The Matrix Revolutions

The Matrix Revolutions is a 2003 film and the third and the final installment of The Matrix trilogy. The film is a sequel to 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 the fact that it is the final film in the series, the Matrix storyline continues in The Matrix Online.

The film was the first live-action film to be released in both regular and IMAX movie theaters at the same time. The Wachowskis were present in Tokyo at the opening of the movie, as were stars Jada Pinkett Smith and Keanu Reeves.

Plot
The events of the film immediately follow those of The Matrix Reloaded and assume familiarity therewith.

Bane/Smith and Neo are both in an unconscious state. Both men appear to be asleep, but neural patterns show a Matrix similarity in Bane and true Matrix patterns in Neo. As such, Morpheus starts a search for Neo within the Matrix. Neo is trapped in a subway station named "Mobil Avenue," (Mobil being an anagram of Limbo) a transition zone between the Matrix and the Source (the Machines' mainframe). At this station, Neo meets a 'family' of programs, including a girl named Sati, whose 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 to let him aboard.

Seraph contacts Morpheus on behalf of the Oracle. The Oracle, now bound in a new shell as the previous one was deleted, informs Morpheus and Trinity of Neo's confinement 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, forcing the Merovingian to release Neo.

Troubled by new visions of the Machine City, Neo decides to visit the Oracle. She informs him that as the One, he has developed a wireless connection with the Source. All of Neo's abilities - inside and outside the Matrix - exist because of this connection. She also explains Neo's early frustration at the knowledge of the true prophecy, and that he chose not to be ready to accept the truth. She characterizes Smith, who is also growing in power, as Neo's 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 leaves the Oracle, a large group of "Smiths," who had already assimilated Sati, arrive and assimilate the unresisting Oracle, gaining her powers of precognition.

In the real world, the remaining crew of the Nebuchadnezzar and the Mjolnir 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 does not explain his reasons. Niobe, acting on the Oracle's prophecy for her, gives him the Logos. Trinity accompanies 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. They also come to realise that Bane was the one who fired the EMP that sabotaged the attack but 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 blinds Neo by cauterizing his eyes with a severed power cable. In spite of his blindness, Neo can see Smith inside Bane as a fiery form and kills him. Neo then releases Trinity, who pilots them towards the Machine City. Neo's ability to see artificial intelligence as fiery presences compensates, at least in their vicinity, for his loss of ordinary sight, enabling him to interact with the Machines and their City with as much ability as if he were not blinded.

In Zion, the defenders deploy infantry armed with rocket launchers and Armored Personnel Units (mechanical battle armor equipped with artillery). The dock is invaded by a massive horde of Sentinels and two giant drilling machines. Outnumbered and overwhelmed by the attackers, the APUs are unable to hold the Dock, and their leader Captain Mifune is fatally wounded. With his last breath, Mifune tells Kid, who is refilling his ammunition supply, to open the gate for the Mjolnir. Encouraged by Mifune, Kid opens the gate. When the remaining humans are about to be overwhelmed, the Mjolnir, with more Sentinels in pursuit, 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 retreat to the temple's entrance and wait for the next attack, preparing for what they believe will be their last stand.

Nearing the Machine City, Neo and Trinity are attacked by the city's huge defense machines. Neo uses his power to destroy the incoming bombs, but Sentinels overwhelm the ship. To evade them, Trinity flies the Logos into an electrical storm cloud. Her actions disable the Sentinels, but also disable the ship's engines. Above the cloud layer, Trinity sees a glimpse of sunlight and blue sky for the first time. The ship then free-falls directly toward the Machine City, and despite Trinity's attempts to ignite the engines in time, the ship crashes. The impact of the collision fatally wounds Trinity, and she dies in Neo's embrace.

Neo emerges into the Machine City to strike a bargain with the Machines, personified by the Deus Ex Machina, whom he warns 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 with Zion: the Machines agree, causing all the Sentinels attacking Zion to stand down and wait harmlessly for orders. The Machines provide a connection for Neo to enter the Matrix and confront Smith. In the Matrix, which is now wholly populated by Smith's copies, the clone with the Oracle's powers steps forth, claiming that he has already foreseen his own victory.

The city's population of Smiths stands by and watches while Neo and the Oracle/Smith fight on the streets, through buildings, and in the sky, until they finally brawl in a flooded crater. Neo is eventually outmatched by Smith but refuses to give up the fight. A frustrated Smith continues to attack, but when he suddenly repeats The Oracle's words, "Everything that has a beginning has an end," Neo baits Smith into assimilating him. Smith's assimilation of Neo is seemingly successful, but in the Machine city, Neo's body spasms as a surge of energy enters his body. The Neo-Smith, along with the rest of the clones, then explode and The Matrix and its citizens are restored 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 carried away by the Machines.

The Architect and the Oracle agree to unplug all humans who want to be freed. The closing shot of the film depicts a new dawn created by Sati on the world of the Matrix, which is now free of its characteristic green tint. All is well.

Cast

 * Keanu Reeves as Neo
 * Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus
 * Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity
 * Hugo Weaving as Smith
 * Mary Alice as The Oracle
 * Helmut Bakaitis as The Architect
 * Lambert Wilson as The Merovingian
 * Monica Bellucci as Persephone
 * Collin Chou as Seraph
 * Harry J. Lennix as Commander Lock
 * Harold Perrineau Jr. as Link
 * Jada Pinkett Smith as Niobe
 * Gina Torres as Cas
 * Cornel West as Councillor West
 * Bernard White as Rama-Kandra
 * Anthony Wong as Ghost
 * Anthony Zerbe as Councillor Hamann
 * Nathaniel Lees as Captain Mifune
 * Maurice J. Morgan as Tower Soldier

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.

Production
The movie was filmed concurrently with its predecessor, Reloaded, and live-action sequences for the video game Enter the Matrix. This took place primarily at Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia.

Sound design
Sound editing on The Matrix trilogy was completed by Danetracks in West Hollywood, CA.

Soundtrack
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". 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").

Reception
The budget of the movie is an estimated US$150 million, grossing over $139 million in North America and approximately $427 million worldwide, roughly 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 film received generally unfavorable reviews from critics. Revolutions received a "Rotten" score of 37% on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie review aggregation site (with a score of 28% when filtered to include only professional reviewers). The film's average critic score on Metacritic is 48/100. IMDB users' score of the film garnered a response of 6.5 out of 10.

The Matrix Revolutions grossed $83.8 million within its first five days of being released in North America. The film's opening was not as commercially successful as the opening of its predecessor in the series. Some have attributed this to a more subdued marketing campaign compared to that of The Matrix Reloaded, which was considered a summer blockbuster event.

The film was criticized for being anticlimactic and self-indulgent; one scene featuring the heroes running in front of three giant banners sporting the Powerade logo, a sponsor for The Matrix films. Additionally, critics regard the movie as less philosophically ambiguous than its predecessor, Reloaded. Many critics had difficulty finding closure pertaining to events from Reloaded, and were generally dissatisfied. The film's earnings dropped 66% during the second week after its release to theaters.