Commentary tracks by Cornel West, commentary tracks featuring actress Carrie Anne-Moss, visual effects supervisor John Gaeta and film editor Zach Staenberg discussing the making of the film and composer Don Davis, multiple featurettes on the making of the films and a documentary on the making of the first film

Dramatically borrowing from writers such as Philip K. Dick (particularly Dick's seminal novel UBKIK), "The Matrix" trilogy like "Star Wars" became a cultural icon of its time. The first film which was the second project written and directed by the Wachowski brothers touched a nerve as it took the messiah myth, themes that Joseph Campbell examined in his books on the hero in mythology and combined them with a tale that questioned the nature of reality and our place in it. "The Matrix" has been imitated by so many other films now that its easy to forget the impact of this challenging film that looks at all the themes I mentioned and examines them in a science fiction drama that manages to mix action, elements of Asian cinema and take us on an entertaining ride down the rabbit hole. ***

"The Matrix" follows Neo aka Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) a computer hacker by night who works for a software firm by day. Contacted by Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and then Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) two other hackers that Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) is pursuing, Neo discovers that his "reality" is, in fact, a computer simulation that he along with other members of humanity are plugged into. Morpheus shows Neo that a war broke out between the AI consciousness that controls the Matrix which ended with humanity being driven underground to the city of Zion and that the computer uses human beings much as an energy source keeping them in a dream state where they are plugged into the program all the time. ***

Morpheus believes that Neo is "The One" someone that it is prophesied will be able to manipulate the world of the Matrix just as the computer like Agent Smith who is a computer program designed by the Matrix to track down those trying to liberate humanity. "The One" will end the war between the AI and Zion saving humanity in the process. ***

Success breeds the desire to back to the well and recreate that original success with a sequel. Very few sequels live up to the original films that they spawned. I can think of maybe a handful of sequels that are equal to or better than the originals that inspired them ("Aliens", "The Empire Strikes Back", "The Godfather Part II" and "The Bride of Frankenstein" are some of those "few" films). While "The Matrix: Reloaded" and "The Matrix: Revolutions" fail to live up to the fascinating mix of mythology, fiction, action and themes that dominated the first film, they are fine action films that examine Neo's story and do take us further into his experiences both in the Matrix and the city of Zion. Critically dismissed when they were released, time allows us to take a more balanced look at both sequels and to see that they are both good to very good films that make up in the form of action what they lack in brain power. This set includes all three films plus the original DVD only release of the "Animatrix" which compliments the three films by examining other stories related to the story arc that the Wachowski brothers laid out in the three popular films. ***

In "Reloaded" Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and Link travel the sewers underground in their hovercraft freeing other minds from the Matrix. In the second film of the series Neo discovers that Agent Smith has been freed from the control of the Matrix and wants to eradicate humanity and wants to take over the Matrix. Smith builds an army of replicas of himself. Meanwhile the Matrix has discovered the location of Zion and is using diggers to tunnel into the city so that it can launch its machines into the last remaining heart of humanity and destroy the city. ***

"Revolutions" is the second half of "Reloaded" and continues the story. Neo is in a coma and Agent Smith has found a way to cross into the real world while also keeping part of his consciousness within the Matrix. Somehow when Neo freed Smith he created an evil counterpart to himself. Neo must fulfill the prophesy saving Zion from the Matrix, stopping the war between the machine world & humanity and prevent Smith from transforming the Matrix and killing humanity there as well. Many people doubt that Neo is the messiah but for everyone that doesn't believe there are believers within the city of Zion that support him. ***

In the third film Neo must save humanity from the A.I. that controls the Matrix itself; it is burrowing into the ground to Zion's location but interestingly the Architect presents this as an ongoing struggle to both renew humanity AND the Matrix itself in many respects--since he states this has happened many times before with the same outcome (except here he is wrong about the outcome). This, again, revisits the cyclic nature of mythology how, essentially, religion and mythology are in synch revisiting the same themes and outcomes again and again which represents humanity's struggle with its dualistic nature. Neo must face Smith as he has "passed" to the human plain and is using one of the freedom fighters to infiltrate and destroy Zion before taking over the Matrix itself. Neo realizes what the Oracle told him in the beginning IS true--he IS the One (again, keep in mind the word game here in Neo's name--it's an anagram for "one" but also a pun since the word "Neo" which means new or recent . This is both the strength and flaw of the films--the loaded and heavy use of symbolism both provides the film with significantly more meaning but also sometimes traps it in pretension. The good news is the brothers keep the action moving which prevents it from becoming bogged down in that pretense). He MUST face Smith AND to save humanity means he might have to sacrifice himself only to be reincarnated for the next battle. ---

Image & Sound:

Warner previously released this set on HD-DVD and this appears to be the same transfer. Image quality is sharper, has a more natural film-like quality than anything that has appeared before on home video. Aside from minor issues with edge enhancement, the films look stunning. Colors are accurately rendered when compared to both the original theatrical presentations of the film and the original DVDs. Detail is sharp throughout with a crisp picture. ***

Audio is presented in uncompressed TrueHD 5.1 and sounds marvelous. One of the few Oscars the film won was for Best Sound and listening to this in TrueHD will remind you why. ---

The only drawback to this set is, like the HD-DVD, the special features are in standard definition in many cases. Nevertheless, what matters here IS the quality of the films themselves but it would have been nice if Warner had upgraded all of these to HD but with some of the extras it may not have been possible as they may have been edited and prepared in SD. ***

