Pointless action and wrong philosophical message

Rating: 1/10 (31 July 2005)

This is an essentially plot less and philosophically wrong movie. It is plot less because it is a mere succession of action scenes that have no reason to be in the movie. There is the basic conflict between Neo and Agent Smith/the evil people in the Matrix, but this conflict is never built on or expanded. Instead, it is mired in pointless action scenes. There is never any suspense in the ridiculously long action scenes to hold the viewer's interest. Neo is, in fact, almost completely indestructible and so you know full well that he can defeat a few dozen Agent Smiths with ease.
The movie is philosophically wrong because it perpetrates the belief that causality is the same as determinism. No, The Law of Causality states that the nature of the action(s) of an entity is determined by the nature of the entity doing the acting. Emphasis should be put on the word "nature" because volition does not contradict causality, as the Wachowski brothers seem to think. No, volitional consciousness is "human nature" and determines the way we act--our ability to choose our actions by means of thought/emotion. Volition, however, does not determine what specific choices we make, just that we can make a choice. Determinism is a type of causality where certain actions must occur because they were determined by past events; it is the opposite of volition, but does not contradict it because it is a separate idea. Any first year philosophy student would know this and recognize the error in the Wachowski brothers' thinking.