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The Matrix Customer Reviews (76 - 78 of 132 Reviews)

*The Matrix*, directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, is a purposefully non-user-friendly movie. The directors make no effort to reach out to a general audience: if you're not familiar with the terminology of "graphic" novels, geeky cyber-fi, and if you're under the age of, say, 40, then to hell with you. Besides, as the film studios well know, the biggest audience for movies are boys between 14 and 21, which begs the question: why BOTHER reaching out? If you don't fit the demographic, who cares? You're irrelevant.

The movie is about a guy named Neo (get it? as in "One" -- this is typical of the depth of thought that went into this story) who is slowly awakened to the fact that the life he's been leading has all along been a fictional computer construct. For the benefit of those in the audience who'd been forced -- kicking and screaming -- to read "Alice in Wonderland" in college, Neo is shown the "true" reality by swallowing a red pill, provided by a small group of reality-renegades led by Laurence Fishburne. There are other allusive candies for the smart set: Neo, for reasons unclear to him, gets dragged away and interrogated by interchangeable bureaucrats (think Kafka); even the very ending hints at Wagnerian opera. But rest assured: there's nothing very intellectual going on here -- only proof that the Wachowskis received a liberal education.

Needless to say, many of the plot elements fail to hold up under scrutiny. Just for starters, you would be a chronic cripple if you lay in a coma for 20 or so years, but that's just one minor item the story breezes over. The directors ask you to suspend your disbelief over a grand canyon of impossibilities, illogical plot mechanisms, on and on. To top it all off, we're given howlingly irrealistic special effects -- these characters commence flying all over the place; they get shot, fall down, dust it off, and continue kickboxing; they hang suspended in mid-air . . . evidently they're made to resemble the video-game characters whom the targeted audience spends so much time with. The Wachowski brothers aren't merely directing a movie; they're putting on The Greatest SHOW On Earth. Well, as P.T. Barnum once said, "There's a sucker born every minute."

Stunningly original.
The Matrix surprised everyone in 1999 by being so utterly brilliant. A truly original film, it had a similar sort of impact to when Star Wars came out in 1977. (Incidentally, the Phantom Menace came out at the same time, but the Matrix more than held its own.) Written and directed by the Wachowski brothers, the Matrix is seemingly set in the present day, where Thomas Anderson, played by Keanu Reeves, lives an ordinary life by day, and is a computer hacker by the name of Neo at night. His night-time activities bring him into contact with a mysterious person named Morpheus (Laurence Fishbourne). Anderson discovers that reality as he knows it at the end of the twentieth century is an elaborate sham, a hoax. His world is simply the Matrix; in the real world, he, and the rest of humanity, are in bondage, enslaved by a malevolent artificial intelligence. The film follows Anderson's dramatic discovery of the real world, and ultimately, a dramatic discovery concerning himself. The film is set up for at least one sequal, but works well as a single independent film. The screen effects are unprecendented in their brilliance, and are enough on their own to keep you on the edge of your seat. Besides that however, the story is fascinating, and the script very appropriate. Keanu Reeves is not the greatest of actors, but he plays to his strengths here, highlighting the vulnerability of Neo. Fishbourne is very cool as Morpheus, and newcomer Carrie Anne-Moss supports them excellently as Trinity. The film is complicated enough to be difficult to condense into a review, and exciting enough for me not to want to spoil it by going into great detail; it simply demands to be watched.

COOL COOL COOL
Finally Keanu Reeves has found the perfect role: his Neo is a human blank slate who goes through a harrowing transformation while discovering the horrific secrets of The Matrix. An eye-popping, non-stop thirll ride, the Wachowski's super-cool movie astounds you at every turn, and its dizzying pop-psychology and wildly fantastic premise is actually thought-provoking. Like all good rides, it moves like lightning, so you better pay attention; this movie is crammed with lots of subtle touches, and the Oscar-winning special effects require at least a second viewing. Four stars instead of five for one reason: for all its slickness and entertaining thrills, the characters in this movie do not illicit the kind of pathos they might have with just a bit more personal history and interaction; it is more a series of posturing without real heart. With the hyper-cool Carrie Moss as Neo's potential babe, just a bit more stylized romance a la The Terminator would have made given this movie more emotional resonance, though as it stands it is a science fiction classic for the ages.