And yet more to satisfy me: the civilization dwelling in Zion is a visual feast of utterly gorgeous and achingly real humanity of every race, hue, style of dress and body art, like the last human city should be. It's a 21st century young person's dream, everybody's just people (though it's perhaps a little disappointing that the black guys have black girlfriends and the white guys have white ones, but oh well, one battle at a time, I guess), united in common cause and, in one of the film's greatest scenes, partying like it's the end of the world because it just might be.
I live in an overwhelmingly white and monolingual state: Zion's appeal to me is very real. I didn't realize how I have been missing the sight of other faces, other races, until I was vicariously drawn into the ultimate multi-culti rave party. We are still here, the prophet-like Morpheus has reminded us, and it is our duty to celebrate that, celebrate our animal nature that makes us different from the machines, shake our groove things and get it on. Yeah!
I am also howlingly entertained by this film's journey deeper into the territory of mythology and archetype. A new character emerges, the Merovingian, and he is delightfully arrogant and French like the conspiracy theorist/heretic's ultimate idol, the monarchial descendent of Jesus Christ (the Merovingians were kings of France and some theories maintained that their origins lay in Jesus' having impregnated Mary Magdeline, and in Joseph of Arimethea's having brought her to France to give birth to and raise their semidivine progency after the crucifixion), ought to be. At first he seems meant to be a helper in Neo's quest to find his way to the core and find a way to prevent the machine's imminent attack on Zion, but he is quickly revealed as having his own agenda and no concern for what aren't, after all, his fellow humans. Like his mythological original, this Merovingian isn't really one of us, and it takes the oldest trick in the book, betrayal by a wronged woman, to get past him and out of his empire. I would have liked to have seen more of him, but maybe he'll have more to do in the last film. I'm crossing my fingers.
One last spin TM:R puts on the Matrix milieu: as mentioned briefly in the first film, what Neo et al are fighting against is not the first Matrix... and Neo isn't the first Neo! A great effort is made to convince Neo, and by extension us, that he isn't, in fact, anybody's savior, that he isn't, in fact, doing anything of his own free will; he is an inherent anomaly in the program that crops up at regular iterations and while he is something of an annoying bug in the works, the Matrix has accommodated that bug and harnessed it.
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As fascinating as are Agent Smith's new powers within the Matrix, I find his newfound presence OUTSIDE the Matrix (as Cain) even more interesting. I was hoping for some comments on this aspect of Agent Smith's character too...