Evangelicals Now
Christian news worldwide
magnifying glass Search archives
home Home check the archives Archives Subscribe Subscriptions Advertising Information & booking of classifieds Adverts Find a local evangelical Church Find a church for the search engines and extremely curious! About us Contact us Site Map
Printable
Version

The Matrix Reloaded

THE MATRIX RELOADED
Cert. 15
Directors: Wachowski Brothers

The Matrix became a sci-fi movie with a big following among young people in recent years. The film describes a world where the human race had become dominated by malign artificial intelligence machines. Humans live in pods unconscious of their real state. They perceive only a manipulated dream world, while in real life they are enslaved and are literally being used up by their oppressors.

The scenario rang bells with many Christians. Not only is the threat posed to humanity by technology a live theme in our world which worships 'science', but the issue of the possibility of humanity being unknowingly enslaved is extremely interesting. The film gave a good illustration of what Scripture says that Satan does in blinding the minds of unbelievers (2 Corinthians 4.4). He has people believe lies that seem so real, which not only allows evil to manipulate them, but eventually destroys them. Then, in the film, there are a group of people who have escaped the matrix, and one of them, Neo (played by Keanu Reeves), emerges as a Christ-like figure of whom it is prophesied that he is able to rescue the whole of humanity. With wonderful computer graphics the film was worth seeing.

Matrix Reloaded is the first of two sequels to the original film. However, it drowns under the expectations placed on it by the excellence of the first film. Instead of the elegant and self-explanatory action of the original we find a number of pretentious philosophical diatribes about choice, causality and whether freedom is an illusion. Also the film perpetrates an old lie about humanity: it gives the impression that the essence of what it is to be human is some kind of 'lucky' imperfection which raises us above the level of mere machines, By contrast, Scripture tells us that true humanity is to be made perfect in the image of God.

The special effects in Matrix Reloaded are breath-taking. There are some fairly raunchy scenes which do not add anything to the plot. The ending includes an unexpected twist which is enough to leave us guessing as to what will happen in the next sequel due out in November. If you stay to the very end of the credits of Reloaded you will get some brief previews of the next film. Overall, not great.

JEB
John Benton