The Labyrinth

What if God had lots of guns?
Just a hacker packing heat
With a laptop in his bag
Try’n to phreak his message home

Whenever Hollywood tries to do a movie about Christianity it’s usually very painful to watch or offensive. With the notable exceptions of “The 10 Commandments” and “Prince of Egypt” which managed to get the general idea right without taking too much literary license. “Jesus Christ Superstar,” when put to film, gave the hippy Roman guards AK47’s. I’m not sure if they were trying to modernize it or just be funny. The Matrix takes this idea and runs with it. They were so busy handing out guns they accidentally gave “Jesus Christ” one. Actually, they gave him lots of guns. And I’m pretty sure it was intentional.

In the beginning was the word and the word was Neo. Neo, AKA Thomas Anderson, is a hacker with a legitimate job on the side working for a major corporation. Apparently he’s got a very large file of “sins” he’s committed. And all he has to do to make them go away is sell his soul to the Devil, Agent Smith. There’s a plot that hasn’t been seen since “The Last Temptation.” In the latter Jesus goes against his Father’s will to be with a woman. But wait, it was just a thought he had while dying. But wait, whoever lusts after a woman has already committed adultery with her which breaks one of the Top 10 commandments of God. The Old Testament rules for sacrifice require a lamb without blemish. Society has since decided that a blot here and there is no big deal. You’re still “good enough.” So really, you don’t need Jesus Christ anyway. It’s okay if he’s flawed just like everyone else. In conclusion, Neo is not Jesus Christ. But let’s overlook this roadblock and continue.

And the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, Morpheus bore witness of him, and cried, saying, “This was he of whom I speak.” Morpheus is a prophet who speaks of “The One” and has devoted his whole life to finding him. He believes his has found “The One” in Neo and contacts him. Upon taking him to his place, he begins to talk about the “Matrix.” He explains that everywhere you look, everything you touch, feel, taste and smell is the Matrix. All Neo has to do to see the whole truth is to pop a little red pill.

If Neo is his name
Will you believe
He can remove you from this place
And set your mind at ease
Welcome to the real world
Is he really Christ
Or a figment of your mind

There is a painting. And on this painting there is Jesus Christ standing at a door. And depending on who painted it, the door is either open or shut. Because the question is, would you have knocked over the vase even if it hadn’t been mentioned? We like to believe we have free will and that we make our own decisions. But that’s not the question. The question is what choices do we have? In the one painting indicates we must choose to open the door to let Christ in. The latter indicates we must choose to close the door to Christ. The Matrix takes the notion that we are born slaves and the Bible doesn’t disagree. “Behold, I was molded in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5). The question is a matter of whether or not the door is shut. The Matrix takes the notion that the door is shut and that we choose Him by choosing to take the red pill. However, “he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). The door is open. One can either recognize they are saved or reject they are saved and close the door. So really, there is only one pill: the blue one. Christ says to us “I’m taking you to heaven. You can choose to stay behind.” Christ never asks you if you want to go because that is not your choice to make. He only asks if you want to stay.

Upon eating the red pill, Neo is baptized in a silver fluid inside and out and suddenly awakes in a pod. This is the real world. You are born a slave and your own being feeds that which enslaves you. By being baptized he has been freed from his prison. And now that he has been freed it is his duty to go forth and spread the good news and save others. But what is the Matrix that one needs saving from it? The Matrix of “The Matrix” is a computer that generates a world in which we live oblivious to our true state. It’s such a wonderful dream. One in which we believe we live free and choose freely. The Matrix a Christian sees is the one which tells us that children are born innocent and that we are inherently good and to be content (and even relish) in sin as it’s really not that bad. Certainly nothing God would send you to hell over; at least, not a “loving” God. Unlike the movie, the “matrix” and the real world coexist on the same plane. We just see the world we share differently. And unlike “The Matrix” this world is real. “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52). In Christianity there are two real planes of existence; this world and the next. Getting to the next simply requires either dying or living to see the last day. Taking the blue pill just decides where we end up in the next world.

