The Matrix: Resurrections (a movie review post)

 

It was not without some amount of trepidation that I approached this movie. The original Matrix movie was, inarguably, brilliant, but the two sequels proved to be... well, disasters. And that's being kind. But this movie came with a not so unspoken promise of... redemption. Did I think it would deliver? No, not really, but I did hope in the possibility.

Which was a vain hope, as it turned out.

Yes, this review will contain spoilers. It's not worth your time, and you should know why.

The movie does open with some amount of promise, which just makes everything else worse. The duplication of the opening scene of the first movie is intriguing. So is finding Neo -- excuse me, Thomas Anderson -- is a game developer and that The Matrix is a video game that he created. These are interesting questions. What does all this mean for the "reality" of the other movies?

As it turns out, nothing. It all just turns out to be the set up for Neo re-taking the red pill so he can get back to the real world again.

Then there's a long-ass fight scene that was so long I got bored.

Which all leads us to the "real" point of the movie (and I think we're more than an hour in, by this time): to get Trinity out of the matrix in the same way she got Neo out in the original movie. The only difference is that we get to watch it from the outside rather than the inside. But it's still just the same story over again. Except with zombies. Which they call the swarm.

Every little piece of the movie that could have been interesting, they avoid dealing with. For instance, Morpheus is somehow now an Agent. He doesn't know it at first but the Agent in question somehow quickly realizes he's really Morpheus. Hmm... well, that's interesting! Do they delve into that at all? No... We just now have an Agent who can leave the matrix in a... nano-metal body? I don't know what to call it. It doesn't really matter. It's just an excuse for some cool special effects.

And there are robots on the side of the humans, but do they give that any kind of focus? No... It's just, "oh, yeah, they joined us after the third movie because of your sacrifice."

There's the whole character of The Analyst and his supposed understanding of humans, which makes him unique among the robots, but, again, it's just something that's stated and they don't explain or delve at all. There are ramifications here, man!

Not mention Agent Smith, who is now played by Jonathan Groff and is also playing both sides of the field, sometimes fighting against Neo and sometimes with him. The only explanation given to that is that The Analyst has had Smith under his control, somewhat like he's had Neo under his control, and he won't go back to that. So, fine. But what the fuck was he doing under The Analyst's control to begin with.

There are all of these things just dropped throughout the movie, like the people bombs in the final fight scene, and not a single one of them are explored. Neo and Trinity look old to other "people" in the matrix. Why? It can't even maintain a cool factor because they move on from it so quickly that it doesn't have any meaning. None of it does.

In the end, that's the downfall of the movie. None of it has any meaning. It's just The Matrix over again with a bit of 2 and 3 rolled into it so that we don't forget that those two movies exist. Even the brief glimmers of self-awareness that the movie has are squashed. Meaningless.

The actors are all fine. Completely adequate. No one stands out. Maybe Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. A little. It felt like he was going to bring some fun to the character of Morpheus, then all of that ended when he left the matrix. 

I don't know... the whole movie is kind of... meh. It's not bad; it's just not good. It definitely doesn't rise anywhere near to the level of the first one. It's more watchable than 2 and 3, for sure, but not that much more watchable. Probably not enough for me to ever go back and watch it again. If I had paid money to see it (rather than watching it on HBO), I probably would have been upset. It's just another Warner Bros. failure.

The Comfort of Lies

Remember The Matrix? Great film, right? Well, it is as long as you pretend the two followups don't exist. Once you embrace the entire trilogy as one story, it kinda sucks. Okay, more than kinda. But, you know, it's okay to pretend; it's only a movie.

But let's explore that idea a little more.
And, you know, if you haven't seen The Matrix... Well, you'll just have to try and keep up, because I'm not explaining the movie in this post.

As you know, Neo has to make a choice, the choice between Reality and the fabricated world of the Matrix. One is real; one is a lie. The choice is symbolized by the two pills pictured above, the red pill or the blue pill. Of course, we all know which choice Neo is going to make, because the movie would be over if he were to choose to stay in the Matrix. Besides, it's the choice we all tell ourselves that we would make. Of course we would choose to forsake the lie!

But, man, Reality really sucks. (Much like the reality of the subsequent two films.)

Which brings us to Cypher. Cypher, having lived in the real world for quite a while, decides he doesn't like it. He decides he would rather live in a comfortable lie than continue to struggle through Reality. Remember, Reality sucks.

So Cypher cuts a deal with the machines and betrays his friends so that he can re-enter the lie, the Matrix.

The general reaction from the audience at the time was one of bafflement. How could he choose to go back into the Matrix knowing it was a lie? How could he?! But, you know, he tells us all the reasons as he's making the deal. He misses the... comfort... of it. The taste of food (rather than protein mush), the feel of the sun and the wind (rather than the blotted out sky), the ease of living as opposed to the constant life-threatening struggle that was Reality.

