When art imitates life

Film review: The Matrix Reloaded

For those who have been jostling for an adrenaline-junkie fix, take time to do a double take on the Wachowski brothers’ The Matrix Reloaded.

Since it is invariably a surreal experience when art imitates life, ergo it is curious that many people will, at first, reject Reloaded as the directors, Larry and Andy Wachowski, show just how deep the Rabbit Hole goes. In the make-believe world, when its architect built the first version of the Matrix, many minds enslaved to the construct gave up the ghost because the world they perceived was too perfect. In the real world, many viewers enthralled by the frozen graphic moments will give up trying to perceive its precise philosophical framework.

No need to bone up though on Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulacrum, Kevin Kelly’s Out of Control, or even Evans and Zarate’s Evolutionary Psychology. One need not even read William Gibson’s seminal cyber-punk opus, Neuromancer. All one needs to do is open one’s mind to Larry and Andy’s live-action anime about robots versus Kung Fu.

Two things can happen. If one takes the blue pill, one merely sees the liquid space of bullet-time action with intellectual window dressing. If one takes the red pill, however, one experiences the film equivalent of a greatest-hits concert ramped up to Superbowl stadium levels.

One gets a sense of déjà vu taking the red pill for Reloaded and, as one knows from the first movie, déjà vu means that there is a glitch in the Matrix – that the Matrix is changing something. When the difference between the real world and the reel world begins to blur, one begins to whistle at the narrative shape the sequel takes.

As narrated in the Animatrix CGI short film, The Final Flight of the Osiris, the machines have discovered the secret site of Zion, the last human city buried deep in the Earth’s core, and the humans have 72 hours to rage against the machines.

Two courses of action are debated. The pragmatic Commander Lock (Henry Lennix) proposes a conventional counter-attack strategy. The metaphysical Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) opposes with a ploy for Neo (Keanu Reeves) to cull from the Oracle (Gloria Foster) the key to winning the war. This further fuels the feud between Lock and Morpheus for the affection of Capt. Niobe (Jada Pinkett-Smith).

Meanwhile, Neo is troubled by dreams of Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) free falling in a cloudburst of shell casing as an Agent drives a hollow-point home.

The heart-stopping action comes to a sudden pause when Persephone (Monica Bellucci) steals more than just a kiss in exchange for the Keymaker (Randall Duk Kim) crucial to the salvation of Zion.

Once again, one is enticed with the seductive idea that one can simply upload abilities directly into one’s brain. In Reloaded, this paradigm is shifted with the simple notion that with the right key and the right timing, one can do anything.

Just like in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil or Ridley Scott’s Alien, the dystopian design philosophy of Geof Darrow reveals an arcane biomechanical technology. Particularly in the intricate and kinetic 14-minute car chase involving 10 vehicles on a mile-and-a-half stretch built expressly for the production, the moving picture careens like a crash course in the Darrow school of sequential art.

Owen Paterson’s production design delineates between the world within the Matrix and the world without. Green dominates the simulated city while the color blue is contraband. Notice in particular how the sky oppresses with this color leeched from the celluloid, subverting the desire to look up to the heavens. Grids are also a repeating motif within the construct, reinforcing the concept of control. Outside the Matrix, the color blue is set free, and green is exiled.

Particularly in the real-world scenes, Bill Pope’s cinematography focuses on the foreground characters, thereby diffusing the riot of technology in the background. Notable are the speed changes employed between and within scenes in the Matrix. Effected with different camera settings and enhanced with digital manipulation, the outcome is the same: an artificial reality with an ordered sense of play.

When a shot appears to pass through TV screens into the actual scene, Zach Staenberg’s editing refines a transitional technique used with subliminal effect in Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. By combining visual effects with real shots, visual effects supervisor, John Gaeta, creates a credible illusion not unlike the Matrix itself.

While some stuffy academics might piffle about how the fight scenes seem repetitive, one realizes while watching that it is precisely the mathematical sequencing of a game simulation that the Matrix represents. That’s precisely the point, isn’t it? It’s like saying the chicken tastes like chicken.

While some critics might slam the Wachowskis for sticking to their creative guns, one must realize that, by imagineering a new dream for the collective consciousness, they have become social engineers of the future – like that nut who wrote about an adventure underneath the sea.

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