Cipher certainly appears on the surface to be a Judas. But he’s not. Judas was not seeking earthly pleasures. He only asked for the amount one would get for a common slave. He also wasn’t seeking to know the truth about Christ. It wasn’t a matter of doubt. He wasn’t testing Jesus. These are the things Cipher sought. Not Judas. “Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve” (Luke 22:3). Judas shows up in the second film. Cipher is just another person who doubted that Neo was the “One” but went about getting his proof in a poorly conceived manner. Neo’s real name “Thomas” is a reference to Doubting Thomas. And “Anderson” literally means “Son of Man.” Actually it means “son of man.” There’s a significant difference. “Son” with a capital “s” is Jesus’ title. “Son” with a lower can “s” is a typical reference to a human son. “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that you visit him” (Psalm 8:4)? Neo certainly was a doubter but, certainly not a capital “s” son of man. He’s too flawed for that. He may be a hero but not a savior.

Hollywood has a consistent problem discerning between a hero and a savior. It’s actually a very simple thing. The Bible makes it clear there is only one savior. So if Hollywood is making a movie about a savior and his name isn’t Jesus Christ and if he didn’t die on the cross and rise from the dead on the third day, he’s a hero. Not a savior. “The Matrix” liked to play up the “Jesus Christ” angle quite heavily. Neo is called “my own personal savior” by Cipher who also muses what it must be like to be told one day you’re Jesus Christ. Neo is actually more of a Braveheart; a hero who rises up to save his people from tyranny. But the line “to wake up one day and realize you’re Braveheart, what a mind job” doesn’t have quite the ring to it. “The Matrix” also strains the point by offering a character named “Trinity” which is obviously taken from the Protestant notion of the Trinity. She actually is a Mary Magdalene type. “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” is her song from “Jesus Christ Superstar.” That relationship is never explored in the Bible however. She is just always where Jesus is.

It’s said that many religions can be found in “The Matrix.” On the surface, it looks to contain Christianity. Digging deeper you find only a few lines support that notion and they have no foundation in what’s going on. The rest of the movie contradicts everything Christ was about. One of the students was excited about finding a bit of her religion in the movie. If she wants it, she can have it. What the writer’s of “The Matrix” attempted to do was blend the most appealing and recognizable parts of a mess of religions and put them in a fun to watch package. What they ended up doing was bastardizing all of the religions while making it fun to watch so nobody really cared. They asked a lot of interesting questions to try to get you to think while wowing you with kung-fu and wire-fu. It may be a movie with a “deeper meaning” but in the end, it’s just a movie.

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In Christianity the Devil has always been the angel that fell, the great deceiver, the one who appears as an angel of light. Someone who takes many forms to do his work. In modern society God has taken over the role of the one that takes all the different forms and is yet the same God. Buddha, Allah, the Judeo-Christian God, all are assumed to be the same God by quite a large number of people. And when all you’re interested in are the general ideas of who God is, it’s understandable they all look the same. To someone who doesn’t like X-style of music, all music of that style all sounds the same. And any blatant differences don’t really matter. And people who love the style see just how different it really is. For example, techno; it’s catching on. More and more people can tell that one song goes 87 beats per second and the other goes 88 beats per second and that’s a world of difference.

It’s all about the presentation. That’s the general idea of “Bedazzled” and “The Devil’s Advocate.” An acceptable front is being displayed while underneath it’s just a game to get the souls. They reveal themselves in whatever way is most pleasing to their victims. It’s not until the intended victim gets to know the devil that he can escape and by then it’s typically too late. In both movies the devil is using sex to sell himself. “Devil’s Advocate” presents the devil as a man with an entourage of beautiful women just waiting to sleep with his associates. “Bedazzled,” on the other hand, takes the notion that the Devil makes a tease of a woman who’s just out to use his flesh suit to lure deprived men. In both cases the victims are too devoted to their significant other to be swayed by the Devil in that area. But then who doesn’t appreciate having other women, besides the one they’re with, find them attractive. For all intensive purposes the lure works in both cases.

Appearances are easy. If the Devil wanted to scare the hell out of you he’d appear as a pitch fork wielding monster; which he does in Bedazzled. The idea is that no matter how much the devil wants to be your friend, there comes a point where he needs to instill fear in you. He’s not perfect. It’s inevitable you’ll try to walk away eventually. For Kevin Lomax in “Devil’s Advocate” the fear is instilled by the murder of his coworker who he knew was in on some company destroying secrets. The Devil effectively made an indirect threat to Lomax to not cross him. In “Bedazzled,” Elliot doesn’t get indirect threats. When he tried to not take his last wish the Devil revealed a very nasty side of himself to get him back in line.

