A different perspective

Rating: Null/10 (8 November 2003)

Ninety percent of the reviews here seem to be pretty negative. A lot of people seem to think that the first movie was the best, the second movie not as good, and the third movie crap. There are a lot of complaints about bad acting, overly drawn out battle scenes, "all action and no plot," no breakthrough special effects, but also "boring philosophy" and "stupid dialogue" and an ending that is "outright ridiculous." And of course the whole lack of originality and cheesiness thing.
I am not in the habit of becoming attached to movies or of defending them, but I felt strongly enough about this trilogy to write something. Because what I got out of it was an affirmation of the spiritual nature of reality -- which is, after all, what mythology is intended to do. Myths and legends tell timeless stories in ways that people can relate to, and remind us of fundamental truths, and Matrix movies are definitely mythic. And myths aren't new, in fact they're very old; but I don't hear anyone complaining that any new production of King Lear lacks originality because it rehashes the same material. In science fiction, the Matrix's ideas have been presented before -- many times in written form, a few times on film or TV (e.g. Dark City). Of course it's not original.
I believe that movies like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and The Matrix touched people not because of good acting, action, or special effects, but they are stories that are both human and larger-than-life, and underlying those stories are mythical themes that remind us of our spiritual nature: good and evil, purity and corruption, the tangible and the intangible, the practical and the magical. And in science fiction, there are more contemporary themes: human and nonhuman, cold reasoning and human feeling. All of this is the genuine depth that I love about good science fiction and fantasy, and that depth is something that popular culture desperately needs.

So what I see in these epic movies is that affirmation of magic in our lives. And I liked the entire Matrix trilogy because it speaks of reality as a complex, perhaps incomprehensible existence which is guided by awareness and choice. There are clear Judeo-Christian analogues but they are truths that are equally compatible with ideas from other spiritual systems, Buddhism for one.
All spiritual paths teach that the way to freedom is love -- in different language, different forms: salvation, peace, emptiness. The only true fulfillment is to love oneself totally, to know oneself as a complete being, both completely empty and completely full -- whether by becoming "enlightened" or by living with Jesus in your heart -- and thereby become free to act in accordance with one's deepest nature, nonattached or inaccessible to any other influence. That's what I think the Matrix movies were trying to say, in their own small way. And I am mightily impressed that the makers of those movies succeeded in saying it, flawed though the movies are.
Of course that's not all the Matrix movies were about. They were definitely about fight scenes and special effects. They definitely had some not-so-great acting and editing. Maybe there was just a bit too much money and PR thrown around out there.
But you get what you concentrate on. Personally I'm looking for affirmation somewhere out there in the mainstream world, which is often banal and superficial and lacking in spiritual depth. I think that stories both remind us of who we are and also stretch us in unexpected directions. I suppose you could say that stories reflect a person's reality and where he or she is willing to go. I would guess that the first Matrix did a good job of reflecting people's distaste for and rejection of a boring, mundane, superficial pseudo-reality, but that the sequels did not. That may be one reason people liked them less: because they didn't affirm people's realities as well.
But I, personally, was very impressed by what this trilogy had to say. You won't find it in ninety percent of the other action films out there.