Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven
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| Sunny Days in Heaven Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven |
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Friday, November 07, 2003 Is it old or Neo? I saw the Matrix Revolutions tonight. I'm not going to make a long review. (But I have to say that the titles for the last two stink. Reloaded? Revolutions? Sorry, no.) The movie is not bad, but it doesn't redeem the trilogy. The first movie, The Matrix, was fun. A syncretistic mixture of myths with a forward motion punctuated with moments of amazing action. It presented a rich, multi-layered world. Although the main characters left something to be desired, the ideas were intriguing enough to carry you along. Matrix Reloaded, though, became a series of endless action scenes interrupted by moments of philosophical gibberish. The only enjoyable character was the villian, Agent Smith. And the love stories simply don't work at all. No is really human enough to qualify as a lover. This latest movie manages to create concern for Zion and real tension in desire for them to beat the soulless machines, but the long fight between Neo and Smith is unsatisfying since you don't really care for either one, and the physics of it all - real or an extension of the matrix - is nonsensical. There have to be rules, even in fantasy and science fiction. Break too many of them, and everything falls apart. As it does here. The conclusion is favorable, but the attempt to maintain some semblance of logic through philosophical and mythical perspectives on reality disintegrates, and wrecks the trilogy overall. It doesn't make sense, or rather leads to a bag of silly cliches. Lileks has a lot to say, though. Particularly this : I took away something else from the Matrix trilogy: it is a product of deeply confused people. They want it all. They want individualism and community; they want secularism and transcendence; they want the purity of committed love and the licentious fun of an S&M club; they want peace and the thrill of violence; they want God, but they want to design him on their own screens with their own programs by their own terms for their own needs, and having defined the divine on their own terms, they bristle when anyone suggests they have simply built a room with a mirror and flattering lighting. All three Matrix movies, seen in total, ache for a God. But they can’t quite go all the way. They’re like three movies about circular flat meat patties that can never quite bring themselves to say the word “hamburger.” posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:17 AM | |
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