The Matrix was released in the summer of 1999 without any real fanfare as one of many mid range budget pictures out that year. It did decent business but then really got popular as one of the first releases to really take advantage of the DVD format.
Thus the Wachowski brothers took their chance and pushed forward with plans to realise their hoped for trilogy. Shot back to back The Matrix : Reloaded and The Matrix : Revolutions were released months apart in 2003 and were received with a somewhat mixed response.
I myself remember being exciting by Reloaded but then disappointed by Revolutions but I think it's time to look again at the films and also take a little time to look at some of the philosophy and theory that the series uses.
The Matrix is undoubtedly the best of the three; it's tight, well paced, imaginative and at the time showcased genuinely groundbreaking effects work. And that lobby scene is one still one of the best examples of a stylistically choreographed shoot out.
It is true too I think that the first film is also the closet to a normal 'action sci-fi' film, since despite it's direct use of Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation (it both appears as the book Neo uses to hide a disk and one of Morpheus' lines is pretty much a direct lift from it) it has far less philosophical discussion and musing than the subsequent films.
Here we get the basic setup of the narrative's world and the sub textual discussion, that is of course the question of 'what is real?'. Baudrillard argues that the world has become a series of images that have worked to moves us further away from any sense of meaning, of the progression of the artificial image in society he writes ;
"it is the reflection of a profound reality.
it masks and denatures a profound reality.
it masks the absence of a profound reality.
it has no relation to any reality whatever: it is its own pure simulacrum".
The Matrix takes this to the extreme where the reality of the masses is no longer that of the real world but rather a reflection of a reality that no longer exists beyond the recreation of it in image. Thus we have the Matrix in which the majority of the population exist oblivious the real world beyond it.
Of course in the film Neo (and us as the audience) are shown the difference between the real world and the unreal as he wakes up. Something also has roots in Buddhism in terms of the problem of sleeping in ignorance in a dreamworld, solved by waking to knowledge or enlightenment. Then fight begins as the Wachowskis seem to pretty much deliberately use a textbook version of a heroic myth story arc to tell the central story on which everything else is hung.
So the first is a striking piece of action cinema with a strong central concept and some great execution (notice the difference in the filtering and saturation of the real and the unreal worlds - which grew more pronounced as the series progressed).
As The Matrix : Reloaded opens Neo has basically become Superman within the system and a symbol of hope and salvation to many out in the real world. The second film upped the ante both in terms of the level of the production and the extent of philosophical discussion going on within the film.
Production wise the freeway sequence is an immense undertaking (although arguable Bad Boys II similar sequence bettered it later that year - but crucially the rest of that film was dire) and the fight in the Merovingian's lobby outdoes any of the fisty cuffs in the first plus you have the technical achievement of Neo's 'burly brawl' against the multiple Smiths.
However I find the more I see it the more I'm interested in what is going on in between the bursts of action. This time around on top of the question of reality we have questions on 'what is choice?', predestination and the influence of cause and effect. The issue of choice and predestination was touched upon in the first film during the sequence with The Oracle but was very much taking a backseat to the simulation issue as the bending spoon reminds us during that very sequence.
Now these are brought front and center by sequences again with The Oracle, The Merovingian and to some extent the newly 'enlightened' Agent Smith. From his discussion with The Oracle, Neo is told that he must make a choice that we decide the fate of (basically) all but also that he has already made the choice because of who he is but crucially to find awareness he must understand the choice.
Feeding into this is the Merovigian's belief in cause and effect above all else. Anything that happens is a direct result of what has already happened. Essentially we are not free to make choices because events we basically make the choice for us. Of course all charmingly illustrated with that piece of cake.
Neo may be the hero we are asked to cheer for but if you listen to those around him he is being played and channelled down a road not of his own making from the very beginning. So really it should come as no surprise when The Architect tells him exactly that! Although it is argued that The Architect cannot understand why Neo makes his choice since it is not the logical one to take. To him the concept of love is as false a reality as the Matrix is to Neo.
Reloaded suffers from being the middle child, it has some strong elements (as mentioned the freeway chase is impressivily done) but also weaknesses. The rave seqeunce is the most painfully indulgent thing within the trilogy and the film does suffer to some extent in having to move the players to the right positions for the third installment. Plus someone really should have taken another pass at The Architect's dialogue
Picking up pretty much directly after the conclusion of Reloaded, Revolutions was probably the least warmly received upon it's release. With much more taking place in the 'real' world (is it real? Does Neo's effect on the Sentinels mean it is a second artificial reality?) this time around as the city of Zion fights to survive.
