Review of The
Matrix
The Matrix is a movie that makes its
viewers question what reality actually is.
The movie tells the story of Thomas Anderson, or Neo, and his transition
from his life in the Matrix—an artificial reality of which all humans are
connected, to reality—a world in which robots have enslaved the human race and
harvest them for energy. While watching
this film, the viewer is exposed to gripping visual effects and intense
metaphysical quandaries.
The reality
in The Matrix is a classic depiction
of a dystopia. In the “real world,”
humans are bred by the robots, and then put into pods of goo for nutritional
sustenance; the goo is actually the liquefied bodies of the dead, showing what
an efficient society the robots have created.
They are then plugged into the Matrix, which allows the humans to
physically sense the program through neural stimulation and perceive it as
reality. Once secured in the pods and
the Matrix, the humans are then harvested for their body heat and brain
activity to use as energy to fuel the robots.
The citizens are under a shroud of ignorance where there is nothing
seemingly wrong, yet there are terrifying underlying issues administrated by
the ruling class, or robots.
The Matrix, while unique, shares many
similarities with other utopian works. The
robots in the film can be compared to the gold caste in Plato’s Republic, while the humans can be
considered the iron or bronze caste.
Instead of using the ‘myth of metals’ from Hesiod’s Works and Days, the film uses the Matrix program itself as its
‘noble lie.’ The gold caste (robots)
knows that what the iron/bronze caste (humans) believes is a lie, yet they
maintain it so society can run smoothly.
The Matrix itself is quite unique however, as it uses an entire virtual
reality to fool its citizens. While suppression
of the population has been used in almost every utopian work, never has it been
done in such a convincing way as The
Matrix.
While the Matrix is proposed to be a
realistic and non-utopian society, for humans at least, the movie mentioned
that the first version of the program was designed to be utopian. In the original program, there were no
hungry, no poor, no murders, and everything was perfect; however, because of
its perfection, many human minds could not process it and thus disconnected
from the Matrix, killing the humans, and depriving the robots of their energy. The Matrix had to be revised to allow imperfections
in the human’s world so that they find it believable. Because of this, the movie posits that humans
need imperfections to live in their utopia, making the Matrix a ‘perfectly
imperfect’ utopia.
After Neo
was freed from his pod, he joined the other freed humans on a spaceship; the Matrix
took place in the late 1990’s, but reality was far into the future. Neo joined a rebellion group of humans who
were fighting to destroy the machines and restore humanity. While everyone on the ship shared this goal,
there was one member, Cypher, who felt quite differently. After seeing the dismal real world, Cypher
regretted ever leaving his comfortable life in the Matrix, and conspired
against his crew so that he may return with no memory of escape. During off hours, Cypher plugged himself into
the Matrix and made this deal with Agent Smith, the program’s enforcer and
overseer. This occurrence makes the viewer
ask him or herself this question—would I want to go back into the Matrix?
This is a
simple question for some, but a difficult question for many. Entering and exiting the Matrix is comparable
to Plato’s ‘allegory of the cave’. Those
inside the cave are contempt, but are shown nothing but lies which they
perceive as true; however, once one leaves the cave, he/she may wish to abandon
society and continue to seek truth, or seek the security and stability of the
cave. While Neo and the rest of the crew
were members of the first group, Cypher was a member of the latter. If those who exited the cave tried to
re-enter in hopes of bringing the others out, the others would oust the freed
men and insist he is mad; this is why Cypher wanted no memory of his time out
of the Matrix. Cypher chose to believe
that ignorance is bliss.
Since so
many believe the Matrix is reality, does that in fact make it real? This is the metaphysical component of the
movie. Although the Matrix is factually an
illusion, it is what the majority of people consider to be ‘real’. Life inside the Matrix is completely
believable, and is so realistic that it manages to restrain the entire human race. Because of its perception, the Matrix can
certainly qualify as reality, since it is the human’s reality. Similarly to the cave, the people inside
insist that what they are seeing is real, and the stories of the freed are
false. There is no way to prove that
what the freed are saying is real, but unlike the cave, those in the Matrix
couldn’t be freed in a manner as simple as undoing shackles.
This is the
scariest and most surreal aspect of The
Matrix, as we cannot prove that it isn’t actually happening right now. No person can prove we aren’t living in a Matrix,
while our real bodies are immersed in the remains of the dead. Nobody can prove that the phones we hold in
our hands, or the streets we walk on actually exist. Especially with the rapid advancement of
artificial intelligence, could this be where we are heading, or has it already
happened and we simply aren’t aware?
Aside from
the metaphysical aspect of this movie, the true question to takeaway is
regarding if the viewer will be a truth seeker, or a cave dweller. Do you want to know the truth, or are you
content with being appeased by falsehoods?
This is not an easy question to answer, and is exactly why The Matrix is hailed as an all-time
movie classic.
-Stephan DiGiacomo
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