I saw it when it came out, and perhaps I saw in again on some streaming service, of maybe I got it on Netflix back in the DVD days. Don’t know what I thought of it back then. But now (on Netflix)...YIKES!!
I’m thinking that The Matrix is mostly a pretext for a Sci-Fi urban martial arts computational tentacle-porn pseudo-mystical mashup. Really? I’m sure I didn’t take it seriously, for whatever meaning of “seriously” makes sense in this context. It’s all about the action and the tidbits of mystical-mumbo jumbo about belief and self. And the vibe, it’s about the vibe.
And the mystical power of true love? It all comes down to a woman’s kiss? Trinity kisses Neo, All Better. The Oracle said so. He is the one! And soaring brass! Gimme a break!
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On action, see my post, John Wick 1, 2, 3 [Media Notes 116], for some discussion.
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This one film gave birth to three more features, one of which had a bit role for Cornel West, and a whole lot more. I’ve watched the first two sequels, but not the fourth. Apparently, there’s a fifth in the works.
Here’s a paragraph from the Wikipedia article on the franchise:
The series features a cyberpunk story of the technological fall of humanity, in which the creation of artificial intelligence led the way to a race of powerful and self-aware machines that imprisoned humans in a neural interactive simulation — the Matrix — to be farmed as a power source. Occasionally, some of the prisoners manage to break free from the system and considered a threat, become pursued by the artificial intelligence both inside and outside of it. The films focus on the plight of Neo (Keanu Reeves), Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) trying to free humanity from the system while pursued by its guardians, such as Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving, Abdul-Mateen II, and Jonathan Groff). The story incorporates references to numerous norms, particularly philosophical, religious, and spiritual ideas, among others the dilemma of choice vs. control, the brain in a vat thought experiment, messianism, and the concepts of interdependency and love. Influences include the principles of mythology, anime, and Hong Kong action films (particularly "heroic bloodshed" and martial arts movies). The film series is notable for its use of heavily choreographed action sequences and "bullet time" slow motion effects, which revolutionized action films to come.
Will this multimedia franchise go down in history as the end of civilization as we know it? The hinge of history heralding the Singularity (properly understood?). Who knows? (Who cares?)
