League of Melbotis

Well, I finally dragged my sorry carcass to go and see X2 (X-Men United) last night. It was pretty damn good. Huzzah for Nightcrawler.

The trailers got me thinking, and I'm going out on a limb to admit something here: I don't like the Matrix. Really. I'm the guy who walked out at the end into cold daylight and didn't see what the big deal was.

I thought the original Matrix was just kind of dumb. Not Dean Devlin Godzilla dumb, but kind of stupid. Thus, I feel a little left out these days when I see all of these trailers for the sequel or whatever it is to The Matrix. I just don't care. From a script point, the Matrix felt like the mad ramblings of a comic reading 9th grader who recently discovered Tae Kwon Do and Jet Li.

By the end of original Matrix, I was cheering for Mr. Smith to wipe out all of these fashion victims and their hi-flying hoo-hah. I mean, cheering for the humans in the Matrix is a little like cheering for the cows in a western. What will poor Mr. Smith eat if he can't eat people? We all appreciate Optimus Prime for protecting humanity from the Decepticons, but at the end of the day, he's going to turn around and need a big 'ol energon sandwich, too, and where's he going to get it? Odds are, he's going to be eyeing our precious natrual resources as well. And it ain't like we're using them wisely, oh mighty drivers of the Hummer.

I'm no engineer, but I know using people for powering your killer squid robots has got to be the dumbest source of energy that these space men/ Skynet folks could have possibly sought... if they were looking for a clean, replinishable energy source, solar and tidal power, as well as windmills are far more efficient and less likely to revolt against you. Hell, a tire fire is more efficient. And all the wasted power in keeping humans alive? I mean, the energy expenditure in lighting those tubes and keeping the people, batteries warm can't possibly be giving you better than a 15% return on your investment. Has no one noticed how much energy we suck up and how much food, etc... we have to consume? I think the assumption is that these people must all be Canadians and are eating one another so there is no wasted energy, but to accomplish this, every Canadian would have to eat like 10 other Canadians a year just to keep going, and in the end, we'd have run out of Candians faster than you can say "Socializied Medicine." And wouldn't cows be easier to keep happy in floating bubbles (plus you could mine the methane gas for additional energy)?

We've also been led to believe that the evil spacemen/ Skynet control the environment of the Matrix, so why not drop a huge virtual block on Neo & Co.? Or take away the doors when they're in a room? Or drop a virtual atom bomb on them? Kung-Fu just seems really inefficient, let alone sending only single individuals or small gorups after them at a time. Why not a virtual SWAT team, or army? Or PTA? i mean, if it comes down to erasing a file folder or two to get at the factions threatening to end your very existence, wouldn't you be willing to drag and drop them into the recycle bin rather than keep banging your head against the wall?

As something that can be a big bag of fun after a couple of beers, I can appreciate the Matrix. Other than that, the holes in the plot were bigger than the holes in a pair of Lucas's threadbare Phantom Menace underoos.

So now we have bad Universal Studios Adventure stand-ins filling commercials shilling beer and Power-Ade. As if this movie needs to find additional sources of revenue. Is Carrie-Ann Moss really too respected to shill beer herself?

Worst of all crimes is that the execs at Warner Bros. have no idea that in re-inventing the Superman story for the upcoming movie, they're ripping off their own product. The script is about fulfilling prophesies with the use of Superpowers. Wow. Is that ever going to look smart after 3 of the highest grossing movies EVER have used the same storyline.

Sigh.

There's nothing wrong with liking The Matrix. It just wasn't my bag. Let's all hope it's better than I think it will be (not that I'll know until it comes on cable).