clouds to shake off the sentinels attached to the ship, a process that (in an echo of the previous scene) shorts out both enemy and allied equipment. The ship's momentum takes it through the artificial clouds and for the first time we are given a glimpse of the sun as it appears in the real world, which Trinity describes as "beautiful". Unfortunately, gravity prevails, and they are not able to restart the ship before it crashes into one of 01's black spires. The impact impales Trinity on metal rods; she gives Neo a three minute and fifty second pep talk and then dies. Grieving yet steadfast, Neo continues on, and strikes a bargain with the Deus Ex Machina, which is evidently in charge. Neo offers to stop Smith (who has by now assimilated everyone in The Matrix) in exchange for peace between machines and humans. The second wave of Sentinels attacking Zion instantly responds by standing down and holding their positions, waiting to hear what happens. The Deus Ex Machina provides a connection to The Matrix, and Neo jacks in.

Neo now has full confidence in his abilities, and faces off against the Smith that is copied over The Oracle. Neo appears to be on the verge of defeat until The Oracle briefly overpowers Smith to deliver a message: "Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo." Neo realizes that Smith hasn't been kidding by saying "It is inevitable" (referring to Neo's death) at least once per movie; now it is Neo's turn to it. He allows Smith to copy himself onto him, which results in the destruction of both, returning all assimilated Matrix denizens to normal.

How or why this happens is never fully explained. One suggestion is that Neo is considered positive and Smith negative; combining them results in a destruction of both. This has precedent: The Oracle describes them as adversaries, matched and somehow linked together; Smith is Neo's opposite, created by The Architect in an attempt to "balance the equation."

Some have argued, however, that there is a more literal explanation: since Neo is 'logged in' through the Deus Ex Machina, when Smith assimilates Neo he inadvertently connects himself to the leader of the Machine World, and it then uses Neo as a conduit to destroy Smith. We see this as a power surge into Neo's real-world body that destroys the Smith layered onto Neo's Matrix body. The rest of the Smiths are likewise sundered. Either way, Smith discovers himself in a Catch-22 situation: by finally beating Neo, Smith himself is destroyed.

The Architect agrees to free the one percent of humans that are capable of accepting the reality outside The Matrix (revealed by The Architect in The Matrix Reloaded). The ending of The Matrix Revolutions is discussed heavily within its large fanbase. The film ends with what some have interpreted as a Matrix "reset", others as a whole new beginning, as a sun rises, programmed by the exile Sati. The hue of the artificial world is no longer a drab green, but a golden red, like the Source itself. Zion is spared and its inhabitants live. The Oracle believes Neo is still alive somewhere, perhaps inside the source, and Neo's real world shell is transported on a metal deathbed to his final resting place, in the bright orange light.

The film goes to credits, not with Rage Against the Machine or any sounds of rebellion, but with a huge choral and orchestral suite emphasizing the mythological elements of the trilogy. Continuing throughout the credits, the mood of the music is heavy, but resolute, and we are reminded: "everything that has a beginning has an end."

The film has many references to Hindu philosophy, to mention in particular, the concept of karma. The issues of free will and determinism are raised. The lyrics of the closing music are based on Sanskrit slokas.

See also

• Matrix series
• The Matrix
• The Matrix Reloaded
• The Animatrix
• Enter the Matrix
• The Matrix Online