And, man, I empathize. Reality sucks, especially this current reality where we (in the United States) live on the teetering edge of authoritarianism and fascism. I get why so many people are choosing to believe the lies Trump pushes. It gives them comfort. It's their blue pill. If they can just believe in Trump enough, they can pretend he's not a racist douche bag and, if he's not a racist douche bag, then they, also, are not racist douche bags. And no one wants to be a racist douche bag. I mean, heck, even the white supremacist Nazi assholes try to pretend that they're not racist douche bags; that's why they go with all the "white pride" shit instead. But they're only fooling themselves.

To be fair, it's not like those on the Left aren't sucking on their own blue pills by continually talking about how we've forgotten the "white working class." This, also, is an appeal to racism and white supremacy. "C'mon white people, we're on your side." Seriously, no one forgot the white working class. In all seriousness, the white working class is doing just fine. The white working class, no matter how they feel about it, is still doing better than people of color. Any color. We need to stop talking about the "white working class" and how they feel left behind or whatever bullshit they want to call their racism. All they're really saying is, "We're worried our superior position is in jeopardy." And everyone else is trying to make them feel better about it while people of color are still getting the shit end of the stick.

Let me give you a practical example of the systemic racism in the system:
As I'm writing this, hurricane Irma is losing power, but the damage has already been done. There are about 45 known deaths to the storm and much of Florida is without power at the moment. Of course, just prior to Irma was Harvey. Harvey is responsible for 70 deaths and major flooding in Texas. These two storms caused huge amounts of destruction and have dominated the news for weeks.

However, in the midst of this, Mexico suffered the worst earthquake its had in a century, leaving around 100 dead. The media barely mentioned it and isn't talking about it anymore. And the news hasn't even mentioned that 2017 has been a harsh year for monsoons (hurricanes) in south Asia. The worst year in decades. So far, there have been almost 1300 confirmed deaths due to these storms and over 40 million people affected, including the destruction of more than 700,000 homes and a massive loss of crops due to flooding which is likely to cause food shortages. But, hey, they're not white, so, you know, big deal.

Right?

Look, I'm not diminishing what's happened to people in Houston and in Florida and in the Caribbean. What has happened has been horrible, but it doesn't make it less horrible to remember that other people are suffering, too. Except that, for some people, it does make it less horrible, because, to them, having bought into the Lie, they believe it's Us against Them, anything that happens to Them is okay because they deserve it. Or, maybe, not quite deserve it, but they don't deserve the special protection that white people ought to have from these kinds of events so, somehow, when it happens to white people, it's more tragic. Like when the Greeks only wrote tragedies about nobility because it wasn't tragedy if it happened to the common man.

But we're all common men.

The Lie is that we're not. The Lie is that it's Us (whites) against them (people of any other skin color).

Let me put it another way, to paraphrase Yoda:

My ally is the Truth, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, binds. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Truth flow around you. Here, between you, me, the brown person, and the black, yes, even between all others and the white.

The Truth, what Reality really is, is the we are all us.

We are all us.

(And I didn't even mention the blue pill of climate change denial.)

Codes (a book review post)

Prior to its release, author Briane Pagel said about Codes that it's the best book he has written so far. After reading it, I would have to agree with him. And that's not something you should take lightly, because Pagel has written some pretty good books.

And, hey, there are hardly any editing issues in this one. And none that I can remember, now, which means, basically, that there was nothing more than simple copy editing issues and not many, at that.

The worst thing you can say about the book is that it wasn't long enough. I mean that in the "I really wish there was more of this" way and not the "This feels like author rushed it to keep it short" way. I don't know if there's a better thing that can be said about a book than "I wish there was more of this." In fact, it would have been great to have gotten to see more of all of the characters other characters, to say something that's really confusing but will make sense if you read the book. Actually, this could have been a really great mystery story, but, then, it would have been a different book but not necessarily a better book.

Okay, I think might be letting some of the book seep into me. Who am I again?

Anyway, this is the kind of story that Pagel does very well. It's a bit experimental but, still, mostly mainstream, and most of the experimenting is done in the text. And, yeah, that probably doesn't quite make sense, either, but, again, you have to read the book. Mostly, though, the thing he does well is let you see events from different characters' perspectives, which is important in a story like this.

So there's this one part that I have to mention:
There's a bit where Robbie gets a communication from someone on his... computer thing. I want to say laptop, but that might not be what it was. People are after him, and he gets this communication from this other guy that tells him to go out the window. It was like that scene in The Matrix where Morpheus tells Neo to go out the window and Neo does, but, see... and I don't want to spoil it, but I thought what Pagel did was great and much more likely to be... Yeah, likely to be.

Another major point for the book is that any time you think you know what's going on, you find out you don't really know what's going on. But in a good way. It's all just another piece of the puzzle. There were a couple of things that were very unexpected, though, and one of those was probably brilliant. And I'm going to leave it at that, because I can't really say anything else without spoilers, and this is a book you don't want spoiled.