I hadn’t planned on posting this, because I’m not a fan and can’t be impartial. But I can’t keep it in any longer: thoughts on The Matrix Re-lorded [sic]

If these people have the survival of humanity in their hearts, if Neo is on his way to enlightenment, if Trinity and Morpheus have the Messiah they've been waiting for, why are they all so bloody miserable? If it looks like a Goth, if it walks and talks like a Goth, then it is a bloody Goth!

If this film is so innovative, so fresh, so original, why are they all dressed in the same old black leathers and shades that the costume designers of Terminator were doing twenty years ago, or Shaft thirty years ago? Why have they stolen all the [inexorable] fight scenes form contemporary Japanese cinema? Why did Grant Morrison get there a year in advance with The Invisibles comic - the fetish-gear, the shades, the shaven heads, the black / viral ink-spill of infection [in The Invisibles it's an armour], the enlightened beings, the birth of consciousness, the viral bad-guys? Why, why, why the hour-long car chases?

If they're all so enlightened, humane and intelligent, why do they spend the entire film beating up computer programs?

Why are they all so sulky, so monosyllabic, so pouty and brattish? Surely the saviours of humanity aren't Goths?

If Morhpeus is the saviour of saviours, why is he so bloody condescending, so smug?

If they'd just let the light in for one moment. The power of contrast is sorely lacking in this film. For the majority of the films, the script seems almost non-existent. Gone is the dialogue, in favour of more inexplicably long fight scenes. The inexorable displays of martial arts techniques. Wearing shades 24 hours a day is cool, it’s a conviction, but it’s not terribly new.

This entire film is like a night scene that never ends. Even the daylights scenes seem claustrophobic. It IS a fight scene that never ends. It feels as if there's no break, there's no dawn, no respite from the speeding cars and speeding fists - and there are breaks, but they have the ambience of a dentist's waiting room.

Agent Smith is the bad guy, and bad guys, but he seems to be the only character who is allowed to enjoy himself.

The entire fi[r]st half of the film could easily be ignored. Cut to the chase [or rather, cut to the bit right after the chase].

The Key maker amongst others [Persephone, The Architect], is an intriguing new program / character that is barely given a moment to engage the audience - a totally undeveloped and unrealized character.

This film left me cold. I found myself really wanting to like it - because in some small way it just might encourage a small amount of it's audience to explore the notions of consciousness, sleep and freedom.

It's totally lacking in the warmth, dynamic and contrast of the 'original'.

It seems ironic that such a contemporary approach to philosophy and spirituality should be melded to such an aggressive, gun-toting attitude. But this is Hollywood, this is 21st Century America, and the Matrix is only a film. [for further insight into the philosophy hinted at within the ideas behind the film, be sure to check out Grant Morrison's 'The Invisibles', and Whitley Strieber's 'The Key'.]

Rollo "There is no spoon" Kim