The really big lie

Rating: 1/10 (21 May 2003)

I friend took me to the MATRIX RELOADED last night. About half way through, another newly introduced non-character began yet another inane pointless speech. It involved something about speaking French and it felt like it was going to be horribly stupid and long. Then something remarkable happened. I did something none of the characters in the flick seemed capable of: I was able to pull the feed cable from the back of my own skull, gain consciousness, and scurry out of the theater.
Once outside it was as if I was Neo pulled from his battery charger. I was disoriented and nauseous. I felt weak and blinked a lot. As my eyes adjusted to the light I looked around and saw that I was not alone. Two other humans had also broken free at the exact same time. We looked at each other and I spoke as if for the first time, `This thing is like a headache.' They nodded and the older of the two went to the bathroom. The younger mumbled something about going home.
That left me alone to lean against the recently shut down video games. It was then that Morpheus or maybe the Oracle downloaded `the big secret' into my brain directly from the Nebuchanezzar. The secret was simply this: the MATRIX is a digitized rip-off of the brilliant John Carpenter movie, THEY LIVE. It was a shock to say the least and I could hardly believe it. Then I started to compare the similarities and the truth was there clear as day. Like so much in the digital world the Matrix is simply a flashier faster resampling of the analog past. And we all know the past inevitably suffers from the unforgivable sin of having too much content. How could a great film be turned into something so bad I wondered, and how could the sequel be worse still?
I surmised that maybe when the Wachowski brothers shot the first MATRIX they used the plot and characters of THEY LIVE but were out bullets when they went to reload. With this realization I decided I might be able to sit through the last hour. Plus my ride was still plugged in.
It wasn't easy but I returned to plug myself back into the meandering pointless cartoon. This time I had my own special sunglasses permitting me to see through the digital effects and bad expository dialog that held all the geeks in the theater and around the world hostage.