The Matrix - "He's Starting to Believe!"
The Red Pill is the Bible - read it and you will learn that reality is spiritual warfare and The Matrix is the prison of sin. A prison for your soul.	"It is fascinating to me that ... we have a group of people from all over the world, from different sources that are having the same paranoia....The analogy for "The Matrix" and "Dark City" goes a little further in that there is a savior, there is a Judeo/Christian background to both of them." Andrew Mason Executive Producer, The Matrix Something fascinating is happening in Hollywood, and even film industry execs sense it. The Matrix is just one of a crop of new movies that uses sets, costumes, dialogue, and soundtrack that will attract unbelievers to tell a story that is profoundly Biblical. In The Matrix, our hero, Neo, (Keanu Reeves) is a computer hacker who believes he lives in 1999. But he's become aware that there is a reality behind the world he can sense, something called The Matrix. The one man who might know the truth is Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), an elusive figure labeled a terrorist by government agents. In reality, it is the year 2199, and human beings are locked in a life and death struggle with the machines they have created. Human beings are grown by the machines and kept imprisoned for life in cocoons, where everything they experience is created and controlled by a neuro-interactive simulation ...The Matrix. Only a few human beings are left who are still free, not trapped in The Matrix. The last human city is Zion, deep underground. Morpheus is, in reality, the captain of a hovercraft sent out from Zion to braodcast a pirate signal and hack into The Matrix. His mission? To save those who can be saved and search for The One.

So What Makes The Matrix Great?

It isn't what's obvious. What's obvious is that Neo is an allegory for both a believer and Jesus. Neo is The One, a man who can overcome the artifical reality of The Matrix and live outside of its rules. Neo is an allegory for a believer because he can only overcome The Matrix as his faith in this power grows. He is an allegory for Jesus because, as the only human with this natural strength, he alone can save humanity. He also "dies" in The Matrix's artificial reality and is brought back to life by Trinity, the female lead played by Carrie-Anne Moss. The film cleverly even makes it explicit that Neo is like Jesus, just in case the intended audience of out of control, techno-savvy twenty year-olds misses the point. Two things are not obvious. First, The Matrix itself is an allegory for the prison of sin that all men are born into. Just like Neo, without faith we are doomed by its rules, the Law. Second, as believers we are just like Morpheus and the "Children of Zion" that crew his hovercraft. We know that the true reality is the spiritual war between good and evil , like the war between men and machines in the movie. And we, too, are surrounded by minds who do not know the truth, including some who do not want to know, who will always reject God's truth. They will stay prisoners of The Matrix, just as the wicked will stay prisoners of sin. This is the triumph of The Matrix. I have never watched a film that captured the way I feel being a citizen of Heaven and a stranger in this world the way The Matrix does. What to Watch Out For The point here is that this movie will be watched by unbelievers precisely because it does not appear to be about God. There is quite a bit of gun play and martial arts, but the film is not gory. Neo and the free humans use guns and fighting to - briefly - overcome "agents," sentient programs the machines use inside The Matrix to keep other humans from being taught the truth. The agents are an allegory to demons, or to our own pervasive sins. There is also an abundant use of Jesus and God, sometimes with what some suppose is His last name. Normally I would not watch nor recommend such a movie, but my impression is that the frequent use of these words has a purpose the film makers themselves might not have intended. They focus the viewer's mind on God and His Son. In fact, many of the character names in the film are explicitly Biblical. Zion, the last human city. Trinity, who raises the savior from the dead. Nebuchadnezzar, the name of Morpheus' ship. My suspicions about The Matrix were confirmed by the teenage clerk at my local video store. She is not a Bible reader, but her brother is. He watched The Matrix with her, and explained the Biblical allegories to her. That, folks, is witnessing. Have some fun at The Matrix's website, What is the Matrix?

Neo and Trinity The costume design uses a lot of black leather trench coats, which kept me from watching the movie for a long time, because of the "trench coat mafia" of Columbine High School. There is no connection between The Matrix and Columbine that I am aware of, however. The Matrix is available on VHS and DVD. Order securely online from amazon.com, then watch it with someone you know who does not know The Lord!