Neo (Keanu Reeves, right) fights Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) in The Matrix Reloaded.
The Matrix got a bad rap in 1999 when two misfits with grudges against the world put on black trench coats like the film's heroes and shot up Columbine High School.
Cultural watchdogs seeking an easy explanation seized upon the fashion resemblance. Watching this film, rated R primarily for violence, must have been the killers' inspiration, right?
That isn't likely.
First, the violence in The Matrix and its sequel, The Matrix Reloaded, now playing nationwide, is mostly martial arts mayhem. There is gunplay but little blood, and bullets seldom hit their marks. They're dodged with uncanny slow-motion nimbleness by Neo, the chosen one in an apocalyptic war between mankind and machines. Both films are tame compared with other R-rated action movies.
Nothing resembles an armed assault on a high school. But the Columbine killers, like anyone feeling out of synch with society, likely plugged into the saga's cultural allegories and philosophy that aren't exclusively dangerous.
Chiefly the film's elevation of a misfit - not a teenager but still a computer geek - to the level of messianic superman with a dashing black wardrobe, a hot girlfriend and skills derived from cyberingenuity. Download the proper file through body jacks and you can fly, or leap across buildings, or save the world. Demand respect, and you have the proper fighting skills to achieve it.
The Matrix delivered to misfits the kind of fantasy they could never accomplish in real life, which computer geeks avoid each minute they're online. You're not missing anything, the movie declared; that world is a bogus virtual community called the Matrix created by computers.
Being normal is an act of surrender, a rallying cry for people like the Columbine killers who wouldn't fit in.
At that point, the philosophical questions widen. The machines running the Matrix, keeping humans unaware of their true roles as energy sources, bring in the specter of slavery. Except for Neo and his girlfriend, Trinity, the human resistance leaders and much of the Zion population are played by black actors. Race isn't an issue, but the films' diverse sharing of oppression is thought-provoking.
We're all slaves to the system, suggests the writing/directing team of Andy and Larry Wachowski, and that system can be questioned on every point. Are we actually breathing air? Is there really a spoon in the hand of a child? These movies aren't about revenge, but about achieving freedom. Not the tangible liberty of deposing dictators, but freedom from our notions of what reality is.
Maybe this existence is a sham after all, only a chess game among gods, as Greek and Roman mythology often described. Brave ones such as Neo - only a mild-mannered computer programmer when the saga begins - fight the reality that is bestowed upon us by computers, pulpits or political office. Or perhaps by classmates and teachers perceived as persecutors.
The Matrix world is built around artifice and commercialism; the first sight of this existence in Reloaded is a peddler's table jammed with junk for sale. Normal life is a scam. Only the human citizens of Zion, led by Neo and his mentor Morpheus, understand that Matrix residents are being misled. Only they can stop the seemingly insurmountable lies, a grand delusion that may have spurred two Columbine misfits to kill.
Yet, if that's the case, the killers missed an important point in the first chapter. The Matrix can be temporarily mastered by humans staying one step ahead of their cyberoppressors. At the beginning ofReloaded, Neo fights a Matrix agent, only to see one of his best punches blocked. "An upgrade," Neo muses before overriding the improvement to finish the job.
We get vicarious thrills from watching Neo learn to master the Matrix, doing things he never dreamed possible, like defying gravity. We can project ourselves into his amusement and growing confidence. His reactions are merely extensions of our own feelings when we finally figure out how to burn a CD or access newsgroups on our home computers.
Such minor victories over technology - and the slavery these films equate with it - are amplified inThe Matrix series, allowing viewers to become intimately involved, not only in the action, but motivations behind the antagonism. But it's a relationship between film and viewer born of higher intellectual and philosophical means than, say, watching a horror movie and imagining Count Dracula is stalking you, too.
As technology advances, we all have to catch on to things more quickly. The Matrix films are allegories for our desire to sort through the manipulations and live as we choose, not as is chosen for us. Neo realized the learning curve in The Matrix, leaning into it as the first installment ended. The Matrix Reloaded shows him rounding that curve and moving ahead of it, carrying our hopes for total command of technology (and by extension our lives) with him.
But what comes after that, when the final chapter,The Matrix Revolutions, debuts Nov. 5? Freedom may not be all it's cracked up to be. Matrix life doesn't look bad when compared with the primitive environment and bitter porridge of Zion. Humans who haven't been enlightened like Neo are happily unaware of their situations, living in commercialized bliss, so it's possible that the machines actually are doing them favors.
The Matrix Revolutions could be even more provocative if, after being freed of the Matrix and allowed to choose for themselves, humans decide to plug into their phony existences again. That would be the crowning anarchic twist to a film series that should be regarded as a figurative, not literal, call to arms.
