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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of The Matrix Revolutions (Don Davis)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you were captivated by Don Davis' maturing orchestral
and choral themes for The Matrix Reloaded and wish to hear the
progression of those ideas towards a victorious finale of religious
proportions.
Avoid it... if you cannot tolerate the unsettling battle between satisfying harmony and challenging dissonance that Davis utilizes to very nearly the end of the trilogy.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Matrix Revolutions: (Don Davis) One of the most
storied series of fantasy films came to an abrupt end in 2003, with both
The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions dazzling
audiences in the same year. The establishment of humanity's battle
against the machines that rule the future Earth in the prior two films
reaches its predetermined destiny in The Matrix Revolutions, the
romantic tragedy of love and civilization lost countered by a
fulfillment of fate that doesn't necessarily end this epic battle, but
at least earns humanity a reprieve. Once again on display are concepts
and techniques in visual effects that offended conservative groups while
thrilling franchise faithful, and, unfortunately, Warner Brothers'
choice of releasing both films in the same year diminished either
sequels' chances of earning a wide range of technical awards. No fantasy
franchise concept in the decade since has come close to provoking as
much thought. While the music for the three films in the franchise was
never as well conceived in detail and arrangement as Howard Shore's
concurrent The Lord of the Rings scores, composer Don Davis did
consider the three films to be an ongoing symphony of several developing
movements. Continuing his collaboration with directors Andy and Larry
Wachowski, Davis' involvement with The Matrix Revolutions brought
about a momentous and epic conclusion to the trilogy. "It made perfect
sense to me to infuse some kind of individual personalities to
Reloaded and Revolutions," Davis later stated. "It wasn't
a matter of improving on what I did in The Matrix, it was a
matter of developing the ideas that we're established in the first
movie. Even though it's not what you can call a fanatic score, there is
a fanatic continuity." The music for The Matrix was an edgy,
disturbed combination of razor sharp orchestral suspense and
atmospheric, electronic ambiguity. Its effectiveness was measured by its
ability to lure the audience into an uncertain world of distorted
reality, and it thus was equally disturbing as a listening experience on
album.
The music for The Matrix Reloaded was arguably intended to be the most stylish and contemporary of the three scores, adding considerable influence from Juno Reactor and Rob Dougan to Davis' equation. At the same time, the second installment began to introduce a sense of satisfying orchestral harmony for the resolution in the third film score, including several majestic choral cues for its higher impact scenes. For The Matrix Revolutions, the script demanded an even more powerful orchestral presence for the anticipated movement towards a fantastic, lengthy battle sequence at the end of the story. With the war against the machines rising to the surface of the charred Earth and culminating in Neo's final, spectacular battle with the them, Davis' orchestra and chorus is busy matching the dissonant echoes of the past with the finale's need for monumental order and tonality. Davis recorded the 110-minute long score in August 2003 with a 99-piece orchestra and 80-member choir at the Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox in Los Angeles, stirring up great anticipation among franchise fans for his final act. The score's greater length was required due to the extensive, epic fight sequences littered throughout the film (utilizing score instead of songs or non-Davis instrumental material), and thus, only one source song is employed in the picture. This is in contrast to the previous two films, which featured a heavy dose of 1990's electronica in the pictures and on their albums. Seemingly fewer collaborations with electronica artists existed with Davis in The Matrix Revolutions, with Juno Reactor's Ben Watkins only contributing to a few cues for the project. The collaboration of Davis, Watkins, and Dougan for the previous 2003 installment was certainly a success on album, the 2-CD set selling over 500,000 units and achieving Gold status. Davis himself praised the approach of combining the score and songs onto one album, stating, "As a consumer, I always feel a little bit slighted if I get a soundtrack CD that's mostly songs or only score music. This soundtrack is a real effort to change the paradigm of what's being offered to consumers in film music." Undoubtedly, the move was a very profitable one for Davis and increased exposure for his work as well. With the shades of Dougan's "Clubbed to Death" now gone from the series, Watkins' remaining contributions to The Matrix Revolutions are restrained to collaborations with Davis, and moreso than before, Davis' influence leads Watkins' rather than the other way around. Both collaborative cues, "The Trainman Cometh" and "Tetsujin," offer Davis' score with minimal integration of synthetic instrumentation. The notable use of the Seraph Kodo drums in the latter cue finally yields to straight, rocking electronica rhythms in its last moments. It should be noted that the collaboration between Davis and Juno Reactor seems better balanced here, with nothing as far reaching as "Burly Brawl" from The Matrix Reloaded breaking Davis' established tones and pace of development. The one clearly out of place and unfortunate cut in the project is "In My Head," Pale 3's much heavier electronica contribution outside of Davis' influence. With less song material to be heard