Cinematic Faith
A Christian Perspective on Movies and Meaning
8. A Man's Gotta Do What a Man's Gotta Do
Summary Points
- Action-adventure film is an umbrella category spanning a range of distinct genres that intersect.
- Today’s action-adventure films have especially strong ties to the traditional Hollywood western.
- The basic elements of the western movie —it’s story formula, reluctant hero, and ritualized violence—have been recycled and amped up in today’s action-adventure movies.
- American action-adventures, from traditional Westerns to comic-book superhero movies, adhere to a distinctively American monomyth (a term that refers to a narrative template for the hero’s journey).
- There are two crucial issues at the heart of the American action-adventure film: (1) the use of violence to maintain the humanitarian values of civilization and (2) the tension between the individual and community (which is widely recognized as a persistent theme in American movies and culture).
Movie Clips
Die Hard (1988) “Happy Trails, Hans”
Live Free or Die Hard (2007) “That Guy”
Captain America: Civil War (2016) The Sokovia Accords
Captain America: Civil War (2016) (in 4 minutes)
Noah (2014) Creation Sequence
Noah (2014) Ending “I Cannot Do This”
The Matrix (1999) Blue Pill or Red Pill
Fun Stuff
Ali Gray, “Die Hard Rip-Offs: Worst to Best,” IGN.com, September 20, 2013.
“Alice in Wonderland” references in The Matrix
If you’re interested in superheroes, check out these and other titles in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series: Jonathan J. Sanford, ed., Spider-Man and Philosophy: The Web of Inquiry (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2012); Mark D. White and Robert Arp, eds., Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2008); Mark D. White, Superman and Philosophy: What Would the Man of Steel Do? (Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2013). Also, Terrence R. Wandtke, ed., The Amazing Transforming Superhero: Essays on the Revision of Characters in Comic Books, Film and Television (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2007) and Terrance R. Wandtke, The Meaning of Superhero Comic Books (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2012).
Sidebar: The Matrix (1999): "The Body Cannot Live Without the Mind"
An ordinary office worker by day, Thomas A. Anderson (Keanu Reeves), is by night a restless and renowned computer hacker nicknamed “Neo.” Sounds a bit like the “mild-mannered reporter” description of Clark Kent in Superman. The story pivots on Anderson awakening to the realization that the human race is being held captive by super-intelligent humanoid machines that are using human bodies to generate electrochemical energy. Humans are kept alive in pods, existing in a dream-like state in a computer-simulated virtual reality known as the Matrix.
Neo is unplugged from the Matrix, escaping his imprisonment with the help of Morpheus (Lawrence Fishbourne), Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), and crew. They believe that Neo is “The One,” a prophesied messiah who will finally succeed in leading their rebellion to free humanity. That struggle entails reentering the Matrix to combat powerful agents whose mission is to put an end to their mutiny while evading attacks in the “real” world by sentinels (squid-like search-and-destroy machines that patrol the cities).
As a writer in Christianity Today observes, “The Matrix is surely the most overanalyzed movie since they invented Christian film critics.”1 Indeed, there is a plethora of articles, blog posts, and books unraveling the fairly explicit Christian allusions that abound in the movie. To mention just a few, the film’s enthusiasts will point out that Morpheus is a kind of John the Baptist (and zen master), Cypher (Joe Pantoliano) plays the betrayer role of Judas, and there are plenty of references to Neo as a Christ figure, including his being awakened from the dead via a gender-role-reversing fairy-tale kiss by Trinity.
It’s not hard to see The Matrix as a postmodern pastiche that “drips with philosophical and religious references,” as film scholar Mark Stucky puts it.2 Viewers have to sort through a mix of Biblical allusions, Eastern mysticism, and the stylized violence typical of Hollywood action films.
