What All the Fuss is About A contrarian view of the Matrix phenomenon.

The Matrix Reloaded must be one of the most hyped and overrated movies of all time. In stark contrast to the first installment of the Matrix trilogy—which received mixed reviews and only built a huge fan base after its release on DVD--the release of the sequel was trumpeted in advance on the covers of Time and Newsweek. The films’ creators, the equally heralded Wachowski brothers, are described practically everywhere in the media not merely as great filmmakers, but as wise, all-seeing visionaries who have something profound to tell us about the current state of the universe.

It’s all a bunch of hooey. Although the technical achievements in both films are stunning, the martial-arts fight scenes are beautiful and absorbing, and the concept of a technological dystopia interlaced with ideas from various religious philosophies (primarily Buddhist and Gnosticstic ones) is ingenious, the films are essentially eye candy with an unsophisticated muddle of mysticism and philosophy thrown in to make them seem like more than that.

A good example of how the films attempt to dazzle the audience with verbal gymnastics is the lengthy, convoluted monologue in The Matrix Reloaded, in which “The Architect” of the matrix “explains” to Neo (Keanu Reeves) that he is merely a cog in a deterministic machine, one of a series of supposedly messianic figures who have all failed in their mission to make people aware of the matrix (an elaborate virtual-reality computer program that simulates what most human beings take to be reality). The Architect could have said it just that way, in a few short words, with powerful dramatic effect. (One of the best scenes in twentieth-century literature is at the end of George Orwell’s 1984 when Winston Smith learns that O’Brien, the man he thought was the leader of a resistance movement, is actually a double agent who invented the notion of a resistance movement, which does not exist. The full force of the blow descends on the reader as powerfully as it does on Smith precisely because, as horrifying as it is, it makes total sense, and we kick ourselves for not seeing it coming.)

But it is in this regard that Andy and Larry Wachowski deserve all the accolades they receive: they are master showmen. Better to make The Architect’s monologue appear mind-bendingly complicated so that the audience won’t even attempt to make sense of it. Maybe then they won’t realize that the film switches from endorsements of free will to determinism and back again so many times it would make Plato’s head spin.

The basic idea behind the Matrix movies is simple: What we think we know and what is true are not necessarily the same things. Moral: What we want might therefore not be what’s good for us. Take away the dark sunglasses, the black overcoats, the martial arts, and the semantic sophistry, and the Matrix movies are The Truman Show (1998) or The Wizard of Oz (1939), or any number of other stories with similar themes. (The filmmakers at least pay tribute to the latter movie with several clever leitmotifs.)

Interesting, yes. Profound, hardly. There is nothing profound about mysticism. Indeed, once you entertain the notion that the world is not what it seems, that reality is not reality, you can come up with any number of intriguing notions (recall that one theory has the universe resting on the back of a turtle—now that would make for an interesting movie).

As to the films’ supposed critique of technology—and it might not be fair to suggest, as most critics do, that the films even attempt to offer one—nothing resembling a coherent, let alone subtle, critique is offered. The films certainly posit that it is possible for machines to become so complicated that they will one day develop minds of their own and attempt to destroy us (even Rod Serling saw that one coming), but so far, at least, the films haven’t been interested in suggesting how we might stop such a thing from happening.

In The Matrix Reloaded, Neo and another character pause to consider this question in the subterranean colony where humans who have chosen to resist the matrix hold fort, but they come to the common-sense conclusion that destroying all machinery is certainly not the answer, and beyond that, like most of us, they can only offer a shrug. (It is convenient for the film’s contrast between high technology and basic humanity that it has the humans living in primitive-looking caves and relying at least partially on torchlight for a hundred years, but that hardly seems plausible, given that there are surely one or two folks down there who could figure out how to generate enough electricity to hang up some more light bulbs.)

Enough hype. The Matrix (1999) was a good movie; The Matrix Reloaded—oversexed and over-reliant on fight sequences and cheap sentimentality—is not even that.

It’s no wonder, though, that both movies have become the phenomena that they are: in addition to being entertaining (the first one more so than the second), they suggest that a smorgasbord of shallowly conceived religions and philosophies are enough to cope with the perplexities of what many people today take to be a complicated world.

—Eric Cox is managing editor of the Hudson Institute’s American Outlook and a movie columnist for TAEmag.com.

The basic idea behind the Matrix movies is simple: What we think we know and what is true are not necessarily the same things.

Yeah, I think the basic idea showed up on the base of the statue in Animal House..."Knowledge is good."

Your comments make it sound like you're specially "enlightened" about this movie series. To criticize others as being ignorant or naive about the story line and then say "I don't want to give it away" sounds pretty childish. If there's something we're all missing here, let us know.

