"Niggah, you betta wake your azz up!"
(Note: yeah, I know the film left theatres months ago, but I had this review in my queue, and I thought to myself, why not share it with you? Warning: there are major spoilers in this review so if you haven’t seen it then you might want to skip it. Or not.)
All I can say is don’t go see this movie if it’s late at night. The Matrix: Reloaded had my eyeballs spinning. How long was this film, like 800 hours? And who knew there were so many religions and concepts in the world and, wow!, references to it all were not one, not two, but three movies! Zowee! To put it bluntly, nerd’s will be jacking off to The Matrix: Reloaded for years to come!
Here it is, pure and simple: I go to a movie and I am either engaged or not. The Matrix: Reloaded was at times a blast, but overall it was a snorefest. Interesting ideas about Christianity and Zion, but as a self-proclaimed scribe and trickster, they offer up paradigms that I question, which would be, well, the entire thing. War, heaven and hell, Jesus and Mary, Armageddon...all that. I don't doubt it exists for some people (as we are all different folks on different missions) but maybe this is time we should start creating new ideas around self, spirit and engaging the Universe, as we see and feel it, and not necessarily as we were taught to think about it. Oh God, The Matrix has me!
So here are a few thoughts floating in my tender little brain about this film. What the fuck was Cornel West doing in the Matrix? He's a gatekeeper! This guy never teaches a class! He just gives speeches and cashes checks! Ok so he's brilliant but don't one shouldn’t claim you are teaching classes and your TA's T&As are the only your students see. Cornel, maybe your should turn down the next role, let's say, if you get an offer to star in the sequel to "Beloved” which should be subtitled, “Yeah She Was a Ghost, Do You Get it Now?" directed by—who else? Spike Lee, of course. Wake up!
Why was Zion so boring? Cute place and all, what with all those sweaty half-dressed Negroes shaking their asses to the barbaric rhythms in the jungle totally ready to slob on this here brother's knob. But is there anything else is going on? I mean, can I get a library, maybe a movie theatre? A playground underground? As a Zionite, am I limited to endless conversations about the machines coming and taking over and killing me in my sleep? Yawn. I’d rather hang with the machines.
Allegory, schmallegory. Yeah I know I am the One, so big deal-E-O. Gimmie some fights scenes! I want to see limbs being ripped from the Zionites, machines wires spurting out all over the place. And that whole liquefying the dead to feed the living—ooo, now tell me that ain’t hot? You see the banal, day-to-day reality most people live in isn’t my daily life, so I am not moved by the notion of machines taking over our silly little lives. I mean, haven’t they already? Cell phones, computers, fax machines, palm pilots, television, electronic appliances…and the list drones on.
Most academic slaves and narcotic nerds found The Matrix: Reloaded interesting because hey, who knows what the fuck they are talking about most of the time, anyway, right? Still it's nice to have a movie with a purpose where someone is learning the minions about concepts, ideas and philosophy espoused by millions of dead (often white) men. So there are references to the Dead Sea Scrolls (who has time to learn Hebrew?) and the theology of Origin of Alexandria (again, fun to know about it, but I can’t see it helping me to quell the impulse to run down the idiot who cut me off in traffic) and this is fine. Next time I’ll know to do a little research, say, 6 years worth, before I see it again and then maybe I’ll be able to enjoy the film properly.
From this here viewpoint, you can always blame a bad film on the viewer/consumer for not knowing what the fuck the filmmakers were trying to do. But hey, there you go. I am just finishing up my first collection of essays where I lay it all out about sex, race and the detrimental effects of 24/7 mind-numbing pop culture being pumped into my head over the course of my entire life. I just can't fathom telling anybody who reads it and doesn’t get it that “oh you just don't get it because it is steeped in some stuff you didn't really read in school because you were too busy being oppressed by the Socratic method, and therefore you are a mind slave. But please, buy my book anyway, and the next one. And the next one. Bitch.” Nope, can’t see myself doing that.
Was Neo the sixth ONE, isn’t that what the Architect said? Hmmm. Do I care then? Because if he is then that means Zion is gonna get toasted again and again and that the only difference is that THIS time o'Neo gets to save Trinity. Big hornkity hornk deal. How abysmal is that life? No wonder I’m on crack. Again are these paradigms really useful in the development of a free mind, or are they just safe to utilize in order to keep our good opinions of ourselves intact? Go to the Core, find the keymaker, fights some albino dreads, get the key only to find out that the game starts over and over? The point?
What I did like: I love the Oracle. May sister Gloria Foster rest in peace.
Still, more crapola. Morpheus and Niaobi—now there’s a boring couple. Show me some lip-locking, monkey love! I mean, how could she end up with that prim jerk, Captain High Yellow? Damn, must be hard to find a good black man, even in Zion. Now that’s depressing.
And then there is the video game that includes more scenes from the movie. What the fuck? So lemmie get this straight, I need to be a philosophy and history major, (I mean, come on, Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation, Foucault and Derrida, Zerzan Asimov' Laws of Robotics, ad nauseam) have my finger on the pulse of contemporary culture, AND own a Playstation? Just to understand this film?
Oh me.
Signed,
Steven Unplugged