Review Detail

Like seemingly everyone else on the planet, I was blown away by The Matrix when it hit theatres in 1999. And, like seemingly everyone else on the planet, I eagerly awaited the the release of the sequels. So highly anticipated were these sequels, that many genre magazines and websites already began predicting that The Matrix Trilogy would be one the greatest trilogies of all time, aside the original Star Wars trilogy. The first trailer looked great, the cast and crew were all back and everything was set to blow us away again. And, then, something happened. I didn’t know what it was at the time but the sequels were a bit … off. I didn’t hate them but they just seemed so much more disposable to me than the original. And, at a time when Lord of the Rings was showing up nearly every other franchise, The Matrix sequels stood out even more. It wasn’t until I watch The Matrix deZIONized that I realized what was wrong with these movies. First off, they don’t work as two separate sequels. Like the later Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, there just isn’t enough story to justify two movies. It was clearly all about money. When the story fails, the Wachowskis turn to psuedo-intellectual nonsense and hollow action scenes to fill out the running time. The second thing that doesn’t work, obviously, is Zion. Zion’s one of those things that fans thought they wanted to see until they saw it. There isn’t a single character in Zion that we remotely care about, so it’s just plain dull spending time with them. And, the end battle means nothing. We just want to get back to the original characters. deZIONized is not without it’s fault’s though. The action scenes still go on too long but I’m not sure much could be done to edit them for continuity and technical reasons. Also, by chopping off Zion we are denied Morpheus’s ending. He simply disappears when Neo and Trinity head to Machine City. Since Morpheus is one of the original characters, it feels wrong denying him any sort of closure. Still, these small criticisms aside, deZIONized brings dignity back to The Matrix sequels and is once again a lesson for Hollywood. I loved it and I don’t see myself revisiting the theatrical cuts again anytime soon (except for the Blu-ray release).

Review by Kolpitz — September 4, 2008 @ 5:39 AM