There is a very, very long text introductions by the brothers that basically states that they don't believe in audio commentaries themselves and believe the work should stand up for itself. We kind of figured that out for ourselves fellas. Instead maybe you should spent your time on…say…writing better scripts for your next film ("Speed Racer" springs to mind as a good example of bad writing) instead of wasting your time explaining WHY you don't want to do something that fans would like to hear. ***

We do get commentary tracks however with an interesting array of folks. On "The Matrix" we also get a two commentary tracks featuring actress Carrie Anne-Moss, visual effects supervisor John Gaeta and film editor Zach Staenberg discussing the making of the film. Overall second track provides a lot of trivia about the production of the first film with Gaeta and Staenberg doing almost all the talking. We also get an isolated score with commentary on this fourth track by film composer Don Davis. ***

On the two sequels we get Dr. Cornell West a professor of philosophy and religion (who also appears in the second and third films) along with author Ken Wilber appears on one commentary track discussing the films themes and even bringing up bits of mythological lore that the brothers injected into the narrative. It's a pretty enlightening commentary track. ***

On the second commentary track for all three films we get film critics Todd McCarthy, John Powers and author David Thompson discussing the films, their impact and honestly assessing both the positive attributes of the three films and their shortcomings. ***

"In Movie Experience provides us with behind-the-scenes stuff for both "Reloaded" and "Revolutions". Both were documented much better than "The Matrix" simply because of the success of the first film in both theaters and the home video market. ***

For "The Matrix" we get; the feature length documentary "The Matrix Revisited" is supplemented by "Behind The Matrix" documentary gallery featuring 7 featurettes, "Take The Red Pill" documentary gallery has two featurettes, "Follow the White Rabit" has 9 featurettes along with "The Music Revisited" which gives us nearly 3 hours of music from the multi-tracks. We also get Marilyn Manson's (yuck!) "Rock is Dead" music video as well as the original theatrical trailers and TV spots. ***

"Reloaded" includes all the special features from the original two disc DVD set including "Behind The Matrix" documentary gallery as well as the great satire of the scene between Neo and The Architect from "The MTV Movie Awards Reloaded". Finally we get the underwhelming "Enter The Matrix: The Game" documentary about the creation of the game. Additionally we get "Enter The Matrix" live action scenes shot specifically for the videogame, a "Car Chase" documentary gallery consisting of 9 featurettes, "Teahouse Fight" documentary gallery with two featurettes comprising it. "Unplugged", "I'll Handle Them", "The Exiles" featurettes as well as P.O.D.'s "Sleeping Awake" music video. We also get the theatrical trailers and TV spots. Don't forget the preview for "The Matrix Revolutions" that was at the end of the original theatrical version of "Reloaded"--it's here too. ***

Likewise, "Revolutions" includes a commentary tracks (again, not by the directors) by West, author Ken Wilbert and again we have the critics--Todd McCarthy, David Thompson (who wrote The Biographical Dictionary of Film) and John Powers. West who is a professor of Religion at Princeton has the most fun with this along with Wilber looking into the inspiration in mythology and religion that the brothers used for the films. ***

The critics basically state that the two sequels were ordinary when compared to the original but I think they do miss the point that the trilogy is build like a massive three act play (with "mini-acts" in each film) and that they essentially are structured like that with "The Matrix" setting things up, "Reloaded" introducing the main story of the three films (the return of a savior doubted by all but the devoted few with Judas represented by Cypher in the first film. The brothers do introduce an interesting variation on the savior myth--with Agent Smith as Neo's mirror image or the "anti-Christ" in this case who has become a believer but still MUST take him down. Smith serves the god of chaos and destruction nothing more--a reference to Kali if I recall correctly from my Indian mythology which does inform the film quite a bit). ***

We get additional special features here--almost too numerous to mention. "The Music Revisited", "Crew", "Hel", "The Siege", "Super Burly Brawl" all are parts of a much larger documentary that with "Blue New World" and "Aftermath" give us an outstanding overview on the creation of the two later films. *** We also get "The Burly Man Chronicles" a comprehensive sequel to "The Matrix: Revisited" documentary that's on its own disc and runs over 90 minutes. It covers all aspects of the film from the training to the actual shooting and post-production of the film. ***

Finally we get storyboards, a discussion on the characters, the ships created for the film, the various machines in Machine City and the sets. "The Media of the Matrix" includes the various TV and theatrical spots as well as well as music videos. ***

"The Matrix Online Preview" focuses on the videogame created to tie in with the film and that takes place in the world of the films. ***

On the flipside of the flipper disc we get "The Hard Problem: The Science Behind the Fiction" that jumps from tech to philosophy in a heartbeat covering how we define intelligence to the creation of virtual reality./ ---

Final Words:

The most comprehensive version of the films yet (trumping the DVD release with a sharper, more vivid transfer on Blu-ray and comparable to if not superior to the HD-DVD), "The Ultimate Matrix" may make fans made because it's not a double dip but a quadruple dip (individual releases, DVD deluxe set, HD-DVD and NOW Blu-ray) but those who didn't purchase the later more expensive sets will be happy with the look of the films. ***

I should note that I noticed an encoding glitch that causes a break up towards the conclusion of "Revolutions". Each copy I've gotten has had the same problem so be aware of it and if it continues to be a problem, Warner SHOULD issue a replacement disc to those who purchased this set.