The Matrix Revolutions is the third and last film in the The Matrix trilogy. The film, a combination of philosophy and action like its predecessors, sought to conclude the questions raised in the previous film, The Matrix Reloaded. The film was written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. It was released simultaneously in sixty countries on November 5, 2003. Despite being the final film, the Matrix storyline was continued in The Matrix Online.
This was the first time a Hollywood film opened in India at the same time as the rest of the world. It was also the first live-action film to be released simultaneously in regular and IMAX theaters. The Wachowski brothers were present in Tokyo at the opening of the movie, as were stars Keanu Reeves and Jada Pinkett Smith.
The movie was filmed concurrently with its predecessor, Reloaded, and live-action sequences for the videogame Enter the Matrix. This took place primarily at Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia. In contrast to the movie's predecessors, very few "source" tracks are used in the movie. Aside from Don Davis' score, again collaborating with Juno Reactor, only one external track (by Pale 3) is used.
Although Davis rarely focuses on strong melodies, familiar leitmotifs from earlier in the series reappear. For example, Neo and Trinity's love theme—which briefly surfaces in the two preceding movies—is finally fully expanded into "Trinity Definitely"; the theme from the Zion docks in Reloaded returns as "Men in Metal", and the energetic drumming from the Reloaded teahouse fight between Neo and Seraph opens "Tetsujin", as Seraph, Trinity and Morpheus fight off Club Hel's three doormen.
The climactic battle theme, named "Neodämmerung" (in reference to Wagner's Götterdämmerung), features a choir singing extracts (shlokas) from the Upanishads. Some viewers consider the occurrence of the Sanskrit prayer in the closing titles of the movie an apt conclusion to the philosophical theme portrayed throughout the trilogy. The chorus can be roughly translated from Sanskrit as follows: "lead us from untruth to truth, lead us from darkness to light, lead us from death to immortality, peace peace peace". The extracts were brought to Davis by the Wachowski brothers when he informed them that it would be wasteful for such a large choir to be singing simple "ooh's" and "aah's" (according to the DVD commentary, Davis felt that the dramatic impact of the piece would be lost if the choir was to sing 'This is the one, see what he can do' in plain English). These extracts return in the denouement of the movie, and in Navras, the track which plays over the closing credits (which may be considered a loose remix of "Neodämmerung").
The budget of the movie was an estimated $110USD million, grossing over $139USD million in the United States and approximately $412USD million worldwide, roughly only half of The Matrix Reloaded box-office total. The movie was met with generally mixed to negative reviews from critics. Revolutions scored only 36% on movie review aggregation site RottenTomatoes. Metacritic's average critic score was 48/100 with a user score of 5.2/10 based on 268 votes.
The Matrix Revolutions grossed $48.5 million in its first five days of release in the US. It had a weaker opening than its predecessor that some have attributed to a more subdued marketing campaign in comparison to the summer blockbuster event, The Matrix Reloaded. Praise of the movie generally focused on the strength of the movie's action sequences and special effects. Some considered it "a better movie" than The Matrix Reloaded, which some said "raises the bar a notch or two" since the original movie, The Matrix.
Common criticisms of the film were that it was anti-climactic and self-indulgent. Nevertheless, critics regard the movie as less philosophically obtuse than its predecessor, Reloaded. Many critics had difficulty finding closure pertaining to events from Reloaded, and were generally dissatisfied. Its earnings dropped over 70% in its second week.
The films were received in high praise of its conceptual complexity by scholars and philosophers, as seen in the video The Roots of the Matrix. Philosopher Ken Wilber stated that The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions had expanded on the "simple dualism" of the first film - The Matrix - thus transforming the trilogy into a piece of "complex literature" with the second two installments of the trilogy.
In Moscow, the film's premiere was accompanied by a demonstration organized by the youth wing of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation who welcomed the film as an allegory for Communism. Wikipedia
