I finally saw The Matrix [I did once see part of it while I was getting dressed for work.] My first thought, was that this movie is a 1999 mirror reflecting America in 2014. The Matrix is one of the best sci-fi movies I have seen. Now I know what the fuss is about. There is a striking scene where the Neo character wakes up in a massive chamber of adult incubators where people are just plugged in to a vast macro-parasitic Artificial Intelligence network. This scene reminded me of the opening scene in To Our Scattered Bodies Go by Phillip Jose Farmer, when Richard Burton wakes from the dead and finds himself suspended among countless hairless human bodies.

All of the acting is just stellar and the effects did not seem dated. For me it is about the writing. Engaging the primate brain through the lizard brain in a passive context, by-passing and infiltrating the frontal lobe, is exactly what I see every day as I walk among the up-plugged zombie horde.

The deeply worded dialogue was a treat. My favorite statements were:

“Welcome to the desert of the real.”

“The world that has been pulled over your eyes.”

“Fate it seems is not without a sense of irony.”

For the record, my favorite character is Agent Smith.