Hmmm... I just watched it again. But I did something this time that was different. I watched it DIRECTLY after seeing Reloaded. The film instantly works better. Even Reloaded was better after seeing Revolutions because things now made sense, almost in a crazy way as if now you're seeing what the Oracle has seen. You know what will happen, so all these little hints and nuances in the film become clearer. So the 3rd film definitely improved the 2nd film. But watching the 3rd film worked better for me this time around only becuase I saw the second 10 minutes before! These films MUST be watched one after the other. Not the 1st film, but 2 and 3. They're the same movie. And when you watch it like that, then the whole mess has an actual beggining, middle, and end. Its finally cohesive.
So what I was basically saying that the film was empty, still holds true if you watch it as a seperate movie, but when you watch it directly after 2, they merge to form one film. Thus making the experience better IMHO.
I've also now have mixed feelings about the end. At the beggining as you saw, I was totally against it, hated it. But now... I dunno... I understood more. Yeah, its still a Jesus trilogy, that being obvious from the first movie. But it is a rather honest and almost noble ending if you think about it. This guy gets pulled out of his happy life to find out that it was all a lie, he then goes thru hell getting out of it, gets spoon fed this concept that he will save humanity and is the savior, he dies, comes back, starts believing in himself, finally gets together with his new identity only for that to be once again shot down, once again findoing out his 2nd life was nothing but a BS lie. Now he doesen't know who the hell he is, what is happening to him, finding out all he is fighting for is about to get destroyed, he suddenly goes blind, and loses his girl twice. Half of that would have probaly forced a normal guy to put a 9 cal. bullet firmly into their brain. But this guy, in the end a normal guy decides to still do the right thing and go to the heart of his enemy and try to form a peace.
I guess he realised there could never have been a total victory, he even found out that the machines weren't all evil. They were just pushed too far and were forced to do whats necessary in order to survive. Just like humans. So the only way in order to stop this whole thing was to call a truce. Which would never had happened if Smith wouldn't have posed a risk to the machine world.
BUT. Watching Revolutions again I still think that not all humans were set free from the matrix. Having the conversation still fresh in my mind the oracle asked "What about the others?"
"What others?" The architech asked.
"The ones that want out..."
"Obviously they will be freed."
So its still seems she only talking about a few people that know of the reality of the matrix.
And it seemed like Neo probably didn't die yet. Something happened, because of the way the machines carried his body away. I doubt its because of reverence, but more likely because there was something still going on inside him. As you could see in Neo-Vision he was glowing as the trucked him off.
So its still not a definitive ending to the whole story, but it is in an odd way as well. The war in the end "might" be then over... Ok... I said it. But I mean as in the "hatred and vehemence" between machines and humans. Neo discovered that machines can love and machines discovered that humans are trustworthy and not all bad.
I heavent "seen" the light for this movie, its still not by a long shot better than the first, but you can say that I've seen it in a new light. There is in the end more to this film than what meets the eye. But only because its the 2nd half of Reloaded. It can't be a independent film. I can't stress that enough. Because alone, it sucks bad. But if it would even be edited so that 2 and 3 would be one 4 hour movie, that would be good. All the philosophical stuff would be talked about in the first half of the film while the 2nd half would in the end reward the viewer and let their minds rest for at bit while Zion is attacked, then again after that they can once again think about stuff when Neo's story continues.
I have to say I was too drastic in my earlier comments perhaps without considering this as only part of a film. So as a the 2nd half of reloaded it was good. I would think it a good idea perhaps if they maybe release reloaded and revolutions as one film, perhaps called REVELATIONS.
Oh well. All I really want to say is that watching it a second time right after reloaded redeems the movie quite a bit.
