Since I haven’t gotten around to it, I must discuss the movie I watched this Saturday evening, Matrix Revolutions. I’d say don’t read this if you don’t want the movie spoiled, but I’m not sure I can spoil it more than the directors already have. To say I’m disappointed would probably be an understatement. Let me start off by saying that I wasn’t a huge fan of the first one; personally, I thought the philosophy was pretty simplistic and the themes have been explored by better writers like Philip K. Dick or even Heinlein. The fusion of a silly kung fu movie and a sci-fi story with more to it than fight the big boss and blow stuff up was what made it work. It was a smart action flick; it had real characters that were personable and extraordinary having exciting adventures that had a purpose and even questioned existence itself, if in a half-baked intellectual way. What made it even more engrossing was that it was the best type of sci-fi; a fantasy story set in this world maybe even down the street from your office building. This is why stories like Harry Potter work; you can imagine yourself joining along with the heroes. This is probably the main reason the sequels really don’t work.

In the first story, we have three main heroes and a villain. In the sequels, we have more characters than a Tom Clancy novel; in fact, I don’t think Neo was even in half of this most recent movie. Even worse, Morpheus, who was transformed into a quixotic Yoda by the second movie, could have stayed home in bed for this 3rd installment and we probably wouldn’t have missed him. They included these pointless scenes involving Neo being trapped between the Matrix and reality. Why? Where is it? How did he get there? Being the filmmakers felt no need to tell us, my only theory is that if they didn’t have to get him out, Morpheus would have been in the movie for about 10 minutes. At least it was 15 minutes we didn’t have to endure with boring characters from Zion. There’s a whole bunch of characters running around Zion that I certainly have nothing invested in and, quite wrongly, have me rooting for the robots to kill them and get them off the screen. When Neo was trying to rescue mankind from enslavement, I felt as though he was fighting for all of us; instead, all you see is him fighting for the ridiculously dull Ravers dressed like orphans who make up Zion. Not once in the sequels do you even see regular joe schmoe on the street; instead the Matrix seems to suddenly been taken over by all these programs with even less personality than the Zionists. Because I have ceased to care about anybody in the story, it’s a lot easier to point out all the plot holes and inconsistencies that would have been covered by a fun ride…and boy, are there a whole lot of problems.

I think the most galling thing about this was the fact that had Neo just walked through the door the architect wanted him to, everything would have ended pretty much exactly as it did. Trinity still died, the Matrix reset itself to keep enslaving the humans there, Zion was reduced to a crippled state and humans were still forced to live under the ground like rodents until the machines decided it was time to clean house again. I’m not sure if they were going for this irony…personally, I think they just wanted us to pay another 8.50. This may be the most frustrating thing about the movie; nothing actually gets accomplished…other than me shelling out a bunch of money to see some explosions and people walking around on the ceiling. I think I got the crap end of the stick on this one. I think they should have just gone campy with this movie and gotten it over with. If you’re going to have Neo and Agent Smith flying around in midair, why aren’t they throwing fireballs and mouthing inane Japanese phrases? If you’re going to have Neo’s character appear so stupid in not recognizing Agent Smith in another body for a good 5 minutes of dialogue, why not turn it into an Abbott and Castello “Who’s on First” routine? If you’re going to have Trinity deliver a 15 minutes soliloquy with 4 pipes sticking out of her chest, why not have Neo have to knock her out as she keeps shouting,”I’m not dead yet! I think I’m getting better!” Once the war was declared over and the Zionists in their caves were celebrating, why didn’t they bust out a D.J. and break into another impromptu rave dance? Seriously, there were many opportunities missed here. The only one who seems to have gotten the joke is Agent Smith, who camps up his part better than even Adam West could have done. Either way, I’m just going to pretend the Matrix was a very cool movie and the two sequels just didn’t happen. Kind of like Alien 3…or Godfather 3…or those Pokemon sequels. Seriously, did they really think they could match the perfection of Pokemon, the first movie?

Anyways, that’s enough about a bad movie. I had a signing this morning about 3 blocks away from work. It was right across the street from MOCA, or for those that don’t give a fig about art, the Museum of Contemporary Art. Actually, if you don’t give a fig about art, you might enjoy the place. I wouldn’t classify most of the crap in it as art. Thomas Edison referred to inventing as 1 percent inspiration, 99 percent perspiration. This is the problem with this modern fashion art. It’s all reversed; people do things for originality alone and to hell with any skill. In an invention, you need a skilled craftsman for something to work; lots of people thought it would be cool to be able to talk to their friends long distances but only one was able to actually get it to be feasible in the marketplace; Alexander Graham Bell. In this fashion art, it’s there to look pretty; practicability be damned! I’ll take the skilled craftsman any day over the hack who throws paint on a canvas and tells you it’s art. Oh, right, I was talking about my signing. The man cut a striking figure; he was taller than I am and seemed even more towering by the lanky, outstretched arms…sort of like those aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He had a huge ring in his ear that would have made him look piratical if not for the conventional, close cropped haircut that made it seem garish instead. Wow…I’m on a roll with my adjectives today. Hopefully, this will be an exemplar of things to come. Hehe…and I managed to get my word of the day into a sentence. 2-2! Anyways, he works for Phantom of the Opera as their special effects manager which seems like a very cool job. This is one of the best parts about my signing side gig; I get to meet people with unconventional jobs. Maybe not as cool as the guy who was the zookeeper at the Playboy Mansion I happened to visit that one glorious day, but it’s still pretty unique. It turns out he lives really close to where my Aunt up in Sacramento lives. Either way, it was a nice, calm, by the book signing that I love to accomplish. Nothing like it was on Friday with all the mistakes and screw ups…thank god for small favors.