in The Matrix Revolutions, Davis' score is finally the central source of attention. Interestingly, the composer considered this third score to be a natural end of the road from a procedural standpoint early in the process, saying, "On the first Matrix they wanted me to be as creative as I could be, doing something absolutely new, different, big and huge and all this kind of stuff. Then Reloaded came along and it has to be newer, more different, bigger. I would think that by the time Revolutions is over I'll have pretty much reached the boundary of what I could do with this." That boundary exists on the highest level of harmonic, tonal development while still inserting just enough uneasy dissonance as to remind the viewer of the troubling concept at the root of the trilogy's story. For much of The Matrix Revolutions, Davis provides lush, romantically inclined orchestral and choral statements with just a tinge of rambling, atonal accompaniment. Even in the score's highlight battle cue, "Neodammerung," Davis brilliantly uses tonal chants and large statements of the film's three dominant themes led by a consistently rotating, off-key section of the orchestra in the background, one often performing a grandiose version of the remarkably effective, accelerating machine theme. Davis refers often to the technique of the alternating chords of the series' primary motif to accomplish a background effect of continuity. The dual-chord motif wavering between trumpets and horns, a deceptively simple but memorable musical identity for the trilogy, is introduced (in customary fashion) in the first cue of the score and proceeds to add its flexible sense of warped reality to several cues throughout the score. Interestingly, this theme becomes less apparent as the score becomes more pleasant, only hinting softly at its own ghost on woodwinds in the middle of "Spirit of the Universe." The directors asked Davis to remove the motif from the very end of "For Neo" as to not suggest a continuation of the story. The crashing theme for the machines, striking the same note in an increasingly rapid pattern, is applied mostly to the sentinels in The Matrix Revolutions, culminating in "Niobe's Run" and offering a considerable amount of ruckus for chase cues that herald back to the truly disturbing moments of the original trilogy score. The continuously growing love theme for Neo and Trinity is freed from the awkward bonds that it experienced in The Matrix Reloaded, providing the first true sense of compassion (in a totally open, undivided performance) in the trilogy. This love theme balances the non-stop action from this and the previous score with fantastic performances on cello, horn, and clarinet in "The Road to Sourceville" and "Trinity Definitely." The hero theme for Neo himself doesn't alone experience the same rush of enthusiasm in its complete form in this score, instead merging with the love theme to better represent the character's fate. Other overarching stylistic choices that Davis made early in the trilogy receive appropriately dying representations in The Matrix Revolutions. The swirling and sometimes frenetic rhythmic movements representing the actions of Morpheus' crew throughout the first score and, to a lesser degree, in the second have been slowed to a crawl by the end of this one. The broad, rumbling percussion motif that accompanies the title theme at the outset of each film is slowly disassembled in the late minutes of "Spirit of the Universe." This deconstruction is a continuation of Davis' smart structural decisions in the music of this franchise, and they will certainly be a highlight of The Matrix Revolutions for its collectors. Despite the impressive attributes of the main themes' maturity throughout the work, the action cue "Neodammerung" and finale counterpart "Spirit of the Universe" are still the centerpieces of this score. The choral chants of the former are translated into Sanskrit (with Star Wars: The Phantom Menace-style lyrics appropriately matching the mythic proportion of the battle and the concept of 'The One'). The fighting elements of tonality and atonality are overlayed in this cue, and when considering that the "bigger is better" philosophy was applied as well, the sheer energy of this action piece serves as an appropriate conclusion to the Neo versus Agent Smith storyline. As Davis had stated, there's really nowhere musically to go from here. Despite the impressive attributes of that cue, however, the trio of "Spirit of the Universe," "Bridge of Immortality," and "For Neo" is a more fascinating study. Featured in "Bridge of Immortality" is the first and only truly harmonious statement of the love theme (and Neo hero theme) for the full ensemble without any dissonance in the background whatsoever, and it features a flowing dramatism and thematic resemblance, oddly, to his former associate James Horner's sweeping theme for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. From there, a boy soprano serves a dual purpose by adding a religious implication of the film's final message (along with a rolling harp) while also drawing a connection to the similar vocal heard in The Matrix as Neo is first introduced to the crew and the real world, though the soloists in the two works are different, as are the entire choirs. At the end of this finale, Davis specifically returns to the closing passage of the first score, hinting very slightly at the dual-chord theme on flutes, of all things, and building up to one last, suspenseful anvil-aided blast from the ensemble (the obvious main theme reference removed for this take). It is here that you simply can't resist appreciating Davis' use of percussion throughout the three scores. Whether it is simple pounding on every drum known to man or the crashing of low notes on a piano like a small child, the percussion is really the heart and soul of this trilogy. Many prefer to label the brass as such, but it's hard