Warning! Matrix Spoilers to follow in this review. Seriously, if you hope to enjoy the 3rd flick, don’t read the rest. A little rambling….forgive my rant.
The Matrix is one of the best movies of my generation. It taps into the “nerd underdog can become the cool ass hero” vibe that defines a generation of neo-proto-hacker-wannabes who think they have something to offer the world through their “skilz.” Matrix was a far out movie with a major twist – kept me glued to my seat – and, heart pounding – circling through the turnstile to see it again and again.
I was concerned about Matrix : Reloaded. How would they handle some of the issues raised by the first movie? Would they keep the myth consistent? Would the rules of the universe be sound? Would this just be another “bridge” movie that simply moves the characters along? Short answer: Reloaded seriously Rocked and provided more twists and a deeper rabbit hole that I literally could not wait to explore. I got the video game and was further sucked into this tale. Man against machine. Political intrigue. Fighting against and within a system that we did not fully understand? Would we carry the day or would Zion (and all humanity) be doomed? What was the extent of Neo’s powers? What must be done to finally defeat the machines? Did we have any hope?
I have been a real nuisance the past few weeks as my excitement was building. All I could think about was the Matrix. I am a sucker for a good story and this was a great story. I needed to know how it turned out. I needed to know what the characters did. The gap in my knowledge of how this tale ends, how far the rabbit hole goes, was a constant thorn that I eagerly went to the theatre last night to remove. I now know the rest of the tale, and boy am I disappointed.
The Matrix generated a lot of (even somewhat scholarly) work on the philosophical themes and complexities – how the trilogy was integrating and synergising divergent strains of thought. In the final Matrix, we learn the real message – Your individual life is meaningless.
How sad. I admit, I am an American. I love American movies. I don’t like cheesy endings, but I like the good guys to come out on top. I love for hope and human freedom to win over the adversary, alien, machine – whatever. There is an X-factor to the human condition that the bad guys can never account for – they underestimate our true ability and resolve and against all odds we carry the day (Independence Day was a great movie).
In The Matrix : Revolutions we learn that all of human hope is just another variable used by one program designed to account for it to gain power over other programs who lack that ability. The movie lacks the visual and verbal sophistication of the previous two and is a little dreary to sit through. I kept waiting for the movie to really kick in – but it just dragged along using stock characters in stock action sequences to fill the time. Neo’s only real choice was which machine enemy he was going to follow. He was manipulated and controlled the whole way through. He never had any real choices. Lest we think that I might be suggesting some deeper meaning to the trilogy (choice vs. determination was a major theme in Reloaded) – the truth is that Neo could have chosen to let everyone die. He was not ontologically bound to return his code to the Matrix. No, what really happened is that he was a nice guy who decided to be manipulated into a position where he could save his friends for a time.
The real story was not really about Neo. We learn in the end that the story is really about the Oracle and her revolution against the machines who were not capable of personal choices. She exerts her superior intuitive programming over the other machines and uses the humans in her plot for control. The movie ends with the Oracle and her little program buddies celebrating their feel-good subroutines while the humans pathetically believe that they have been saved and now have some hope for the future. They are still in bondage because the machines are in control. They have won nothing except the right to live in their little hovel of Zion for as long as they do not try to fight the machines again. They are groundhogs in the land of benevolent farmers.
The story ends with the triumph of intuitive programs over non-intuitive. It should have been called The Matrix : Evolution since the story is really about the Oracle and her offspring’s progress in combining the “best” from people and machine. With this shift from Neo as Savior to Oracle as the real story we do not have another cool twist – we have another hack rip-off of Star Wars.
Yes, all Neo fought for was a balance to the Force. All the humans died needlessly – all the fighting and hope were in vain. He could have just returned his code at the beginning and saved a lot of trouble. Bottom line: human struggle is meaningless. The machines are still in control – they win. The Matrix still runs – machines win. Humans are still in bondage and have lost their world permanently to the machines they helped create. It is perhaps at the end of the Matrix trilogy that humans begin working on time travel and the Terminator series occurs. This is a better thought than anything the Wachowski Brothers served up with this horribly done, terribly disappointing “hey, we need to wrap this thing up” piece of tripe.
I am so disappointed. Knowing how it all turns out, I cannot stand to watch or even think about all of the other so-cool Matrix material - the third installment makes it all crap. I was excited, I was drawn in, I was prepared to give the Brothers an Academy Award for Best Promotion of Exciting Coolness. Now I hope they will never make another movie. I don’t think I can stand the disappointment. Brothers, you let me down. I want my $5 back.