Napolitano missed it.
I just saw the film. Napolitano missed it badly. His brief yet incorrect synopsis is based on his own misunderstandings of the things he asserts the script is based on, and not the script itself. His conclusions about what the film was trying to say are, therefore, not based on the film, but on his own misconceptions of things that he failed to understand before he saw the film...as evidenced by his assertion that the martial arts scenes are the most memorable of the film.
Wrong.
Existentialism? Wrong again.
His ridicule and "right-brain left-brain" quips are intended to win support, but actually do nothing but point out his own ignorance.
I understood the film; I followed it from the beginning, and although there were some weak spots, overall the story held together very well. Yes, there were a couple of lame lines of dialog, yes, there were a couple of points where I would have shot the scene again, but I think the film came off very, very well.
The premise is simple. Reality does exist. The actual reality of the film, (machines rule the planet) is approached by steps through the use of hints. The audience is first coaxed into agreeing that there may be something going on that they don't fully understand, and then is guided through two "layers" of "reality" in a way that is amusing, believable and very clever, considering that the medium that is used to tell the story is a science fiction movie.
The layers turn out to be non-reality, and the actual reality is actually real. The audience is allowed to participate in what they find out is the "truth" and is finally given a reason for reality at the end of the film.
Now, I'm not saying I agree with the "reason", but I am saying that the people who made the film (unlike Napolitano) obviously understood that our definition of reality is based as much on what we agree is real as it is on any other reason, and they devised an enjoyable way to illustrate it.
And they did a real good job.
It's incredibly annoying to see a critic mock a film and say it's bad because the critic is too stupid to get the concept. It's like a dog barking at an airplane. |
