Dir. Andy & Larry Wachowski, 2003, USA, 128 mins
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Mary Alice, Nina Gaye, Clayton Watson, Ian Bliss
In 1999, the Wachowski Brothers and producer Joel Silver unveiled The Matrix, a visionary fusion of brutally elegant action and densely-layered storytelling. The filmmakers not only electrified audiences with audacious visual innovations, they created a provocative action film that ponders the essence of reality and identity, illuminating the choices we must make and the strengths and weaknesses that compel us to make them. The Wachowskis envisioned the epic story they unleashed in The Matrix as a trilogy, and approached the production of the second and third installments as a single film that would be presented in two parts.
With the May 2003 release of the second chapter, The Matrix Reloaded, the writer-directors tunneled deeper into the sprawling saga's mythology and presented revolutionary new visual effects technology that redefined what is cinematically possible. Driven by furiously breathtaking action sequences, Reloaded elaborated on the first film's themes of philosophical and technical alienation in the continuation of Neo's treacherous journey toward greater truth and understanding of his pivotal role in the fate of mankind.
To date, The Matrix Reloaded has earned over $735 million in worldwide box office, making it the highest-grossing film of 2003 and the highest-grossing R-rated film in history, both domestically and internationally.
Everything that has a beginning has an end.
At the stunning conclusion of The Matrix Reloaded, Neo (Reeves) took another step forward in the quest for truth that began with his journey into the real world at the outset of The Matrix - but that transformation has left him drained of his power, adrift in a no man's land between the Matrix and the Machine World. While Trinity (Moss) holds vigil over Neo's comatose body, Morpheus (Fishburne) grapples with the revelation that the One in which he has invested a life's worth of faith is merely another system of control invented by the architects of the Matrix.
In The Matrix Revolutions, the final explosive chapter in The Matrix trilogy, the epic war between man and machine reaches a thundering crescendo: the Zion military, aided by courageous civilian volunteers like Zee (Gaye) and the Kid (Watson), desperately battles to hold back the Sentinel invasion as the Machine army bores into their stronghold. Facing total annihilation, the citizens of the last bastion of humanity fight not only for their own lives, but for the future of mankind itself.
But an unknown element poisons the ranks from within: the rogue program Smith (Weaving) has cunningly hijacked Bane (Bliss), a member of the hovercraft fleet. Growing more powerful with each passing second, Smith is beyond even the control of the Machines and now threatens to destroy their empire along with the real world and the Matrix. The Oracle (Alice) offers Neo her final words of guidance, which he accepts with the knowledge that she is a program and her words could be just another layer of falsehood in the grand scheme of the Matrix.
With the aid of Niobe (Smith), Neo and Trinity choose to travel farther than any human has ever dared to go - a treacherous journey above ground, across the scorched surface of the earth and into the heart of the menacing Machine City. In this vast mechanized metropolis, Neo comes face to face with the ultimate power in the Machine world - the Deus Ex Machina - and strikes a bargain that is the only hope for a dying world.
The war will end tonight, with Neo's destiny and the fate of two civilizations inexorably tied to the outcome of his cataclysmic confrontation with Smith.
Arsim Canolli
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