Matrix

Most film reviewers of Matrix: Reloaded are critical of its attempts at philosophy. They (NYTimes, Boston.com, etc) dismiss the philosophic self-consciousness of the series as brain candy for the "popcorn crowd".

Fortunately for those of us who don't feel the need to remain professionally aloof and unimpressed with any film that's supposed to, there are plenty of people willing to give it serious thought. Not only geeky bloggers, but also famous scholars. The official Matrix website has full text of a dozen scholarly philosophy articles written by well-published professors on the philosophical questions posed by the Matrix. They are, of course, much less interested in the dialogue from the films than in the alternate reality created thereby. Also, these articles were all written before the second one came out, and added much more detail (and perhaps too much for serious philosophical cohesion) than the first. Some of these articles are quite good. One by Dr. Richard Hanley discusses the failed perfect Matrix and the Christian conception of heaven. I'll quote Dr. David Chalmers, on the metaphysics of the Matrix:

Importantly, nothing about this Metaphysical Hypothesis is skeptical. The Metaphysical Hypothesis here tells us about the processes underlying our ordinary reality, but it does not entail that this reality does not exist. We still have bodies, and there are still chairs and tables: it's just that their fundamental nature is a bit different from what we may have thought. In this manner, the Metaphysical Hypothesis is analogous to a physical hypotheses, such as one involving quantum mechanics. Both the physical hypothesis and the Metaphysical Hypothesis tells us about the processes underlying chairs. They do not entail that there are no chairs. Rather, they tell us what chairs are really like... We can think of the Matrix Hypothesis as a creation myth for the information age. If it is correct, then the physical world was created, just not necessarily by gods. Underlying the physical world is a giant computation, and creators created this world by implementing this computation. And our minds lie outside this physical structure, with an independent nature that interacts with this structure.