Retrospective: Matrix, The (1999)

THE MATRIX (1999)

A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2003

The author of this review learned a lot from his bitter movie going
experience and tends to be careful when certain film is advertised as
"cool". When someone claims that certain movie is "best piece of
science fiction since BLADE RUNNER", I immediately remember
THE FIFTH ELEMENT. When ad campaign claims that the movie
was made or inspired by comic book artists, I remember plenty of
disastrous comic book adaptations. You have little to look forward
when the movie's main star is Keanu Reeves, actor whose
performance is usually associated with word "wood". When someone
mentions word "cyberpunk", I cringe at the thought of JOHNNY
MNEMONIC, another display of Reeves' acting abilities. Then again,
there was a film that had all those elements and defied my
expectations - THE MATRIX, 1999 science fiction spectacle written
and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski.

Protagonist of the film is Thomas Anderson (played by Keanu
Reeves), young man who lives a double life - at day he is just of
many employees in faceless software corporation; at night he is
"Neo", hacker dedicated to breaking any computer law in the book.
Anderson/Neo has recently drawn attention of two groups - one is
group of hacker/terrorists led by Morpheus (played by Laurence
Fishburne), another is government and their agents led by sinister-
looking Smith (played by Hugo Weaving). When Anderson/Neo
finally meets Morpheus, he is shown that his entire world is nothing
more than an illusion created by "Matrix" - system designed by
intelligent machines in order to keep humans in slavery. Morpheus
believes that Neo is "The One", man who is prophesied to lead
humans in the liberation war against machines.

THE MATRIX was surprisingly good film for its time, and there
many people who maintain enthusiasm for it ever since and claim
that it was one of the greatest science fiction films ever made. Yet,
despite being surprisingly good, THE MATRIX is nevertheless just
another of those overblown, over-hyped and, in the end, overrated
films that are bound for oblivion in couple of years. The idea behind
the script isn't particularly original - similar concept was used with
much more success in Alex Proyas' DARK CITY - and although THE
MATRIX arouses viewers' grey cells more than average Hollywood
product, it still lacks depth necessary to be branded "thinking man's
film". The (in)famous "philosophy" of THE MATRIX uses many
interesting concepts borrowed from Plato, ancient Chinese tales,
Buddhism and Philip K. Dick, but most of the audience would care
very little about them, being overwhelmed by "cool" music, "cool"
wardrobe, "cool" martial arts, "cool" protagonists and "cool" special
effects. The more obvious influence on this film could be attributed
less to ancient philosophers and more to some "cool" elements of
world's popular culture - Oriental anime and Hong Kong movies.
THE MATRIX has struck the chord of popular sentiments and picked
the right trends, being aided by massive ad campaign and even some
negative publicity (it allegedly served as one of many inspirations for
the perpetrators of infamous Columbine massacre).

Right combination of different contents only partially explains
success of THE MATRIX. In essence, this film is triumph of style over
substance. Scratched beyond "cool" dark glasses and leather jackets,
protagonists of this film are rather thin, equipped with thanklessly
lame lines and broadest possible character traits. Even the
protagonist is incredibly bland, which is rather good thing for film,
because it fits Keanu Reeves' capabilities. The only moderately
human character in film - Cypher (played by Joe Pantoliano) -
appears too briefly in the film and his final fate is all but telegraphed
in the middle. The other human character is ironically not human at
all - Agent Smith, played menacingly but very effectively by Hugo
Weaving in the way that leaves too many questions unanswered.
Those questions are going to be asked, despite all the "cool" gadgetry,
spectacular gunfights and brilliant display of martial arts
(choreographed by Hong Kong's legendary master Yuen Wu-Ping),
and some of the flaws in the script are more than apparent. The
ending - which, despite all "cool" and brilliant philosophy, succumbs
to filmmakers' desire to display all the CGI technology at their
disposal - is somewhat disappointing, but it also hints of future
sequels, so the general impression of THE MATRIX won't be severely
diminished.

In most likelihood, THE MATRIX is probably going to be rightly
remembered as one of the better films of its time, but its status of
genre classic is far from deserved.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

Review written on November 17th 2003


Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.ofcs.org - Online Films Critics Society

==========
X-RAMR-ID: 36320
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1219008
X-RT-TitleID: 1086960
X-RT-AuthorID: 1307
X-RT-RatingText: 7/10