[xkaydet65]

Two years ago our parish ran a retreat for the candidates for Confirmation. As I was a religious ed teacher and my daughter a candidate we participated inthe planning. The fellow hired to run the retreat was a locally well known and well connected Catholic layman. His brother is principal of the most prestigious boys Catholic HS on Long Island. He gave a great introductory pre retreat presentation and told the kids he would build the actual retreat around The Matrix. He briefly synopsied the plot and characters a, of course they all knew, but he then began to highlight the Gospel references he said were contained in the film. He was persuasive, though I wonder if a Christ character would persuade with 9mm Glocks and if the Holy Spirit were really an instructor in combat and survival techniques. Still if you want to look you can find evidence that Christ and his message of salvation lies beneath the surface of the film. At least one well respected Catholic evangelist to youth believes it does.

[qwertyz]

You'll note Spiderman, DareDevil, and X2 are using (exploiting) elements of the Catholic faith. It's no accident--awash in hedonism and gnosticism, Hollywood knows that the blockbuster formula requires tapping into the greatest themes of redemption and sacrifice. Mel Gibson said something like the greater the blood, the greater the sense of redemption in the story. After several incredibly bloody films, now he's tackling the bloodiest of all.