I thought some of the FX were nice but drawn out way too long or repeated way too often. I thought I was going to be a pukin' dog if one more person did a flip while flying thru the air. And tell, why did Neo fight Smith to begin with if there was no point to it. Neo couldn't hurt him (or his other brother Smith), so what was the point. Just take off like Superman to start with and save us 20 minutes of yawning. Oh, BTW, in case you couldn't tell, I wasn't real keen on the movie either, but I will probably see the third installment, at least on video.

While the dance scene might have been a pivotal point it dragged on far too long. In the rules of movie pacing you don't give the heroic speech then stop everything for 5 minutes of random gyration, after the heroic speech you either have action or you cut to the bad guys and their diabolical plan. 60 to 90 seconds of dancing might have been OK (IMHO better before the heroic speech, but survivable after), 5 minutes, followed by a discussion of machines with the counselor killed all the momentum the movie gained from the speech. The W brothers have serious pacing issues.

May I ask you a question? I find your last post fascinating.

You seem let down over the portrayal of the people from the hovercraft as regular joes? Why is that? Were you expecting them to be something more super-human? What did you want them to be?

If you look at what took place in the cake scene, it is one of the prime givaways of the film. Think about the power of suggestion. How a single notion, or feeling can manifest itself physically; becoming real, when the suggestion alone could have been false, or misinterpreted.

As for the cave-dance, what would you be doing right now, if you had reason to believe that you were going to be dead within 24 hours. If you were a heaven-bound Christian, would you be rejoicing? Would you be sad? Would you be browsing the internet?

One thing I've learned from anime fans is that many people seem to readily mistake "garbled" and "confusing" for "deep", because if they can't understand it, people assume it must be "deep" and they act and talk about it accordingly. Actually, sometimes all it really means is that it's a confusing mess.

(Of course you can learn the same lesson from modern art, post-modernism, poetry, the New Age movement, and a host of other places.)

I did not criticize anyone. Also, I am no more enlightened than anyone else. I have no problem telling anyone what the movie is about; I only figured if I did, there would be a lot of people angry at me for spoiling it.

I will tell you what I mentioned on another discussion, where someone else figured it out. All you have to do, is understand all of the things that you assumed to be true in the first film, of which you were given no proof, just a suggestion of someone else's belief. If that is too vague, let me know. I am enjoying these discussions, and if I totally give it away, then they will be over.

Regarding Neo and Agent Smith; remember that Neo was able to destroy Agent Smith(or so we thought)in the first film. Knowing this, it would be natural for Neo to stay and fight Smith again, hoping to destroy him once and for all, as he represents the biggest threat to Zion, even more so than the Sentinals.

Only when it became futile; knowing that Smith could reproduce himself as quickly as Neo could kill him, did Neo decide to leave the fight.

It's odd to see so many Freepers approving of what amounts to a post-Vietnam version of relativism, suspicion, and new-wave gnosticism.

I hardly ever see a Freep that's been around longer than I have anymore. It really doesn't surprise me to see the new Freeps accepting the Matrix premises. The site has changed pretty dramatically, especially since 9/11. While the term conservative doesn't really mean anything, anymore, (I'm getting pretty tired of reading "I'm a gay pedophile pro-abortion atheist vegetartian wiccan transexual conservative"), FreeRepublic is a South Park Republican/Anarchist/Libertarian site now, with a few DU moles thrown in. Still the best place on the net to find a synopsis of news, though.

No I'm suggesting the W brothers blew it, they'd built momentum in the picture and squandered with worthless gyrations. it's not a matter of what I expect, it's a matter of how to make a good movie. You have characters give heroic speeches to create a certain emotional state and then capitalize on it. Instead they created the emotional state and walked away, squandered what they'd done and needlessly dragged the first act out and delayed the interesting stuff. Think of a movie like a multi-course meal complete with apartifs and digestifs, a movie maker is doing certain things to create a foundation for other things. The W brothers don't understand these building blocks, they give you an apartif to cleanse the pallet and whet the appetite but then they delay the appetizer and squander what was gained with the apartif. That's bad pacing.

See this is another example of bad pacing on the W brothers' part. It became apparent the fight was futile halfway through, when the second group of extra Smiths showed up and Neo still hadn't taken even one out. The scene had served it's purpose (which I think you are correct in your interpretation) and it was time to move on. There's a delicate balance between lingering on a scene and lingering too long. I think in their quest to make these movies longer and "earn" a two parter (remember they said 2 and 3 were written as one movie but it was too long so they split it) they destroyed the pacing and structure of the movie. Reloaded could have been a tidy exciting interesting hour and a half, instead it's a dull dragging cluttered rhythmless 2 and a half.

Consider if you wanted to make a film that pointed out how easy it is for people to be manipulated into believing anything at all. How would you go about it?

What if you wanted to insure that there would be endless discussion, generating undying interest in a subject, to the point of having books written, endless discussions started, arguments, critiques, rants, on and on and on? How would you go about it?

