the Matrix Rant

I know, this isn't at all timely. But the PBS station at my parents' house was showing an old Charlie Rose from around the time the Matrix sequel was coming out.

There's not much that bugs me more than Carrie Anne Moss and Laurence Fishburne expounding upon the philosophic virtues of the Matrix series of movies...about how it's such a great transcendental commentary about our human existence...how people will be studying the movie for years to come because of its philosophic ground that it broke...how every line from the movies has been carefully crafted around this pseudo-philosophy.

Bullshit.

Yeah, this Matrix mumbo jumbo is what happens when a moderately good action flick starts believing that it's smart, gets caught up in its story and tripping on its own mythology.

It's just another movie for the outcasts, I guess.

Just because Joe Sixpack can't watch the movie without going "What the hell was going on?" doesn't mean that the movie geeks should latch onto the movies as the basis of a philosophy.

I was in my local video store a few weeks ago, about the time that the second Matrix movie was coming out. A little stoner punk was renting the first Matrix, so he "could catch up."

"There was some heavy shit in that movie," the guy said. "That shit could be happening right now. We could all be part of some computer."

"Yeah," the guy behind the counter said. "The Matrix could be happening. And so could Howard the Duck."

"What's Howard the Duck?"

I don't know what reprinting that conversation has to do with my point, except that you shouldn't be allowed to comment on the philosophic nature of the cinema unless you've seen Howard the Duck. As well as the Seventh Seal, a few Kurosawa Samurai Movies, the Breakfast Club, CQ, They Live, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Bambi, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Soylent Green, The Planet of the Apes and The Warriors.

Or better yet, go read a few books. Start with Jostein Gaardner and work your way out.

See, I have nothing against The Matrix per se. It's a pretty convoluted and hammily acted kung fu/shootemup adventure. Hugo Weaving is the best part of the movie, and picking Keanu Reeves to be the neophyte who is confused by his surroundings is a natural.

And I can appreciate where people would want to pull out the meaning of people being stuck in a machine message from the movie, and wanting people to realize that they're stuck in the machine. I've felt like that myself. But that message is dime store, and it's flawed: Because if we're to look at it the way the Matrix look sat it....only a pre-destined few are meant to rise above and fight for us, and then the only way the average joe can rise above that is if The Messiah (The One) pulls us out of it.

And then it's become nothing more than a hackneyed morality play to me.

I haven't seen the second one, and I'm not excited about the third. I felt like the Messiah story (where Neo is the One) was pretty much played out in the first movie.

But mostly I don't like stoner punks trying to tell me what a great and philosophic SF movie the Matrix is. For my money, I like the whole God in the Machine who can Lay the Smack Down message you get from The Day the Earth Stood Still. Or perhaps the Light Side/Dark Side of the Force representing the dual nature of man from George's original movies (not this mess he's put out lately).

And it could also be the fact that my feet are firmly planted on Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment being the beginning and the end of all cinematic philosophic discussion.

But the polite thing would be not to point that out.