It’s all an illusion. Flesh suits, fantasies, and false promises are all the Devil has to offer in both films. Lomax finds out that the company he’s working for is built on lies and secrets. The company’s secret shredding parties are a sign that its existence is hanging in the balance. Eddie knows it and plans on telling the authorities and he ends up dead for it. Lomax’s wife is seeing what’s really going on and it ends up killing her. All the while the Devil is waving carrots in front of Lomax’s face. Eddie’s death is just a terrible tragedy which he claims to have no involvement with. His wife’s death is a result of her going crazy and killing herself. But that’s okay because in true ruler fashion he offers him his own sister as an alternative in order to keep the bloodline pure. Eddie was no big deal. He wasn’t much of a lawyer anyway.

Bedazzled takes a different spin on the devil and his fantasies but the same general object lesson. There’s always some “little” mistake she makes with his wishes. When he confronts her on it she plays the crying game and begs his forgiveness. And since he’s Elliot, he does and shoulders all the blame on himself. After a nearly perfect wish he realizes that Allison is a different person in every one of his wishes. He realizes that it’s all just an illusion like the video he saw at the start.

Then there’s that lucky break at the end. Hollywood has a thing for the hero killing themselves as though it’s some kind of Christ like thing to do. Which it would be: if Christ had committed suicide. There’s a difference that Hollywood tends to miss between killing ones self and accepting one’s role in life and accepting your death brought about by circumstances out of your control. Slaughterhouse 5 nails it. “Devil’s Advocate” blows it. Lomax, being turned off by the prospect of incest, shoots himself in the head to foil the Devil’s plans.

Bedazzled goes with a more permanent solution: selfless acts of kindness. Elliot decides that he just wants Allison to be happy which, is one wish that the Devil can’t screw up. And it also happens to void the contract releasing his soul from the Devil’s grasp. It turns out Elliot is just too nice of a guy to be corrupted. Lomax, on the other hand, is a little shaky in that area. At the opening of the film he’s defending a guy accused of molesting a little girl. The defendant is practically getting himself off in the courtroom and not in the legal sense. Lomax notices this and heads to the bathroom to deal with this moral dilemma. As a lawyer his job is to defend people regardless of their innocence. As a human being he’s obligated to not defend such a despicable person. After he wins the case the story takes off. He later learns his defendant was found with a little girl stuffed in the trunk of his car. And that’s when he begins to have his doubts about the greatness of his winning streak as a lawyer. In the end killing himself both saves the world since apparently the anti-Christ is Satan’s grandchild and manages to avoid ever having to win another case with a rotten client; only to end up back in the bathroom where, in this “choose your own adventure” movie, he makes the other choice to drop the client in open court.

But the Devil isn’t done yet. Lomax has an ego to feed and the Devil knows just want to give it. Lomax resists doing the news story about dropping his client which would get him a ridiculous amount of publicity but eventually the ego wins and the reporter is granted a phone call. Not too surprisingly the reporter turns out to be another incarnation of Satan himself. For all the things “Devil’s Advocate” did wrong it managed to do one thing right; it didn’t pretend the Devil was a one shot jockey. In Bedazzled it’s left as though the Devil is done with Elliot and as though the Devil works by making contracts for people’s souls. If the contract doesn’t work the Devil’s work is done and he moves on. The Devil of “Devil’s Advocate” plays a much more sophisticated role.

It’s all about persistence. Smash and grabs are for amateurs. The Devil carefully examines his prey and then tries tactic after tactic until one works. It’s a constant race between the Devil and your grave because once you hit six feet under it’s all over. The Devil started off strong with Lomax and was in such a hurry to get the anti-Christ conceived he didn’t give Lomax enough time to prepare. The Devil failed to realize he hadn’t jumped ship to the dark side yet. But that’s okay, the Devil learns from his mistakes and begins the process again but this time a little bit slower.

Put them together and you get a decent picture. Bedazzled had a lot more fun with the Devil and presented him in a way that makes you consider that the Devil will never give you what you really wanted. “Devil’s Advocate” gives the impression that he does but there are strings attached. And not just to your soul. The Devil destroys the people who work for him and the people who work for him destroy those they come into contact with. The main problem with “Devil’s Advocate” was that it played the sex card way too much. The Devil was completely out of touch with what his client wanted. I’m not sure at which point the Devil decided that Lomax would be down with incest before making the offer. “Bedazzled” was about the Devil figuring out what Elliot wanted and then screwing it up for him. In the end “Bedazzled” wins out simply because it’s fun. “The Devil’s Advocate” makes a movie out of a straw man argument and fumbles.

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