Yes, I did it, I believed the hype, got suckered in just like everyone else, but at least as a writer I can have....my revenge! So here follows my review of The Matrix: Revolutions. Abandon hope all ye who enter here....

So - the Matrix: Revolutions.
Mike`s capsule review? - Piece of shit!
What? You want more, something a bit more considered, a bit more coherent than a snarl of rage? Chuh....don`t ask for much, do ya.

Hokay, let`s recap. At the end of Reloaded we had the Machine Sentinels closing in on Zion, the last human city, Neo somehow shorting out a clutch of death-machines thus allowing him, Trinity and Morpheus to escape, and a whole bursting bagful of unanswered questions on the nature of the Matrix, the nature and destiny of Neo, with the storm-wracked ruin of planet Earth hanging over all.

Now, I`m not going to go into a blow by blow account of Revolution`s `plot`, save to point out that through the 1st 2 movies we`ve been witness to the familiar, time-honoured dance of cataclysmic melodrama. The protagonists and antagonists have engaged in increasingly ferocious skirmishes and battles: the skein of fate and incident and consequence has been wound tighter and tighter; the armatures of conflict and tragedy have drawn Neo closer and closer to the climactic confrontation with the entity at the core of the machine city. And there, face to face with this cybergod, Neo then offers it a truce, peace, between the human city and the machines.

At this point, sitting in the darkened theatre, I muttered in disbelief - `Huh?`

Y`see, gold ol` Agent Smith, the hunter-killer program, has become a virus which has infected the whole of the Matrix simulation, and Neo points out to the cyber-entity that Smith will then go on to infect the machine city. Unless someone - ie Neo - takes him on and defeats him.

Watching this, I felt a yawing chasm of disappointment beckoning from the cinema screen. So yeah, the machine entity agrees to this and the assault on Zion takes a pause while Neo and Smith go mano-a-mano along and above the rainy streets of the Smith-infected Matrix. Yet Neo doesn`t even do the biz: its the Oracle (apparently converted into himself by Smith earlier) who takes down Smith and his throng of copies. After which, all the Sentinel machines which had been besieging Zion turn around and leave.

By that time, my willing suspension of disbelief (which depends on a plausible, internally coherent storyline) had been completely trashed. At the end of the movie, after all those noisy, devastating, exhausting battle, after the deaths of Trinity and several other sympathetic characters, we`re left with ...

Stalemate.

And an utterly implausible one at that. As we were told in the 2nd movie, there have already been 6 Neos before this and Zion has also been conquered 6 times, all in line with the tortuously manipulative imperatives of the machine entity. Yet we`re supposed to believe that this same inhumanly cruel cybergod will keep its word, rather than going `Bwah hah hah, foolish mortals!` and crushing Zion with every tentacled death-machine at its disposal, as you`d expect of a pitiless, brutal enemy. Truth is that this kind of ludicrous plotting comes not from Hollywood but from episodic TV where viewers are force-fed baloney plots in order that the series can continue. I`m pretty sure that`s what`s going on here: after all, if Neo and the humans were triumphant against the machines, there would be no more stories and thus no more lucrative franchises to siphon money from droves of clueless and gullible consumers.

Now I can almost see you sitting there, reading this and thinking `Jeez, Mike, its just another Hollywood movie, y`know, a big screen confection full of groovy duds and big explosions. Get over it`. And I`d agree with you if it wasn`t the case that the Matrix movies hadn`t already assumed the status of a `fable-for-our-times`, which it clearly has. Unfortunately, the message that comes out of Revolutions is - `You can`t beat the machines`. When you look past the designer gear and the balletic ultraviolence, you`re left with only despair. Trinity`s death, Neo`s blinding, feel pointless at the end and Humanity`s struggle with the Machines is unresolved because they can`t be beaten.

I suppose the reason I`m so angered and appalled by Matrix: Revolutions is that, as a writer, I believe that stories are important. You can gauge the health of a society by the type of stories that it tells itself, and Revolutions is telling us that we the people cannot win.

On a more personal level, I hold the Wachowski brothers directly responsible for this poisoned farrago of a movie. There was a basketful of other minor idiocies - introducing the Trainman then not seeing him again, the Indian couple and their little girl (the point of which eludes me), ignoring what we were told about the Oracle in Reloaded, and that idiotic `War`s over` scene at the end. But ultimately it is a spineless cop-out, demonstrating a lack of creativity where it matters and grave shortcomings in the ability to tell a meaningful story. It`s almost as bad as The Phantom Menace, and lower than that I cannot go.

Well, at least I`ve got Lord of the Rings: Return of the King to look forward to, unless ... unless there have been some secret last minute script changes showing Frodo coming to a deal with Sauron on the brink of Mount Doom, then all the orcs and nazgul marching back into Mordor while Pippin runs about shouting `The war is over, hoorah!`

Please god, no ......

News Just In! - I can announce that my collection of short stories, Iron Mosaic, has been accepted by small press publisher Immanion Press. I got the acceptance email last night and was, natch, utterly over da moon. I love writing short stories but haven`t had the opportunity to do very many at all since selling the Shadowkings trilogy; these 17 stories date from 1986 to last year, and cover a wide range of subjects, tone and use of the language. Publication is, provisionally, May/June next year, which gives the paperback edition of Shadowgod (due in April) time to get some good sales going! I`ve also persuaded Ian McDonald (he of `Desolation Road`, `Ares Express` and sundry magnificent tomes) to write the introduction, and I shall be penning short intros to each of the stories themselves. I have some ideas for the book jacket (involving mosaics and iron, would you believe), and have queried an artist on possible involvement. More on this when it develops.

In short, I`m well chuffed. Single author short story collections have long since been discarded by the mainstream publishers, due to perceived lack of profit (the rejoinder to which is, of course - `well, promote them properly`...), so being published in the small press is pretty much the only route to take....unless your name is Isaac Baxter Hamilton Pratchett, that is.

Other news - have discovered a coupla intriguing neoprog bands: Carptree, who hail from Sweden and have a plaintive Fish-era Marillion-like sound; and Atrox, who defy categorisation, but who are also from Scandinavia. What is it about the Scandinavian countries that has made them a hotbed of new progressive bands? It seems that every week another one pops up with a CD full of stunning, complex music....some day we will know the answer. Tho` I fear we`ll never know why the Conservative party thinks that Michael Howard will do them any good....oops, little bit o` politics there, just a bit, now....

Till the next time,

Shantih.................................