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TV Times

Revolution heralds the end of an epic
By Harinda Vidanage
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 Matrix project has progressed to be identified in the ranks of best trilogies ever made in the history of movie making. As Keanu Reeves is elevated into the ranks of the modern day visionary with a mission or the chosen one. The Matrix has become the buzz word for triggering the production of innovative movies in many continents.

In the final chapter of the Matrix trilogy the viewer is taken into an unexpected dimension. Earlier it was seen as a war between man and machine but the Matrix Revolutions unveils that it is a war to make peace between man and machine and make one realize the importance of co existence of both elements.

The final installment of this inspirational movie Titled The Matrix Revolutions has evoked a furor as people want to see what happens to Trinity and Neo and this answers the cliffhanger that the “Reloaded” movie ended with, and left so many people unsatisfied. In Matrix Revolutions Zion military, aided by courageous civilian volunteers 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 more than the Sentinels as unknown element poisons the ranks from within: the rogue program Smith ‘Hugo weaving’ has cunningly hijacked Bane, 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 ‘Mary 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 ‘Jada Pinkett 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 Matrix created history when John Gaeta’s the special effects expert behind the primary innovation for The Matrix has come to be known as “Bullet Time,” became a revolutionary technique for depicting cinematic action in the style of Japanese animation known as animé. The creative process for bringing Bullet Time to the screen is called “virtual cinematography,” a digital solution developed by Gaeta and the Matrix filmmakers to depict these “mind-over-Matrix” moments in slow-motion, as seen by a camera moving at regular speed. The result allowed Gaeta’s team to manipulate imagery at any given speed without losing clarity.

From Hollywood, Hong Kong to Bollywood film makers are now experimenting with this revolutionary technique of “bullet Time”. Even Sri Lankan film makers are trying to master basic elements of bullet timing for their movies.

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. Additionally, Reloaded scored the record for the largest single week lion and reached $150 million in a record-breaking six days domestically; internationally, it is the 10th highest grossing film of all-time, and is the first film in history to gross more than $100 million in a single weekend.

The film is playing in 107 countries ranging from the US and Canada to China, Russia and nations throughout South East Asia and Europe. In the widest ever release of a movie, distributors Warner Brothers said they wanted to deter potential pirates. Standing up to its standards the movie with virtual configuration becomes the first movie to be released in real time.

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