Fifty Reasons to Reject the Matrix

Genius. Just genius.

8. Reloaded Ridiculousness, 2: I'm not joking; you'll literally feel your I.Q. drop watching this rubbish. For instance, the evil Matrix creates two new enemies for Neo, called the Twins. Their first priority is to blend discreetly into the simulated world of the Matrix, to walk among the people unnoticed. So of course the Matrix made them huge albino men with bleach-white dreadlocks who occasionally transform into shrieking wraiths. "What's that, honey?" "Oh, nothing. It just looks like a simple Kung-Fu Swedish Rastafarian Helldemon. I'm sure there's no need to question our fragile, sheltered grasp of 'reality' as we know it."

12. The Matrix: Reconsidered, 4: You've worked as a policeman your whole life, protecting the innocent, enforcing the law. You retire with honors, then take a job as a security guard, working the metal detector on the ground floor of a skyscraper in order to help pay for your wife's arthritis medication. You're sitting there, on a slow day, reading your newspaper, when a girl walks in wearing a trenchcoat. She issues no demands, no warnings, no "freeze" or "drop your gun." She just tears you in half with a spray of machine-gun fire, then does cartwheels along the walls while killing all your friends. Somewhere, faintly, you can hear a theater audience cheering.

15. The Matrix: Reconsidered, 7: You are a hard-working single mother, making ends meet by doing time as a secretary in an office building during the day, a drug-store clerk in the evenings. You are on the office phone with the babysitter one quiet Wednesday afternoon, telling her how to calm little Dakota down, to get her to stop crying her eyes out asking why Mommy is never home, telling her that you'll be there soon, honey. A split-second later your head is severed by a shattered helicopter rotor blade, the skull bouncing off a nearby wall, leaving a spray of arterial blood on a motivational poster. Your eyes bulge wide, your brain inside remaining alive just long enough to recognize the horror of your fate. Aviation fuel splashes in through the shattered windows and ignites, incinerating mothers, husbands, fathers, best friends. And somewhere, a theater full of young, chubby males cheers because Trinity made it out before the crash.

18. The Matrix: Reconsidered, 10: It's the film's climactic battle between Agent Smith and Neo. It begins with Agent Smith walking down the subway platform toward Neo. Neo's friends tell him to run. But no; he stands and fights. They fight for what seems like an hour, back and forth, an epic battle of good and evil. Neo takes a beating, comes back, finds his courage, becomes The One. He goes toe-to-toe with the baddest of the bad. After this long, choreographed, pivotal moment of the film, Agent Smith is left... walking down the subway platform toward Neo. Neo's friends tell him to run. He runs. Excuse me, ticket lady? I'd like a refund of the last fifteen minutes of my life. It would be like if at the end of Rocky, after sitting through the whole film, the main character just lost the fight anyway.

37. This is your brain...: Speaking of which, does no one else have the problem with the blatant pro-drug message in these films? The idea that you can be transported to a magical wonderland where you have supernatural powers simply by inserting a needle into your skull? Is it any coincidence that "jacking" (injecting heroin directly into the brain using a nine-inch long skull needle) became all the rage with our teenagers after this film?

Actually, it isn't as funny the second time, but whatever. Be sure to read their forum, if only to laugh at the dirt-stupid clods who don't get the joke.