Persephone and the Merovingian, the sinister computer-program power couple played by Monica Bellucci and Lambert Wilson, return only briefly, forcing countless budding Matrix scholars to toss out whole chapters of their dissertations and cheating those of us who counted on a little more old-style movie star voluptuousness to warm up the virtual chill.
Reeves, perhaps worried that he was showing too much range, has purged himself of all expression apart from a worried frown and a sorrowful grimace. The salient distinction of the human remnant in Zion, apart from their earth-tone natural-fiber fashions, has been the capacity for love, a word much spoken in this movie. But their ranks, in spite of the presence of fine actors like Laurence Fishburne, Harry Lennix and Harold Perrineau, become more robotic with every passing scene. The sole exception is Jada Pinkett Smith as the daredevil pilot Niobe, who brings a touch of bad-girl B-movie attitude into the humorless subterranean gloom.
The major disclosure of Revolutions is that the boundaries that had previously separated the real world from the matrix, and the humans from the programs, have proven to be porous. Smith has jumped out of the matrix, and Neo is able to export his special powers from that realm into the machine-controlled physical domain. It turns out that there is train service connecting the various worlds, though its only customers are two Indian computer programs who have apparently given birth to a human child, a lovely little girl named Sati. All of this may be puzzling -- I was puzzled, anyway -- but scenes like the one in which Neo meets Sati and her parents have a quiet, beguiling strangeness reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick.
If The Matrix were a video game -- I know there is one, but I mean the movies themselves -- then you could linger in that dazzling white subway station, or in the Oracle's kitchen while the cookies are baking and tune out all of the philosophical mumbo jumbo and action-movie cliches. You could reflect on the curious beauty of your surroundings and admire the skill of the architects (not to be confused with the Architect). The Matrix Relaxed -- now there's an idea for a sequel.
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