K. Close III

Fuck the Matrix, Keanu was still better in Bill & Ted

Friday, November 7th, 2003 | LiveJournal Archives

I saw the third Matrix movie, and like the third Indiana Jones movie, it was much better than the second. Unfortunately, unlike the third Indiana Jones movie, it wasn’t better than the first. But then again, it didn’t have Sean Connery either.

I can make no pomises that I won’t spoil the movie if you keep reading…

I was reading Scott Kurtz’s rant on the Matrix: Revolutions, and while I didn’t dislike it nearly as much as he seems to, I really agree with a lot of his plot points. I think the most poignant thing he said, is that the second and third movies strayed dramatically away from the point of the first movie. The Matix was about the oppression of people trapped in a world that they didn’t realize or understand to be a prison. The second and third movies were about the “jailors” of said prison being disgruntled about the work they have to do. Great, just what I want to see. A movie about people who are disgruntled at their job, but if they don’t do it, then their power is shut off. Sounds a little too familiar, and a little less dramatic.

Don’t missunderstand though, I really did enjoy it, it just had a lot of plot holes and gaps in their created philosophy. I think the Wachowski brothers, if they still know themselves how their world works, need to put out a book entitled “What the Fuck Happened in The Matrix.” Things got really existential as the movies got on, and I’m not saying I’m not an intelligent person, I like a certain amount of vagueness in my movies. I like a certain amount to be left up to me to figure out. A couple of my favorite movies are Lost Highway, in which nothing is really spelled out in the movie at all and it’s existentially vague from beginning to end, and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, in which the DVD has still not shown me the last 30 seconds no matter how many times I watch the movie. So you see, I don’t need everything tied up in a little bow, but I do want there to be enough information and explanation included to make actual conclusions and decisions from. I felt like a lot of the metaphysical philosophy in the Matrix sequal was like someone walking up to you and saying “Red or Blue?”

The more I write and read back what I’ve written, the more I think the real problem is not so much Revolutions, but Reloaded. It’s possible that Reloaded did such irreperable damage to the series that there was no realy way for Revolutions to fix it so it just tried to wrap it all up as quickly and quietly as it could while still making a buck. That would explain things like focusing mostly on the programs, since the humans had almost been completely forgotten about. Or why, when asked how Neo can do the things he does outside of the Matrix, the cinematic answer was, for the most part, “Because.” It also explains why, the fights were shorter (we’ve already drawn this out long enough, haven’t we?), and why there were no more agents, or killer “programs” running around. They streamlined everything to make a race for the end. It’s almost as if the Wachowski brothers filmed themselves into a place they never inteded to go and it was too late, and too much money had been spent, to get themselves out of it so they just made a race for the end. Yeah, that’s why in the finale, when Neo and Trinity needed to get to the Machine city, where no one else had gone before, they did the first logical thing that should have been thought of centuries ago. They went OVER the damn storm. Way to go humanity.

After watching Matrix: Reloaded (or rebooted as I like to refer to it, as they reset almost the entire premise), I started coming up with all kinds of reasons and methods as to why and how Neo shut down the Sentinels at the end. Not to toot my own horn or nothing, but some of them were infinitely interesting or insightful. In fact, one of the things I was really looking forward to in Revolutions, was for the Wachowski brothers to give more insight as to how that happened and what was going on. All we got was, “you’re connected to the source.” Yippity Fucking Shit. That’s your answer, that’s the big secret? How? Why? Are we to see Neo as more of a Jesus figure and the Source is God? I could understand that within the matrix, but outside, there’s no real rhyme or reason. Maybe all the wiring they installed in him to be a pod person included an antenna that he could actually transmit and link back to the source with, but that’s a little far fetched isn’t it? Then again, Neo just having “super powers” is a bit extreme anyway. There was no rational explanation for why he could blow up machines with a wave of his hand was even offered.

I should compliment the movie on something before I make you all think I hated it. It was, in my opinion, a lot more focused than the second. The fights were more consise and purposeful. As opposed ot Reloaded, nearly every fight in this one had a point and did not extend beyond it’s weight. They were neither too long, nor unnecesarry. They really got the timing down on them. The style of the fights was phenomenal as well, they did a really good job of going over the top only when necesarry, but not so much so that it was unbelievable in the given surroundings. Just thought you should know I liked something. In fact, with the exception of one scene (for the love of GOD Trinity, please give up and die!), I think the pacing on the movie was spot on. I didn’t notice how dark the theater was, nor how I didn’t get my favorite seats. That’s always an indicator that the movie is not keeping my interest, when I look around and notice things about me and the theater, rather than being completely engrossed in the movie. The story, aside from the lack of explanantion which we’ve really grown to expect in a finale (look it was old man Smithers, he was the zombie all along, “and I”d have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you dang kids and your stupid dog), was fluid and made a fair number of logical leaps even if it was avoiding the plot holes and philosophical inconsistencies set up by Reloaded. Yeah, the fight sequences in this installment were definitly not in there just because the were “kewl” like in part 2.

I can understand why a lot of things are done in Hollywood films, but sometimes I don’t think that always justifies doing it. The clothes in the Matrix served a very vital roll, and I understand that it was a white hat black hat kind of reason. When in the Matix, everyone wore leather or vinyl in dirrect opposition to the tattered rags they wore in the real world. But did the people in the Matrix need to be that over the top while the people outside were that under the line? I mean come on, I think the film makers blew their intire Vinyl budget on the club scene alone while in Zion, you’d think someone in there could knit a new sweater, I mean if Meatcurtains can do it, surely someone in there could be biding their time with some good old fashioned knitting. At least darn some of the tattered ones back together.

Wow, now that I’ve written my sidebar, I’m having a harder time ranting, I think maybe I justified most of the movie to myself with that comment alone.

Okay, one of the things that got to me when I was driving home. The Oracle was within the final Smith for quite some time, and in the end, she revealed that she could effect him from within. She is the mother of the Matrix and all. If that was the case, what took her so damn long to prod him into failure. Additionally, if the machines, through Neo’s body, could shock the entire system and kill every Smith that was in there (what did happen to the host bodies that he possesed? what happened to all the people hooked up as batteries), why did it wait so damn long? Does this go back to the whole If, Then, Else logic of the machines and, as a result, the matrix? Can the machines and the programs in the matrix not do certain things until a certain even has occured? If that’s the case, then all Neo really is, is a subroutine that runs around acting as a catalyst to get the things that were already programmed to do somehing, to do what they were programmed to do in the first place. Hmm, lets run with this for a second. Maybe somewhere, deep in machine code, there is a line that states “If a blind man flies straight at our ultimate armada with no chance of getting through, but then waves at us, we are to self destruct all units within 10 kilometers of him.” So Neo isn’t so much gifted as he’s merely a catalyst for something that was planned from the birth of machinery. When humanity built the first of the machines, they programmed this in at root level, figuring if things ever got to this point, someone woudl be lucky (stupid) enough to try this. And if they do, they deserve to move forward with whatever half baked scheme they’re running on.

Likewise, since the machines built the matrix, a similar code is written that says “if someone is fool enough to get uppity and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight some more and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight until even when there’s no hope of him winning but he still fights and fights and fights and fights and fights and fights and fights and fights and fights and fights and fights and fights and fights and fights and fights and fights, then for the love of god, just shut dow the system and reload the OS.”

Shit, I’m sure I have more to say on this, but until I start getting paid to review movies, I’m going to cut it here because my thoughts are going every which-a-way so I’ll wrap it up and wait to see who thinks what of what I’ve written.

Tags: movies, rants

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