When I first saw
The Matrix, I was deep into studying deconstruction theory from Derrida through many of the writers which built on those ideas. The premise of a film exploring our world as a construction and a force of heroes dismantling that structure held real promise for me. I remember upon originally seeing it being extremely disappointed for a number of reasons. While the film was a phenomenon and the sequels came almost too late, once the crest of that wave had already broke, I never jumped on that bandwagon, sticking with my criticisms of the series. But for a long time I felt I should give them films another chance and recently I had the chance to do that. Here are my thoughts reflecting as a much more mature film lover.
So there is a lot I have come to appreciate about The Matrix on rewatch. I truly enjoyed the esthetic and the Wachowskis' dedication to the grimy, bleak, art deco world they constructed. At the time I remember feeling it ripped off David Fincher, especially his Alien 3, but now I see it as part of a millennial trend taken through many films of the time such as Underworld. It works especially in light of the story's premise, and that with the cyber punk costuming creates a vibe which just fits perfectly for the story.
The film, despite its of-the-time special effects, has a cheap feel to it, perhaps due to budgetary concerns (the film makers didn't know it would be the blockbuster it was so like with the original
Star Wars the budget was retrained) but that also fits thematically quite well to create world constructed. It's deliberate and appropriate. Sure the helicopter climax feels somewhat economically filmed and the special effects have a video game quality to them but that helps create the feeling of the film. Everything from the bullet time style to the wuxia appropriation is cinematically on point. For me it was never the technique of the film that felt like a let down, it was the story. As I rewatched the film for the first time in over a decade it all came back to me where it starts to fall apart for me.
There is a common assumption about what makes good film making; "show don't tell." While I am all for challenging these assumptions, most of the time this refrain holds true and here it is evident.
The Matrix is all about telling. The characters rarely do things in this film. Most of the time they just explain. So much of the back story is just told to us. This can be a fascinating challenge for a lot of films with complicated plot points. Some films, such as
Jurassic Park for example, find a way within the narrative to make explaining details (in that case the animation explaining the cloning process) feel organic to the story. For me
The Matrix fails this test. So much time is spent by the characters giving plot details and explaining the world building and so little time is spent actually doing anything proactive.
Other films tackle this problem through being less concrete. For example
Blade Runner finds little ways to slip in details of the background but leaves a lot for its audience to interpret which leaves grey area.
The Matrix rejects this approach, holding the hands of the audience all the way through, ensuring every little detail is explained and clear so that no ambiguity is left. When it wants to introduce a traitor element, it does show by shoving it in our faces, without any room for doubt in the audience's mind. There is little to no ambiguity through any plot point. The film often overdoes it in that department making sure nothing is left for granted.
This isn't so much a critique. It's a stylistic approach which just doesn't work for me. Perhaps it works for the mainstream audience in a way a film like
Mullholland Drive doesn't. Normally I prefer it when any movie asks us to question what we are seeing but here I think it is even more problematic that it spells everything out for us. It's the nature of this specific story which makes this story telling approach so frustrating for me. It is that the film sets up this story about getting us to question our reality, deconstruct what we see as real, and then lays into this very linear, very concrete story, the kind of story that leaves you no room for questions.
This leads into my biggest problem with the film. The film's story ends up being the traditional hero arc about the "one" (who yes happens to be a white straight man) who saves the world by being that thing no one else can be. he does it through being violent and asserting his control. It is the same narrative that we have had time and again, the same narrative that reinforces the very structural beliefs and societal assumptions that a film with this story should be rejecting, should be getting us to question. This is my ultimate disappointment with
The Matrix, for all its bravado about being revolutionary it is actually very reactionary, asserting the traditionalist individualist narrative that pervades American cinema and culture. It's
Rambo in stylized special effects.
I remember leaving
The Matrix the first time feeling a real sense of disappointment that it wasn't something more original, that it's story didn't deliver on its promise. Rewatching it that was confirmed. I got my hopes up and was once again let down.
The Matrix
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishbourne, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano, Marcus Chong, Mary Alice
Writers/Directors: The Wachowskis
The first thing you notice about
The Matrix Reloaded is that they clearly had a much bigger budget. While the first film has a more indie feel to it as the effects often felt cobbled together, here the film makers revel in their new toys, showing off with a spectacular, very
Matrixy opening scene showing us just what they are capable of. The set pieces here are very much next level. While watching the freeway chase scene I was reminded how limited the helicopter scene from the first film felt. there is no restraint here.
But it's not just the effects. The mythology and background were expanded, exponentially. The cast has multiplied, the back stories and subplots had grown like tendrils. Everything about
The Matrix Reloaded is more. And mostly to the story's benefit. I really enjoyed some of the little diversions, such as Persephone and the Merovingian. I felt it added a richness to the world that the first film lacked. For me this enriching never felt too much, even if the Wachowskis' held little back. All of this amounts to a reworking of what's going on.
Reloaded provides us with doubt, questions about what we've been
told is true. This was extremely satisfying due to my disappointment in
the first film's reliance on narrative and myth cliches.
But you know what didn't feel expanded or enriched? Neo and Trinity. The centre of this story still felt so blandly average. Now that Neo is confirmed as "the One" he gets his mission, go to the heart of the mainframe. It's all just so... straight forward. And so is he. He is a blank, bland, white man hero as there ever was. He is the epitome of the stereotype. And I get that could have been the point. But I honestly doubt it is. Nothing in the film tells me they are using this ironically or to prove some point. He just is what audiences expect their movie action heroes to be. He is a cliche and not in a good way.
