WMS

The Matrix Revolutions

2003 · Directed by Lana Wachowski

🧘8

Woke Score

47

Critic

🍿66

Audience

Ultra Based

Critics rated this 39 points above its woke score. Among Ultra Based films, this critic score ranks #1228 of 1469.

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Synopsis

The human city of Zion defends itself against the massive invasion of the machines as Neo fights to end the war at another front while also opposing the rogue Agent Smith.

Consciousness Assessment

The Matrix Revolutions arrives as a late-period blockbuster sequel concerned primarily with machine warfare and philosophical abstraction rather than social commentary. The cast is genuinely diverse, a fact that deserves acknowledgment, yet this diversity emerges from the original trilogy's DNA rather than any deliberate modern sensibility. The film traffics in metaphysical speculation and action spectacle, not in the contemporary markers of progressive cultural awareness.

To evaluate this film through the lens of 2020s social consciousness is to ask it questions it was never constructed to answer. It contains no messaging about systemic inequality, no interrogation of identity politics, no climate urgency, no critique of power structures that extends beyond the abstract human-versus-machine conflict. The Wachowskis' later work would embrace these concerns more directly, but Revolutions remains locked in the early 2000s, when such considerations barely registered on the blockbuster radar.

The modest score reflects not the film's quality as entertainment or its technical accomplishment, but simply the absence of the particular cultural markers we're measuring. This is a film that predates the cultural moment we're analyzing. It occupies the gap between the earnest sci-fi philosophy of the first film and whatever comes next.

Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm

Critic Reviews

47%from 41 reviews
Seattle Post-Intelligencer91

No, it doesn't exactly re-create the magic that made the original such an instant classic, but it's faster and more involving than "Reloaded" and it rounds off the premise and themes of the trilogy in a surprisingly satisfying way.

William ArnoldRead Full Review →
Time80

The trilogy ascends and soars with the two combatants and ends not with a whimper but with a blast of light. Thus the fabulous original film has found an honorable way to sign off. For those who didn't bother to join the early crowds, The Matrix Revolutions is a definite might see.

Richard CorlissRead Full Review →
Chicago Sun-Times75

To the degree that I was able to put aside my questions, forget logic, disregard continuity problems and immerse myself in the moment, The Matrix Revolutions is a terrific action achievement. Andy and Larry Wachowski have concluded their trilogy with all barrels blazing.

Roger EbertRead Full Review →
Wall Street Journal20

Smith is only a rogue computer program, but this morbidly dispiriting movie makes him sound like a prophet.

Joe MorgensternRead Full Review →

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