When the film’s creators, the Wachowskis, were asked how many of the religious, philosophic, and literary allusions were intentional, they replied, “All of it.”3 The film is stocked with references to Christianity, Buddhism, and Gnosticism, not to mention Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Its dystopic, futuristic setting draws comparisons to Blade Runner. Like Star Wars and other action films, the narrative follows the mythic hero’s journey described in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
To be sure, as critic Josh Burek observes, The Matrix’s “high-octane blend of comic-book action and lofty metaphysics” fueled its box-office fortunes while also creating “theological tension about the movie’s symbolism.”4 While some Christians interpreted the movie as conveying the basic gospel message of salvation, others resisted the notion. Still others made the most of the film, finding theological insight, Biblical parallels, or spiritual inspiration. Stucky for example, thought “Christian theology becomes more accessible and attractive because of Neo’s presentation as a postmodern messiah.”5 The film motivated a Christianity Today writer’s “interest in the supernatural that helped lead to my interest in saints and searching for God’s hand throughout the A.D. era.”6
Not everyone found The Matrix spiritually stimulating however. A Catholic critic thought the “Christian mythology” never managed to “get much beyond [a] comic-book level.”7 And a Plugged In reviewer dismissed it as “just another post-apocalyptic war thriller,” noting that “its flimsy allusions to theological truth are far from inspiring.”8
What seems clear enough is that, despite all the rather overt Christian allusions, there is no evidence that God exists in the fictional world of the film (other than in expletives and exclamations). If God does exist, then humanity has been utterly abandoned, left on its own to secure freedom and salvation. The ultimate source of evil is the Matrix itself. As Morpheus tells Neo, “The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.” The basic problem is plainly not alienation from God as a result of human sin but rather “ignorance and illusion.” As philosopher Gregory Bassham explains, this is “an understanding of the human predicament more consistent with Eastern mysticism or Gnosticism than it is with Christianity.”9 Gnosticism asserts a dualism between matter (evil) and spirit (good). Personal perception and knowledge are the means to salvation (or knowledge of the divine).
Clearly, Neo is the only hope for humanity. His characterization as a Christ figure “forms the fundamental core of the story,” Stucky explains. “Neo’s messianic growth (in self-awareness and power) and his eventual bringing of peace and salvation to humanity form the essential plot of the trilogy.”10 Neo’s training to defeat the Agents is a quest for self-mastery. (He tells Morpheus the reason he doesn’t believe in fate: “I don't like the idea that I’m not in control of my life.”) This reluctant hero’s journey to self-realization, which typifies Hollywood stories, represents faith in one’s self (and not God) as having salvific potential for the individual and community.
Though conceptually fascinating and cinematically dazzling, at bottom The Matrix (1999) is basically a sci-fi action film thematically akin to the conventional superhero triumphing over evil in an apocalyptic fistfight. As Roger Ebert put it, “It’s kind of a letdown when a movie begins by redefining the nature of reality, and ends with a shoot-out.”11
Frederica Mathewes-Green, “Desert of the Real?,” Christianity Today, May 1, 2003.
See Mark D. Stucky, “He Is the One: The Matrix Trilogy's Postmodern Movie Messiah,” Journal of Religion and Film 9, no. 2 (2005): paragraph 24. This essay contains helpful references to other analyses of The Matrix.
Quoted in Josh Burek, “The Gospel According to Neo,” Christian Science Monitor, May 9, 2003. This article provides a good summary of the theological debate along with a “Matrix Glossary.”
Burek, “The Gospel According to Neo.” The Matrix earned over $460 million worldwide, finishing at number 5 in total box office that year.
Stucky, “He Is the One,” paragraph 42.
Steve Lansingh, “The Best Films of 1999,” Christianity Today, January 1 2000.
James Arnold, “Menaces, Saviors, Thieves,” American Catholic, accessed July 23, 2016.
Steven Isaac, “The Matrix,” PluggedIn.com. This article plays host to evangelical discussion of The Matrix by including links to a number of related articles on the film.
Gregory Bassham, “The Religion of The Matrix and the Problems of Pluralism,” The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real, ed. William Irwin (Chicago: Open Court, 2002), 114. In the same volume, see also Deborah Knight and George McKnight, “Real Genre and Virtual Philosophy,” 188–201.
Stucky, “He Is the One,” paragraph 4.
Roger Ebert, “The Matrix,” RogerEbert.com.