to argue with the effect that the percussion has on the ambience of these works. Davis allows the low rumbling of the piano to simply fade away at the end of this score, leaving an uneasy afterthought with the viewer and listener. On its original 2003 album release, the score for The Matrix Revolutions was mixed using very loud gains, with the more sensitive cues raised in volume and the techno elements quieted to match that dynamic range. It's a sort of "in your face" move by the engineers, and while it may give the casual listener a headache, it also allows for the full ensemble to be better heard on album. The best example of this attention is heard in the rich and deep resonance of the opening rumbling of the piano in "Logos/Main Title." The only cue seemingly over the top is Juno Reactor's remix of "Neodammerung," called "Navras" (meaning 'nine emotional states,' mirroring the Hindu belief that these nine states are exhibited through music) and placed at the end of the album. The Hindustani classical vocals and instrumentation here are obviously out of place, but Davis' orchestral and choral foundation is so strong that the cue could easily become a guilty pleasure for the listener. A Middle-Eastern or Indian influence has become almost cliche in recent years for large-scale film scores, but then again, Juno Reactor's three artists provide enough techno flavor to simply throw the whole cue into a realm of the bizarre. As a presentation on album, about half of Davis' material was originally available in a generously straightforward format on the 2003 product. The first two scores from the trilogy had already both been floating around the secondary bootleg market in a more complete form and yet this final commercial album in the series was inclusive enough (and largely without interruptions from songs) to suffice for most listeners. The La-La Land Records label released both The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions in greatly expanded forms in 2013 and 2014, and while the first album could be designated as the more "necessary" of the two from a quantity viewpoint, both sets contain enough intriguing additional material to recommend. In the case of The Matrix Revolutions, most but not all of the critical material near the end of the picture had already been released. The pulsating action of "Deus Ex Machina" is the only late cue of significance added, with just minute-long snippets here and there added to adjacent cues during the climax. Other passages, such as the just earlier "Neovision" are largely non-descript and do not merit attention from those outside of the loyal fanbase for these movies and scores. What people formerly referred to as "Spirit of the Universe" was actually a pair of cues, "Bridge of Immortality" and "For Neo." Some of the most fascinating additions to the 2014 La-La Land set's listening experience for The Matrix Revolutions come in the middle of the score, after early newly released cues usually stew without much notice. Some of the most satisfying material in this score from a traditional standpoint is the battle music for the control of the underground Zion lair, beginning with "Men in Metal" and continuing for several cues with snare drums utilized to represent logical counterparts in the world of weaponry. Between the just prior "The Smith Within Us" and "The Breach/Boom Hilda" and "Die Brunett Walkure/Mjolnir Mastication/Charra Broiled," some major action music is heard on this set for the first time. The more streamlined percussive barrage in some of these cues cannot be resisted, the snare of maximum importance. The bonus cues are also of particular interest on the set, the original "For Neo" closing superior to its replacement (the concept was never completely finished; why the Wachowski Brothers couldn't accept the music hinting at the survival of the matrix and birth of another generation is genuinely baffling). The duo of "Die Brunett Walkure" and "The Trainman Cometh" are outstanding, the latter the non-Juno Reactor version highlighting hyperactive woodwind contributions in its great, propulsive rhythms. On the whole, enthusiasts of the franchise should seek both of the La-La Land expanded sets for the sequels, for they provide solid pleasure in both cases. Overall, compared to the other two scores, Davis' music for The Matrix Revolutions is a more engaging, fascinating, matured listening experience, and while casual purchasers of only this effort may not understand the evolution of its themes and harmonic structures, this work is probably the easiest of the three for traditional film score fans to enjoy on album. Still, Davis continues to utilize dissonance in both the forefront and distance to provide that unsettling edge necessary for the concept, and listeners should be aware that this score is likewise no free tonal ride. Between this necessary element and some lingering, downright funky electronica, The Matrix Revolutions remains less than perfect on album. But it offers much of the best music in the franchise, completing Davis' outstanding achievement for the trilogy as a whole. In retrospect, the complexity of the lines of action in these works, often the result of Davis' own phenomenal orchestration skills, rivals the density of Shore's The Lord of the Rings scores, and in the post-2000 soundtrack industry, that's among the highest compliments possible. ****
TRACK LISTINGS:
2003 Maverick Album:
Total Time: 63:24
2014 La-La Land Album: Total Time: 128:38
NOTES & QUOTES:
The 2003 album's insert includes extensive credits and lyrics to "Neodammerung," but no extra
information about the score or film. The 2014 La-La Land set's insert contains extensive notation about both.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from The Matrix Revolutions are Copyright © 2003, 2014, Maverick Records, La-La Land Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 8/30/03 and last updated 4/13/14. |
