Style over substance, ladies and gentlemen. That’s what we’re talking about today, and nowhere has a better example reared its head than in the progressively decaying franchise that is The Matrix.

Warner Bros (c) 2003

The Matrix–Amazing Stuff!

Okay, if you didn’t love The Matrix, you probably just didn’t get it. But if you got it, you got it bad, and you loved it. I caught it in theatres myself when it first came out, and what a long, strange trip that was. When it was announced that The Matrix Reloaded would be coming out in relatively short order, some people started pitching tents outside the theater the very same day.

The Matrix Reloaded–It Just Crashed

And then people saw what they were getting into. Gone was the initial atavistic thrill of Neo and his nonstop adventures. What we got out of The Matrix Reloaded was a giant bust. The big draw of The Matrix Reloaded was something called the “Burly Brawl”, in which Neo took on several clones of Agent Smith. Not bad, of course–you don’t go to a Matrix movie and expect–or get!–anything less than high-grade special effects. But it became clear that the script had suffered a horrible fate–someone shot it–and that Burly Brawl was the only real high point of an otherwise marginal film.

The Matrix Revolutions–A Shot At Redemption

Which set the stage for the final film. And everyone knew the Wachowskis were on ice so thin it could cut the space between atoms–it was monomolecular ice, I’m not even joking. And what they put out was a thing of such bombast and such beauty that people even came to forgive the lackluster performance of the second film.

Sure, everyone scratched their heads in bafflement at the Architect and the Merovingian and all that stuff and nonsense, but look what it had! Giant battlemechs! A Super Burly Brawl that made the Burly Brawl look like a schoolyard scuffle! Fifty billion Agent Smiths! A completely rogue Agent Smith! None of this even makes sense now that I look back on it but man was it ever fun to watch!

The Matrix–Off line?

And that was the point. For everyone who said this was some kind of existential experience or commentary on our wired society, there was someone else who said, no…this was just a fun movie. It was left to you to decide the overarching theme…but the plot was clear and well-resolved.

And if you want to tussle against a few agents in a good old-fashioned battle of wits, then swing on over to Kwanzoo’s social movie trivia on the whole Matrix series.

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