Right so there’s this dude named Tom
his last name is Anderson
and his screen name is Neo
which is crazy
because how was that not already taken
it’s only 3 letters
and it doesn’t have any numbers after it or anything
that’s probably the single least believable part of this story

Tom is a conspiracy theorist
he is convinced that something is wrong with the world
and he is running a constant google search
through a grainy green-on-black version of the internet
trying to find some dude named Morpheus
and also what “The Matrix” is
like duh it’s the movie you’re in, asshole
read a book.

Tom falls asleep at his computer one night
like he does every night of his sad life
but this time he gets an IM from some snarky anon
all “wake up Neo
the Matrix has you
follow the white rabbit
[a thing that has NEVER gone well for ANYONE]
someone is going to knock on your door right now”
and then someone KNOCKS ON HIS DOOR
if I were him
i would have asked the dude at the door if he was trolling
but Tom instead notices that the dude’s girlfriend
has a tattoo of a white rabbit on her shoulder
which he takes as a good enough excuse
to get fucked up on a week night

at the club he meets this chick named Trinity
who spent the first ten minutes of the movie
ruining an entire swat team
and then swan diving into a skyscraper
but will from now on do almost nothing badass on screen
because the boy is here.
She tells Tom she knows who morpheus is
and that he’s looking for him and whatever
she does this really seductively for no reason
and then Tom wakes up hung over
and he goes to work and gets chewed out by his boss
and then he gets a cell phone in the mail
and the cell phone is like “HEY THERE I’M MORPHEUS
YOU NEED TO LEAVE WORK RIGHT NOW BECAUSE THE POLICE WANT YOU”
so like
why did they not just meet up last night
why did they wait until the next day
when he was stuck at work and chased by evil cops
some people are so inconsiderate.

Obviously Tom fails to escape
because he was set up for failure by his shitty new friends
and he gets taken captive by these freaky government agents
who act real smug and put a centipede inside him
but luckily it was all a dream
except it wasn’t because then Morpheus calls him again
like “Hey I’m glad the agents let you go for no reason
let’s meet up now.”
so Neo gets in a classic car under an old bridge
and trinity is there to attach a penis pump to his stomach
and then they go to another abandoned building to meet Morpheus
(btw every building in the world is fucking abandoned i guess)

So Morpheus (who wears sunglasses at night
just like everyone else who understands the true nature of reality)
Morpheus sits Neo down and he’s like “Listen:
reality is a lie
everything is the Matrix.
You know what’s not a lie though?
These cool drugs.
The blue one will knock you the fuck out
the red one will OPEN YOU FUCKING MIND”
so Neo takes the red pill because he is not a wuss
and then he wakes up
and realizes that everything he has ever experienced has been a lie
and that reality is ACTUALLY a sunless hellworld
where human beings are used as living batteries by the matriarchy

It turns out that reality is total bullshit
everybody is pale and lives in the sewer and eats gruel
and the only fun part is that sometimes you can jack back into matrix
and almost get killed
by a bunch of guys who look like the Blues Brothers’ dad
and are actually just really aggressive sysadmins
I guess there is one other fun part
which is that everyone has hovercrafts
and the one Neo is on belongs to Morpheus.
Morpheus is convinced that Neo is “The One”
that is, the dude foretold by prophecy
who will be able to bend the Matrix to his will
(because oh yeah, the Matrix is just a computer simulation
designed to pacify all the human batteries
by allowing them to perpetually experience the height of human civilization:
1999)
Morpheus has been around for many years
and has freed many people from the Matrix
but none of them are The One
because they’re all mostly women or minorities.

So they install a bunch of apps on Neo
like “Kung Fu” and “Cyber Goth Fashion Sense”
and then he takes him to see The Oracle
which, if mythology has taught us NOTHING ELSE
we should know is a BAD FUCKING IDEA.
The oracle is pretty nice though
she gives Neo cookies
tells him he’s gonna have to choose between his life and Morpheus’s
and asks a bunch of leading questions
that cause him to conclude that he’s not the one
and she’s like “Sorry kid
Maybe in your next life or something.”
and then he goes outside
and Morpheus is like “you don’t have to tell me a thing, buddy
we both know what she told you, right?
WINK”
and Neo is like “Ugh so awkward.”

Meanwhile, exactly one member of Morpheus’s crew is not an idiot
and his name is Cypher.
He has concluded
totally correctly
that living in a sewer eating semen out of a rusty tin
is NOT awesome
slap as much cyberpunk shit on it as you want
you are still slurping jizz soup inside a highly advanced toilet
so he makes a deal with the sysadmins:
they will put him back into the matrix
if he lets them nab Morpheus inside the Matrix.
So that’s what he does
he leads the agents to Morpheus
he manages to get out of the matrix while everyone else is still inside
he zaps the two dudes manning the consoles with a lightning gun
and then he starts unplugging all the expendable characters one by one
but I guess he didn’t use enough lightning
because one of the guys he zapped gets up and zaps him
RIGHT AS HE’S ABOUT TO UPLUG NEO
IT’S FAAAAAAAAAAATE
ALSO MOST OF HIS FRIENDS ARE DEEEEEEEEAD.

Neo goes understandably crazy when he gets out
partially because of what the oracle said
and he’s like “fuck it, I’m going back in to rescue Morpheus”
and Trinity is like “That’s suicide
I’m going with you to also die”
so they go to get Morpheus
who the agents are holding in a tall office building with many windows
and not a windowless prison compound
even though
based on the street names
this story takes place in Chicago
and Chicago has an actual prison right in the middle of downtown.
This strategic oversight is what allows Trinity and Neo
to walk in through the front door
shoot everyone with their countless automatic weapons
pointlessly blow up the lobby while they ride the elevator cable to the roof
hijack a helicopter
shoot up the room that Morpheus and the agents are in
(remembering, luckily, to turn friendly fire off)
and then whisk him away to a train station
where a phone booth will take them out of the Matrix

Morpheus and Trinity get out
but RIGHT AS NEO IS ABOUT TO GET OUT
one of the agents posesses a hobo and shoots the phone
so Neo has to fight him and it’s cool
but when throwing the agent under a moving train fails to kill him
Neo realizes it’s better to just run

Meanwhile in real life
the evil robots of the matriarchy have found Morpheus’s hoverboat
they are cutting it apart with lasers
and they can’t use the EMP on them because that would kill Neo
but luckily, around this time
one of the Agents shoots Neo in the face in the matrix and he dies
so now they can use the EMP
except everyone is too sad
and Trinity starts making out with his corpse
because see the Oracle told her she would fall in love with a man
and that man would be THE ONE
SO HE CAN’T DIE
and I guess Trinity’s hot smooches remind Neo
that the matrix is a bullshit computer simulation
and why the fuck would it matter if he got shot in a computer simulation
so he respawns
eats everybody’s bullets
jumps into an agent’s chest and explodes him
and the whole time all the agents are like “HAAAAAAXXXXXXXXXXXX”

but there is no time to be cool, robots are attacking
Neo jacks out of the matrix and they kill all the robots
everything is fine
and the Oracle is technically correct
because it did take Neo dying before he became The One.
Anyway then he spends the rest of his life
flying around the Matrix in a black leather trenchcoat
yelling “WAKE UP SHEEPLE” into random payphones
and no one makes any sequels ever and it’s great.

so the moral of the story
is if you feel like you can’t live up to the expectations of everyone around you
because you don’t have and have never had the necessary knowledge or skills
or the drive to practice those skills
or really anything that prepared you for the responsibility in any way
kill yourself
and come immediately back to life as a superhero

the end.