The Matrix 4… was it really necessary?

 

 

Is it even possible now to say “Spoiler Alert?”

I believe pretty much every die-hard Matrix fan must have watched the movie installment by now. I most certainly have the very first weekend I had after the movie was released. It was such a nice bonding experience with my son as I took him to the movies with me for the very first time, reviving an old family tradition that my dad used to say his father did with him when he was a young boy. We got the salted caramel popcorn and had a blast.

But that was pretty much all I got out of the movie, and to be quite honest, I wasn’t thrilled with the movie quite as much as I’d expected. Finally, the Matrix joined the ranks of movies that shouldn’t ever have sequels ever again.

I don’t think they really had their heart invested in the project. I say this with a cloud of sorrow over me because I REALLY wanted to love this fourth Matrix movie, but making this movie was a mistake. It wasn’t a resurrection, rather a footnote.

 

 

The Matrix wasn’t the same without Laurence Fishburn and Hugo Weaving, two central characters deeply associated with their portraying actors. With all due respect to the fill-in actors who played their parts, it just wasn’t the same and it felt quite awkward.

And don’t even get me started on the blasphemy that happened to the most noteworthy and iconic character of the Merovingian. That was just plain WRONG!

And No Oracle? Dude, Come On!

The Matrix trilogy is one of those everlasting classics right up there with The God Father trilogy. You can’t get enough of watching them over the years, with every single time bringing about the same level of enjoyment which you form this deep attachment to the characters and the cast who played them.

 

 

So, what exactly is The Matrix? That is such a deeply philosophical question that has layers upon layers of answers.

The first Matrix brought us the idea that we’re all living in a dream world created by a virtual reality program inside a machine world that uses humanity as a power source. Within this construct, we all found parallels with our current state of affairs with our deep immersion in social media and our online personas that we portray to the world that could be different from our real-life reality. In the Matrix, you see yourself as you want to see it, and on the internet, we all do the same. We create elaborate versions of ourselves and we let our minds roam and soar way above our limitations which is freeing as much as it invokes our tendencies to embellish, fluff, and aggrandize ourselves, if not outrigh lie.

The story in the original trilogy discusses the war for freedom by our beloved all-powerful insurgent hackers who are trying to hack the Matrix to shut it down and free humanity. The story was–and still is–invigorating, the action sequences, legendary, the plot, airtight, and the cinematics, out of this world.

 

 

*Spoilers Begin Here*

On to this new fourth edition, it doesn’t really feel the same. Neo and Trinity—The Matrix version of Adam and Eve—have been resurrected/reconstructed into flesh and blood again by superior mad advanced technology that could remap a brain and recreate complicated human organs and tissue. They were reinserted into the Matrix which was rebuilt in a brand new version that still used humanity as the machine world’s power source, but at the same time, it ushered in a new age of peace and harmony between the freed humans and independent AI machines that cohabitate with said humans and assist them to live released from the fear of war and doom.

Neo gets approached by freed humans who are still looking for him in the Matrix again, because, well, he is Neo, their—our?— legend. They find him, free him and bring him back to the new free city where he learns that Trinity is alive again and he sets on to free her, again. Like, Seriously now? That’s it? A whole new installment just to reawaken Trinity? Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Trinity, but I don’t think that should be enough to support the premise of the movie.

I guess the original trilogy spoiled us with its very deep underlining philosophies and the rich subtext of human behavior and psychological challenges. There was no true conflict of interest like with the ‘traitor’ Cypher, for instance.

 

 

I wasn’t thrilled about the premise of trapping Neo into this new Matrix as a game programmer for the Matrix Game. Like, really? I was really also very raw about the zombie apocalypse action sequence. Like, why?

I wasn’t all bland though, for I really loved Neil Patrick Harris as the architect. That was a first-grade performance worthy of the original Matrix. I especially loved his most notable quote from the movie about mankind: “The sheeple, they don’t want freedom. They like the comfort of certainty.”

 

I believe I would have enjoyed the movie a whole lot more with all of the original cast, especially with such a weak plot. It all sort of felt tasteless, like fat-free… anything!

Go watch the movie if you haven’t. My opinion is My own, yours could be different.

 

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