Never once does the film show me that he is special. It tells me he is over and over but it never gives me the proof. We are told to believe it so we do. He gains abilities and powers and saves the day but never are we given a reason other than he is "the One." Trinity is equally poorly drawn. Other than just loving him she never does anything... except need to be saved. Her arc is as unsatisfying as Neo's. All this other interesting stuff is going on (including Morpheus, and the upending of how we understand Zion and the human resistance as part of the design) but we keep coming back to the boring centre which reinforces the traditional hero arc.
Because by the end of
Reloaded we are back at where we ended last time. Neo pulls off hero-mode in the most traditional means available to him. He saves the damsel in distress then saves the other survivors leading to the film's cliffhanger ending. All of the interesting ideas being turned on their head for what, so we can have another savior story. I'm sorry but I found that so unsatisfying. It isn't just that the story feels so common, it's that the film series has purposefully set out the seeds for questioning why these narratives are so threaded through our culture and our expectations, only to
then reinforce them and get in line with pop culture tradition. It is the series' boldness in asking the question only to cowardly answer them that I found so frustrating.
I held out hope the third would fix this.
The Matrix Reloaded
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishhourne, Huge Weaving, Jada Pinkett-Smith, Harole Perrineau, Randall Duk Kim, Collin Chou, Monica Bellucci, Lambert Wilson, Leigh Whannell, Gina Torres, Nona Gaye, Harry Lennix, Anthony Zerbe, Mary Alice, Ian Bliss, Anthony Wong, Cornel West
Writer/Directors: The Wachowskis
Sequels which pick up the plot directly from the previous film can face certain challenges, finding a way to introduce to audiences, which (1) haven't seen the previous chapter at all, or (2) haven't just watched the previous chapter, the current status quo and get everyone up to date.
Revolutions does a great job of this, finding an in story way of giving us the goods. While I struggle with how these films like to tell us what's going on, at least here it works to get us all caught up for the final chapter, so that we can sum up what's happened and get to the last act.
And there is a lot interesting me here. I wanted this film to address its predecessors' blandness and
Revolutions attempts to do that. All the ideas we are leaning that make us question our understanding. "The One" is part of a machine designed failsafe, that there have been other "the One's" before, that the programs are developing human like emotions and relationships (in the image of the creator?). All of this becomes fascinating as we use it to reflect back on what we had seen so far. That maybe this series will break out of the trap that I found the first film falling into.
The final chapter builds up to two monumental battle scenes. Both are spectacular in their own way. The first, the machines attacking Zion and the human resistance fending them off is a traditional action movie set piece. It's like the battle of Helm's Deep, or the destruction of the second Death Star. It's all there, the heroic sacrifices, the gigantic explosions, the sense of impending doom. It is all very exciting. The second, Neo's encounter with the Source, is everything
The Matrix fans want, the cable work, the bullet time, trench coats and sunglasses, all the signature slo-mo
Matrix moves.
But it's still the same tired saviour narrative the first two films have peddled. Neo is still the one who can save everything without really giving us a reason, the one who everyone else believes in to save them all. They all say it explicitly. Whether its Niobe, or Orpheus, or Trinity (who can't shut up about it), it is all about their belief in him. The film never, never questions this, never asks us to wonder if they are wrong. We are to believe it too. Cause that's what happens in movies. The one hero comes along to save the day.
And in the end he has saved the day. We think...
I like that finally, at the very end of this opus, there is some potential to see it all differently and perhaps break apart what it is we are assuming. In the end we are given a plot that says he, unlike his previous predecessors, has broken the pattern the machines have started of reloading and rebooting and resetting, and contributed to a better world for the humans who now get to choose to be free or not. Sure he didn't destroy the machines and the humans aren't left liberated to build a new world on the machine's ashes (which to be fair would be the typical end result). He has made a new deal with the machines.
But I do wonder if that's the case. I think you can make an argument he was used, once again by the machines to solidify their control. He helps them eliminate a virus which threatened to destroy them and they keep their human farming operation going. I think there is finally some interesting questions and arguments to end this on. What happens at the end can be interpreted a number of ways and some of them are more interesting than others. Maybe the film makers have left it open enough to allow some wiggle room. And that might be enough to redeem much of this for me.
Maybe I can just accept the films, with their predictable structure just aren't my cup of tea despite all their hipster gloss and gothic overtones. Or maybe I can read into this conclusion something more meaty a little less predictable. I like the ending doesn't force feed us an explanation like so much of the series does before this. There are clues at the end but not concrete exposition like we saw in the previous films. And that gives me hope for this series yet. I know it's popular to shit on the final film but for me it left the most openness and was therefore the most satisfying, even while it was trying to be all things to all matrix fans.
The Matrix Revolutions
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishhourne, Huge Weaving, Jada
Pinkett-Smith, Harole Perrineau, Randall Duk Kim, Collin Chou, Monica Bellucci, Ian Bliss, Mary Alice, Harry Lennix, Lambert Wilson, Nona Gaye, Anthony Wong, Cornell West
Writer/Directors: The Wachowskis
Postscript:
Just after I revisited the films information came out about the Wachowskis and their embedding in these stories a trans narrative, a narrative that unfortunately is quite under the surface. Reconsidering based on this does add interesting layers to the film that I didn't as a cis person see. While this is enhanced my experiences with the films somewhat I also find it to continue to confound my experience of the films. As a trans narrative it still centres the cis white male and empowers him through reinforcing cis white male violence. The film makers, perhaps due to the time the films were made, deleted a possibly overt trans character, and kept all references to the trans experience metaphorical and symbolic. I understand how empowering that can remain in narratives for people whose identities are not being acknowledged in mainstream culture at all so I applaud that and certainly it adds something to the film I had been blind to before. But it remains problematic to me for the reasons that it still reinforces the traditional hegemony in ways I find utterly frustrating.
