`Matrix2': Dumb, Dumber & Descartes

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>


[Note:  This item comes from reader Janos Gereben.  DLH]

At 16:59 -0700 5/12/03, Janos G. wrote:
> From: "Janos G." <janos451 () earthlink net>
> Subject: `Matrix2': Dumb, Dumber & Descartes
> Date: Mon, 12 May 2003 16:59:45 -0700
> MIME-Version: 1.0
>
>  On May 15, 9,000 prints of "Matrix Reloaded" will be released to 3,750
> theaters. On the same day (and into perpetuity), zillions of viewers will be
> staring dumbstruck at the scene near the end of this, the second chapter of
> a trilogy.
>
> This is when Keanu Reeves finds God.
>
> Wearing a simple white suit, the gentleman (called The Architect, perhaps to
> avoid a libel suit by The One True) looks a bit like Colonel Sanders, and he
> talks funny. Not funny ha-ha, but funny weird.
>
> The epistemological interconnectedness of metaphysical recidivism is
> reciprocally inverse to predetermined existentialism, God tells Reeves, or
> something like that. Reeves - protected by those trademark sunglasses -
> doesn't react, so God continues in the same polysyllabic vein, for several
> minutes.
>
> Even though I understood most of the words the Wachowski brothers
> (writer-directors) put in God's mouth, I have no idea what that little
> speech was about. Nor did Reeves, judging by the way he rushed out of the
> room to save the girl. (Attention, spoiler: he succeeds.)
>
> But here's the strange thing: the scene, which tries to re-establish
> Matrix1's philosophical (albeit half-assed) bend, comes after two (2) hours
> of some of the most stupid video-game and car-chase sequences ever put on
> the big screen.
>
> If you look long enough on the Matrix Website, you will find a number of
> essays about metaphysics and Descartes (one of the Three Stooges, the
> Wachowskis being the other two?), but why would anyone get into questions
> about the purpose of life in-between unending fistfights on top of speeding
> trucks while Reeves is "doing his Superman thing," according to one of his
> buddies.
>
> He flies, you know, this Reeves does (is that behind the Superman
> reference?), and he has superhuman powers, although he represents humanity
> against the machines that took over the world.
>
> The machines can transform, teleport and clone themselves, which is very
> nice for a video game, but why would such creatures keep slugging it out
> with a superhuman human, why would they punch and kick each other
> endlessly... and call that a movie? The Wachowskis must ask themselves:
> would Decartes do this?
>
> It is the juxtaposition of incomprehensible intellectual pretensions and
> extreme, primitive juvenalia that makes "Matrix2" even more frustrating,
> even less worth of your time and money than the other wretched cartoons
> masquerading as movies, in the "X2" mode.

Archives at: <http://Wireless.Com/Dewayne-Net>
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>


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