Christianity Anyone

Rating: Null/10 (5 November 2003)

Is it just me, or did this trilogy take a really christian turn at the end. I just watched the movie about an hour ago and I came out of the theatre saying, "Wow, I really need to read the bible." To me it seemed like I Just kept getting slapped in the face with blatant christian symbolism. By the time the movie ended, I wondered if i had just taken in a fun sci-filosophy flick or some kind of born again christian allegory. Ok here are some of the example's i thought of. First of all there's the whole savior thing which is obvious. It doesn't take much to realize that Neo is a christ figure. But that in itself is not where it gets to the level of smack-you-over-the-head-with-a-sack-of-bibles-obvious. I mean Jesus (no pun intended). Any good hero has attributes of the archetypal mythic hero, which christ was. But then there's the whole free will thing. When Smith asks Neo why he keeps fighting when his demise seems eminent, Neo's response basically echoes Milton's message in Paradise lost about what makes human beings human and why their fall was "fortunate": Free Will. Ok... you're still not convinced, how about the whole light/slash dark thing when Smith and Neo subsume one another. Neo is symbolically manifested as light, Smith dark. "I am the light of the world" anyone? Not to mention Neo appears as some sort of beatific shepard-guiding star and the end of the movie. Still not convinced? How about the fact that Smith and Neo's final battle occurs in the middle of a teeming rainstorm, that is, a biblical deluge, or better yet, a Baptism. And if you need stark old testament style/cheesy religious film evidence, there's always Agent smith (satan) cackeling demonically as lightning crashes in the background. Oh, and one more thing. Neo, in greek, the language of the bible means "new". Is it just me or could this be a reference to the new testament? The testament that deals with Christ. Oh yeah, and he's fighting to save Zion a.k.a Jerusalem in ancient times. Maybe im just reading into the whole good vs. evil thing, which has been done before, for example in the works of Tolkien where it resulted in general crappiness. I am not geneally one to ascribe religious allegory but it just seemed to apparent to pass up this time.