For me the scenes of battle within Zion's dock are still far more impressive and kinetic than the battle at the end of Avatar. Although I do still do wish the climatic Neo vs Smith smackdown was shorter as it does repeat a number of action beats already featured within the same sequence and retread of the first film's lobby scene really does feel like a sequence inserted after someone called for more action (I'm looking at you Mr Silver).
Plus it is worth applauding Ian Bliss' mimicking of Hugo Weaving as Smith in the flesh of Bane
Elsewhere Neo ends his mythic journey sacrificing himself for the good of all others and ensuring peace. But there is still time for musing; mostly on the idea of choice and the false constructs of the human condition that we take for granted. For example Smith (like The Architect) cannot understand the concept of love as anything other a false impression of the world around you, as a form of madness telling you one person is much more important than another.
Come the end Zion is saved, the Matrix persists but a cycle is broken as we find The Oracle has coaxed events along seeing the chance to make a change from the normal series of events with Neo's love of Trinity and Smiths agent of disorder within the system.
Now I'm aware this post is getting quite long and I'm only briefly touching on things, I may well return to have a more in depth look at some of the specific themes in the coming days but for now I'll sum up.
The Matrix will remain a classic of it's genre I feel but the others will probably not be so fondly remembered. However I find these days I prefer Revolutions to Reloaded but I think they do both have merits and are good efforts at offering up something slightly different. Big, bold action blockbusters with something to ask. Ok they may not phrase it that well (lost under overly verbose machinations) and they get a little confused as to what they are asking sometimes but points for the effort. (And hey actual academics still debate the extent of and how well the films engage with the ideals used, so they did something right)
I do think that people look down on the films because they did up the level of philosophical chat involved instead of just simply offering bigger and bigger explosions alone. But then if they'd done that no doubt people would complain they were just retreads of the first with bigger explosions.
3 comments:
An interesting appraisal. Unsurprisingly, I'm going to leap straight to the part I disagree with.
"I do think that people look down on the films because they did up the level of philosophical chat involved instead of just simply offering bigger and bigger explosions alone. "
I don't think this is the problem at all. I think the problem is that they failed to introdude the philosophy they were so desperate to include in a remotely palatable way. Neo's conversation with the Oracle in Reloaded is the exception; that works really well, partially since it uses a piece of candy as an analogy rather than a cake that launches the reader at a blonde woman's unmentionables.
The problem with the second two films isn't that there's too much philosphy, or that there's too few explosions. It's the almost complete failure to integrate the two parts.
"Plus it is worth applauding Ian Bliss' mimicking of Hugo Weaving as Smith in the flesh of Bane"
Agreed, 100%. That's my favourite part of the third film. You're also right that the battle for the dock is brilliant. Which, of course, makes Neo's final battle against Smith all the more anti-climactic.
I think all The Oracle's scenes work quite well. The Architect's has the problem of being where you typically expect a big action finish to be and of course the dialogue is a bit clumsy.
I think it's only really the Merovingian's parts that are crowbarred in, but then issue of chocie and casue/effect does run through out the rest of the film not just the parts where it is directly discussed.
As I said it isn't perfectly done but they deserve points for trying.
But try thinking of it the other way round too, swap any discussions on philosphy for a fistfight or gunfight and would people complain about there being too much action and not enough substance?
"The Architect's has the problem of being where you typically expect a big action finish to be and of course the dialogue is a bit clumsy."
I'd argue that it's the latter part of that sentence that's more important. In the context of a middle film, the revelation of what is truly going on can easily replace a big action finish. Just look at The Empire Strikes Back. No-one talks about the lightsabre duel, or the exchange of laser fire with Stormtroopers in Cloud City. It's "I am your father" that hit everyone.
If it had been "Concurrently and inevitably, the most pertinent relationship of which your consciousness could conceive remains stubbornly unconsidered, despite its ultimate resolution being within grasp, both literally and figuratively, requiring only the question, my answer, and your ability to frame the former and withstand the latter", Lucas would have been hated far sooner than proved to be the case.
" but then issue of chocie and casue/effect does run through out the rest of the film not just the parts where it is directly discussed."
All the more reason to not need it spoon-fed to us by the Merovingian. Not that I minded too much with Monica Bellookye sat beside him, obviously.
"As I said it isn't perfectly done but they deserve points for trying."
Agreed.
"But try thinking of it the other way round too, swap any discussions on philosphy for a fistfight or gunfight and would people complain about there being too much action and not enough substance?"
That's why I don't agree with this part of your appraisal; the issue isn't whether or not you could swap out the philosophical musings for explosions without people complaining, it's whether you could make the philosophical musings more interesting and still get the same complaints you do now. It's your implication that any given scene must either be boring musings on dry philosophical points or Keanu Reeves kicking someone's face off in slow motion that I think is faulty.
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