Not that the leader of Zion is the only member of The Matrix who's gone on to have a rather strange career in adverts. Not long before Morpheus was trying to extol the virtues of a Kia with the same gravitas he gave to explaining how the world had become so post-apocalyptic and that's why everybody needed to learn karate, his arch nemesis had already been booking solo work in television commercials. At least the Morpheus thing made sense - the character's supposed to be charismatic and convincing. He's probably not supposed to sing opera, but that's ancillary. What makes a lot less sense (and is therefore infinitely more surreal and a little terrifying) is drafting in Hugo Weaving's villainous Agent Smith to big up General Electric's work with hospitals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ7GxfpZ2Vg Hospitals aren't fun places, which is why people tend to try and dress them up as slightly more inviting and friendly than the reality of a bleach-stained building full of dying people. You know what doesn't make a spell in A&E seem any nicer? Having one of the scariest movie villains of the past few decades stalking the hallways, with the constant threat that he might make your mouth disappear or pile on top of you with two-dozen doppelgangers of himself. We guess it makes a kind of sense that a character that's technically not a person but a computer program bigging up software makes a kind of sense, but having a character who is inherently terrifying and with a scary-looking smile being a spokesperson for anything makes absolutely zero sense.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
