The Matrix / The Matrix Revolutions/Reloaded
We usually forget which one came first but it doesn’t matter because their joint release collaborated in ruining the existential mood which the mythology originally created. Now, instead of a “is this all real?” question, we’re left with “why is Neo so damn special?” leaving us feeling a tad jealous of him.
That’s not really the problem with the sequels, of course, the problems stem from the entire focus on Neo and his importance to this world then a dismissal of him in the third with a focus on Zion and a child. We get a few glimpses of interest in the shape of the ruins of Zion. Apart from that, this affair squanders its original creation by delving too far into the mythology of a chosen one, an architect, an oracle and two ghost twins. That wasn’t what was loved about the original.
It had action sequences which aided the story’s spectacle, it tackled big questions, befittingly instilling a paranoid parasite into us, left wishing to be pulled into the back of a car to have it pulled out. That happened in the most tragic of ways, in a sense, because the second and third underfed it.
It ended up being everything the first wasn’t – losing all its musings and relevance, adding all the action to a story that was deep but resurfaced to skim along the top of something much more interesting.
