Even the Columbine killers were "Matrix" fans

Rating: 1/10 (22 February 2009)

Warner Bros. Pictures issued a statement denying any tie between real-world violence and the virtual violence of the "Matrix" movies: "Any attempt to link these crimes with a motion picture . . . is disturbing and irresponsible."
Yet criminals themselves keep making the connection. When Lee Boyd Malvo, teen half of the alleged D.C. sniper duo, goes on trial for murder in Chesapeake, Va., tomorrow, his attorney confirms that he too will weave "The Matrix" into his insanity defense. Malvo told FBI agents that they should "watch 'The Matrix"' if they wanted to understand him, and jailers found lines of dialogue from the film scribbled on paper in his cell. Even the Columbine killers were "Matrix" fans. (From Boston Globe By Mark Schone, 11/9/2003)
Neo finds himself in an alternate reality, aware that he once was "unconscious" in a computer-generated virtual reality and killers are chasing him. He must resort to fancy footwork and plenty of violence himself in order to save the world. All that he once believed has proved false as he's designated the savoir and learns his secret super powers. What Neo does serves a higher purpose, which gives his violence noble flavor. But that's a movie. Or is it? Apparently, some murder defendants have come to believe they were in the matrix and that killing others was therefore justified. Lee Boyd Malvo, was devoted to the movie. In jail he made many jottings, including a plea that people should free themselves from the Matrix. He told the FBI to watch the film... In San Francisco, Vadim Mieseges, 27, killed and dismembered his landlady, and in his defense he said that he'd been "sucked" into the Matrix. In Ohio, Tonda Lynn Ansley also attacked her landlady on this premise, but was certain she had not really done so: it was only a dream. She had targeted three others as well, to free herself from their mind control. In Virginia 19-year-old Joe Cook, who claimed he did not realize what he was doing when he dressed like Neo, grabbed his twelve-gauge shotgun (purchased because it resembled one in the movie), and shot both of his adoptive parents to death. (From Crime Library by Katherine Ramsland)