I originally planned to call this post Matrix INC, but that felt too on the nose. What follows is a ten-minute rant describing with some brief details where the Matrix movie went off the rails, why and how. So… SPOILER ALERT!
It sucked.
It had a few moments that were worth noting, but I can count those on one hand and they comprise, in total, thirty minutes of what felt like a 2.5 hr movie. It starts out as a very META nod to itself and ends like a heavy handed woke slap in the face. All in all, the film worked hard to employ and highlight marginalized individuals and their allies. In truth this quickly was seen as the focus of the film with the White Male identity shown very clearly as the ‘Bad Guy’
This shit was way woke, Y’all.
Too woke. By that I mean the Matrix is a film dedicated to presenting an idea without the effort of veiling the idea in an interesting and entertaining construct, but instead desconstructing that construct and asking the audience OUT LOUD why we need such constructs in order to be entertained. It was about the idea–no–the journey of the Directors own transformation and was her story of how she became empowered. Except she already did that. She also reminds us that she did that by peppering the cast with the people from the show in which the message was initially shared (Sense8).
It quite literally poked fun at the tried and true action sequences the franchise birthed and then expected us to enjoy rote versions of the same sequences interspersed between on screen trash talking of such things. Oh, and it crapped on the entire concept of Zion in order to push the concept of Io, which also falls under the “I’m going to hit you with my message until you idiots get it’ thrust of the film.
I did not like it. I love a film that allows me to lose myself and after to think about what it meant and how that meaning should impact me. This did none of that. All it had was unraveled meaning as though the green code were in fact the meaning running down the screen like vertical subtitles. It was a hard miss and I hope they don’t do more… Except, one of the characters literally announced he was off to make his own spinoff in the middle of a poorly timed and scripted fight sequence, so… there’s that.