This is the War Handwavium Score for “The Matrix”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/
!!!SPOILERS!!!
Total: 113 Points
Note all times are from Bluray Disc, absolute times from beginning of movie.
+12 points, 03:02, Trinity kills 4 cops, cardboard targets
+5 points, 20:34, Agents “melt” Mr. Anderson’s mouth. Pointless display of evil.
+5 points, 57:10, Morpheus gives speech to Neo telling him its OK to kill people in the Matrix. Distancing effects of killing civilians.
-3 points, 01:19:56, Mouse killed by SWAT
+9 points, 01:23:31, Apoc @ Switch kill 3 SWAT
-1 point, 01:24:03, Morpheus and Smith fight, Morpheus taken prisoner.
-3 points, 01:26:38, Cypher kills Dozer
-3 points, 01:29:10, Cypher kills Apoc
-3 points, 01:29:39, Cypher kills Switch
+3 points, 01:30:46, Tank kills Cypher
+45 points, 01:41:31, Neo & Trinity rescue mission in lobby kill 5 cops, 10 soldiers
+21 points, 01:46:18, Neo & Trinity rescue mission on roof kill 7 soldiers.
+3 point, 01:46:54: Trinity kills Agent
+9 points, 01:47:59, Neo kills 3 agents with minigun
-1 point, 01:49:26, Morpheus shot and wounded in leg
+5 points, 01:58:28, Neo and Smith fight in subway. Neo kills Smith with train. Lethal Rube Goldberg Machine
-3 points, 02:02:39, Smith shoots Neo, killing him.
+10 points, Trinity brings Neo back to life with a kiss. Good guys don’t die.
+3 points, 02:06:38, Neo kills Smith
“The Matrix” is broken up into a few parts. It starts out with Trinity committing some violence. Then there’s the mystery of what Morpheus wants with Neo. Then there’s the wakeup call when Neo takes the blue pill. Then there’s the training and acclimation to Neo’s new world. Then there’s the trip to the oracle that ends with the betrayal by cypher. Morpheus is captured. The big finale comes when Neo and Trinity rescue Morpheus.
The first four minutes have 4 points when Trinity takes out the cops.
Then no additional War Handwavium points occur for the next hour.
Then Cypher betrays the group, killing several main white-hat characters, racking up a negative point count.
The rescue mission near the end racks up 22 kills of black hat cardboard characters in about 5 minutes.
Then Smith kills Neo, Trinity kisses Neo back to life, and Neo kills Smith. The end.
You can almost see the three-part story play out in War Handwavium points. Part 1 is an hour long and only gets a few points. Part 2 is Cypher’s betrayal and racks up a bunch of negative points. Part 3 is the big comeback and Neo and Trinity rack up an even bigger body count.
Personally, I liked “The Matrix”. I liked the idea of it showing us Plato’s Cave in a way that people could relate to now. I didn’t realize Neo’s world was nothing but shadow until Neo took the Blue Pill. I didn’t see Cypher’s betrayal coming until it happened, but it made complete sense when it did happen. And I liked the way the Oracle told Neo what he needed to hear to become “The One” by telling him he wasn’t “The One”. When she told him that, I wasn’t sure how it would play out, but when Neo finally became “The One”, it all fit.
What didn’t make sense was how the machines violated the laws of thermodynamics to extract energy from a human body when they have to supply all the energy and chemicals to sustain it. The physics didn’t add up. And just assuming the physics did add up, then why didn’t the machines wipe out the humans and use something like cattle or sheep as their power source, and not have to worry about the cattle fighting back. A simple simulation of a grassy hill would be all you need.
The answer, of course, is “Because there wouldn’t be a movie”. Which is fine.
The only thing that turned me off a bit was 22 bodies in about 5 minutes during the rescue mission. That’s a pretty high body count. I also thought the sunglasses and trenchcoat was kind of silly macho stuff. And what simply made no sense and was clearly War Handwavium was Neo and Trinity walking into an assault with 20 different weapons on them, rather than 2 weapons and a bunch of magazines with ammo. I suppose it’s cooler to toss a weapon when its empty and pull out a new one, than it is to simply change magazines. That part annoyed me.
But overall, a good movie. I’d say it was worth the full evening price of admission.
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