Matrix Revolutions Decoded, The

OK! So, I absolutely love the first Matrix. A great tale that merges eastern religion (zen Buddhism, mostly, but a little Hinduism for good measure), philosophy (what is real and how can we tell), and cyberpunk mentality (conspiracies and those in power trying to keep the truth hidden) into a really fun action movie that actually gave you more to talk about than some dramas... even with Kenau Reeves' cardboard performance.

Then enter the second and *shudder* third movies and all that was gone... I never understood how to utterly craptastic movies could follow such gold. Well, that's a lie. I actually never saw the abortion that was Revolutions... Reloaded was so bad I swore off the entire atrocity. After a friend told me it was the worst, I never felt compelled to try again.

Well, this edit upends ....some... of that criticism. In fact, cutting down Reloaded actually let me see the serious philosophy that had gotten hidden beneath the crap (free will vs determinism) and I found I really liked the first half of this edit. Everything moved smoothly, and I didn't feel like I was missing anything (even though I kinda remembered scenes that weren't there, I didn't miss them). I was totally pumped at this point and seriously thinking that this may be the best fanedit I had seen.

Then we got to the Revolutions half, and everything fell apart. Suddenly there was just a lot of action, and I was lost. When Trinity and co get picked up by the other ship, I thought that was the only ship left and Zion had already fallen (remember I hadn't seen the original of this one) especially because of the captain's description of things. Then the two groups split and I find out they are going to Zion because its almost time for the final battle? And then Neo is blind? There was so much WTF going on I actually backed the movie up and watched about 30 minutes of it again and was still confused. Again, I felt like this was the original movie's fault as much as the editor, as I was still kinda confused as to what was happening after reading the Wikipedia summaries later.

Kudos to the editor for keeping Trinity alive... I almost bought it, but something about the sequence felt weird enough that I had to pause the movie and look up a synopsis on Wikipedia to learn that she was supposed to die. Armed with that knowledge, the rest of the movie was well done with respect to her, and it all felt plausible. Jerrick, you are a great editor, because it all seemed very believable that she survived the crash, and the footage you used for her at the end (even cheering for him during the final fight!) was epic. Loved it. A little weird right at the crash, but that could have been my general confusion at this point.

My final point is also probably with the original material, not the edit, as the plot summaries are confusing on this plot point. I have no idea why the baby-faced machine god needed Neo's help with Smith to begin with. If you get a computer virus in the real world (which is exactly what Smith was behaving like), you disconnect the infected computer from the network so it can't spread and re-install a clean OS, not have a DBZ style fight in the rain. I mean crap. You were about to rewrite the Matrix anyway! He is software. Turn off the computer he inhabits and he's done! In what way does flying around in the rain punching faces fix it? And what makes it different when Neo is absorbed that kills them all? What a crappy finish.

The one bit of editing that I really disliked (and not knowing the original material, it may still be better than it originally was :D) was the scene with the Oracle and Smith? WTF? How did they find her? Why was that sequence so obviously copy-pasted together? Where was that bodyguard of hers? It felt like something was obviously trying to be smoothed over or fixed, but I actually didn't see the relevance of the scene anyway.

All in all, this edit was about as good as could be hoped for given the source material, but some things can't be taken away. Jerrick does an amazing job of fixing what can be fixed, unfortunately glitter on poo doesn't actually make poo any better to look at. And despite all the failings of the story, I have to say that I still recommend this edit, because it is light years better than what we had before, and if you have to acknowledge that the trilogy exists, this is probably still the best way to watch it.

Edit: I realized that I must have moused over the ratings at some point before I submitted the review. I Also reworded a few things to make it clearer that it was the source material and not the editor that I took objection to. Thanks!