Just how would you demonstrate how easy it is to take an entire population of a world, and get them to believe something, and then place them into flux by suggesting that what they had all considered to be reality only another illusion?

That emotional state you mentioned; was it in the movie, or was it in you? After the final segment, you will see the true genius of this trilogy.

I wouldn't go about it by making a movie with crappy pacing that's for sure. Wag the Dog is a much better movie on manipulation across the board, it's a more linear plot that the audience can actually understand, it has better actors, and it comprehends pace and structure.

None of these mistakes in film craft accompish the high goals you think they have (and I seriously doubt they have, remember these guys are on record as saying Colin West is a brilliant man, even if they had these goals they're obviously too stupid to understand them). What it does is make a bad movie that's boring to watch. Boring your audience to death with bad pacing doesn't create high brow discussion.

You're still missing the point, yes they created the emotions in me, that's how heroic speeches are supposed to work. They then turned around and did nothing with them. They got the audience pumped up for action and blew it.

Here's what's going to happen in the third segment: we'll find out Zion isn't real, it's just another layer of virtual reality put there to "satisfy" the rebelious, they run a periodic house cleaning because when you get too many of the rebellious together they will eventually figure it out. At some point they'll need to "show" the real reality (which probably still isn't, but who cares), hopefully they'll use that to come up with a back plot that isn't as idiotic as the human battery thing.

In the end Matrix is an action movie. Attempts to classify it as something else are doomed to failure. Matrix Reloaded is a pretentious action movie, but is still at its heart an action movie.

You say they blew it, yet you are still discussing it. Come on friend, don't you see what this is all about? This is about getting you to pay money to watch a movie.

The Matrix would have the same effect, if it had been titled "How to Create Slaves in Three Easy Lessons". The three parts of The Matrix were written before the first movie was made. The studio would not agree to the other two parts, until they saw the reaction (and dollars) from the first segment.

I would worry less about the film craft, and more about the point of it all. You think it matters whether or not any of us liked the movie? I think it is a safe bet that in November, I'll find you in line with the rest of us, ready to fork over our cash for a little more manipulation, wont I?

But we're discussing the filmcraft not the meaning. Well they didn't get me to pay money, I only watched it because we had a company outing, while I had to suffer through 2 1/2 dull hours I still got home 1 1/2 earlier than normal.

They should worry about the filmcraft because whatever point the movies might have had is buried under the gobbleegook of bad filmmaking. It definitely does matter if people liked the movie, the most important message in the world poorly delivered reaches no minds. You'll only find me out there if there's another company outing and it's scheduled as well as this one, I'm not staying late for a bad movie though.

If you look at what took place in the cake scene, it is one of the prime giveaways of the film. Think about the power of suggestion...

I wasn't too thrilled with that seen either. For some reason, the cake and the orgy/dance scene were a little repulsive...it's not like we haven't seen worse in other movies but it just didn't fit into my preconceived notions of how Reloaded was going to be. Not like I have any right to those preconceived notions...but for me, they served as distractions that have turned me off from enjoying the contemplation that the first Matrix provoked. Does that make sense?

With the cake scene, I can see how it could show that something so seemingly insignificant as a BJ from some random broad could alter the course of destiny. Even though the French guy (I forgot his name) manipulated her for his gratification, the nameless random broad proved to be the ultimate glitch hence, a great manipulation in her own right. Now was that an accident? Or was she placed there? Will we ever know? If so, when? And if not, why?

And maybe that cake scene had something to do with the reason why the wife made Neo kiss her while Trinity watched...because Trinity needed to be somehow desensitized to that possibility for the greater good of something or other.

I guess we could read all sorts of things into that particular scene.

As far as the dance/orgy scene...to me it did tap into that ancient human rhythm of battle/ feast, battle/ feast, battle/ feast. You can see the same pattern dating all the way back to Beowulf...and then some.

I think that because sex is SO overused as a formula to what is supposed to be a successful film, the message gets lost because of the initial annoyance with it all.

But in the end, whatever Reloaded is...it's not the first Matrix. And that just might be the moral of the story.

Who knows?

Regards,

I thought we were discussing 'the phenomenon'.

How do I get you to understand that the point of the movie, is exactly what you and I are doing right now? Hell, I just retired from 20 years in the Navy. I could be out basking in the sun, playing with my new puppy, or doing whatever the hell I want to do.

Instead, I am sitting in front of my computer discussing a movie! Just who is it, that is stuck in the Matrix? Is it Neo, or is it you and me? Good or bad movie not withstanding, you and I are burning brain cells on it, paying money for it, and not on what would otherwise be important. There are HUNDREDS of web sites devoted to this trilogy. Did the Godfather get that kind of response? The best movie ever?

The Godfather did not set out to prove how easy it is to control people.

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