Matrix Revolutions Decoded, The

I love the first Matrix film. To me, it's one of the best sci-fi films ever made. It somehow managed to be thought-provoking while also being edgy, cool, and sexy (with truly exceptional cinematography). Unfortunately, the next two films were bloated, dragged in certain moments, were over-saturated in bad CGI, and had an over-usage of exposition; the action scenes, despite the bad CGI, were still mostly ace though (I have no idea why in the hell most faneditors are seemingly hell bent in removing the Burly Brawl! I mean, shorten it and remove the shots of bad CGI? Sure. But outright removal?! It reintroduces Smith and his new abilities! It makes no goddamn narrative sense to remove it!).

This edit mostly fixed the said problems I mentioned (thank you so much for the removing that stupid rave sequence), while mostly keeping intact the action sequences ( I really cared about the Burly Brawl and the Highway Chase Sequence, both of which were done well). However, the fanedit does end up being overly ambitious in certain moments. The editing with the Oracle near the end was a bit wonky, and how Neo was portrayed in losing his eyes was iffy (it honestly didn't make sense that Trinity didn't help Neo in guiding him to the Deus Ex Machina baby-face thing in the end). The only other edit I straight up didn't like was in the beginning of the Reloaded segment: because you took out his flight to the Oracle after fighting the 3 Agents, it seemed a little goofy that he randomly shoots into the sky and then the film immediately cuts to the ship reaching Zion. That just seemed....awkward. Also, the sudden disappearance of the Key Maker seemed a bit....odd.

But it must be said: despite these flaws, in theory these ideas were fantastic. Narratively speaking, everything was surprisingly consistent, and made me realize just how unnecessary it was in telling this story in 2 separate films. This made me forgive the shortcomings of the fanedit for the most part, which is why I'd say it's worth at least a single viewing.

I consider this to be a pretty brave fan edit, making major narrative changes to the Matrix sequels in the construction of this narrative. Gone are some of the obvious scenes, like the Persephone kiss, but other significant elements are missing. Gloria Foster does not appear as The Oracle. Neo doesn't fight Smith in the hallway to the Architect. There's no Bane. The way that Jerick handles Trinity and Neo's conclusion is curious, and at times I miss their ending in the theatrical cut, but at others I can buy Jerick's intent. The deciding factor that makes this edit my go-to follow-up to the original Matrix, amongst all its other accomplishments, is its implementation of the rave scene.

The first Matrix was an actual experience. It made cinema history and for good reason. I remember seeing it for the first time like it was yesterday. And I'm really happy that it was also a complete film, no cliffhangers, no wink wink for sequels. Unfortunately this wasn't the case for the two, now three, sequels. The first sequel was just one big, cgi-fest filler, with constant action and very little substance and the second one was just a flat out disappointment. But I was ok with it because I could just watch the first one and ignore that the sequels were ever made. The last few days I delved deep into fanedits, searching high and low for any movie that I wished was good but it wasn't, or perfected and I stumbled into this. And I thought, why not give it a shot!

Technical wise, although this is heavily edited as you can tell from the new runtime, it was pretty great! The only scenes where you could tell something has been tampered with, was the third act. But still, it doesn't retract from the narrative or confuse the viewer, you just "feel" something is cut out. But still, I don't think anything better could be done, since we needed so many changes for it to make it work. So job well done here!!

On the narrative side, I can safely say that the editor saved the films for me. I mean, if I want to have a closure for the Matrix in future rewatch, this is the way to go! My only issue is that, since this fanedit was released in 2016 so the editor knows how painfully outdated the cgi is, he could trim the bad cgi from action sequences. Which actually brings me to my next negative point, that now there is again too much action. 3-4 action sequences one longer than the other. So if you trimmed the bad cgi from the action sequences, you could kill two birds with one stone, reduce bad cgi aaand trim down the too long action sequences.

So I definitely recommend this to anyone who didn't like the sequels! I mean, if you don't like this fanedit, then the sequels are not salvageable for you in any way.

Thank you Jerick and thanks to anyone who read my review!

Recently I decided to rewatch The Matrix and so obviously after that, I wanted to watch Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions but the person I was watching it with wasn't that interested so we compromised and watched The Matrix Revolutions Decoded and it was perfect! It told the story of both of the movies without the all the confusing convoluted-ness that the sequels are rife with.

My favorite change was the shortening of the incredibly long car chase. It actually made it really fun. My biggest problem was the removal of the train station sequences. I feel like those were a little too important to cut.

Decoded by Jerick is the best of the edits I've seen. It keeps enough of the Zion footage to keep the story coherent. It makes some fairly radical story changes at the end. I liked them, but everyone may not. I loved the idea of moving the Zion rave/orgy scene from the first act of the first sequel to the credits scene! That was brilliant and felt very organic. I thought some of the edits and changes in the very end (to hide Neo's blindness, to change Trinity's fate, etc) felt a tiny bit clunky. But still, it ended up much, much tighter than the source material.
I just really enjoyed this edit and think that every Matrix fan should give it a watch.