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Intro:
Unless you live in a hole somewhere in Yellowstone Park (Bigfoot, I’m talking to you)
you’ll know that this week’s big movie is The Matrix: Revolutions; The end of another
epic trilogy. So, to celebrate this release I will be reviewing The Matrix, Animatrix
and Matrix: Reloaded (Nightswrath has also reviewed it so you can go check that out
right here ). As this is the first day I’ll start at the beginning, with The Matrix!
Review:
I’m very glad I’m not writing this in 1999 as I have no idea how to describe the plot
of The Matrix without completely ruining the movie. If you haven’t seen it, stop
reading this review right now and then maybe come back after watching it. Chances
are pretty high you have though...
Thomas Anderson is a computer programmer at a software company. At night he leads a
second life as a computer hacker called Neo, one of the best around. And he spends a
lot of his time searching for a man called Morpheus. He’s been searching for the answer
to the ultimate question. What is the Matrix?
One night his computer speaks to him and he follows its cryptic instructions to a
nightclub, where he meets Trinity, another hacker who’s been pretty invisible for quite
a while. She tells him he’ll be contacted soon and will have all his questions answered.
But Trinity has competition from the hands of a shady government department. When we
first saw her and the Agents at the start of the film they seemed to have some super
powers, but Neo doesn’t know this. The two sides race to get Mr. Anderson, and due to
a problem with heights the Agents win. Neo gets ‘bugged’ and then ‘debugged’ by Trinity
and her friends.
He’s then introduced to Morpheus, who gives him a pill that makes the world go a
little crazy. He wakes up in a pod with various things plug in to him and a big
cable in the back of his head. These pop out and he is flushed out of the tube
before being picked up by a triangle of lights. The last thing he sees before
blacking out is Morpheus, in tattered clothes, saying “Welcome to the Real World”
Well, that wasn’t too spoiler filled except for the last paragraph. The Matrix is one
of the few movies that I can still remember seeing for the first time. And that’s
because it’s so well written. I had no idea what was coming, although subsequent
viewings show there are a couple of clues, and didn’t really understand it when
the answer to the question was revealed.
That’s the only real complaint I’ve heard from anyone about The Matrix. They don’t
get it. I can’t really understand why, as after Morpheus explains everything I knew
what was going on. Exactly what the One was remained a mystery for a while but at
the end of the film that’s a little less confusing. The viewer follows Neo through
his journey, and so we learn what he learns (well, not Kung Fu). There shouldn’t be
any confusion by the end. My mum still hasn’t watched it because of the first 45
minutes though...
Acting, Directing, Action:
The big worry I had about The Matrix, and the reason I didn’t actually see it in the
original release, was Keanu Reeves. Johnny Mnemonic was still hanging over his head,
and The Matrix had a similar theme. Plus, he was still Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan in my
head, and watching Much Ado About Nothing didn’t change my opinion all that much.
I expect him to suck pretty badly in this (I had yet to see the Devils Advocate at
this point). While he does say ‘Whoa!’ at one point it’s a fitting whoa. And that’s
the big thing, Keanu is perfect casting for this role as Thomas ‘Neo’ Anderson doesn’t
know what’s happening to him and can act a bit dumb. He looks a little goofy when he’s
doing a couple of the Kung Fu movies, but he literally kicks ass in this movie. With
Speed he proved he could do action, and with this he solidified it.
Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith) was completely an unknown actor to me, though I have since
found out I had seen one of his films before. But seeing as he was the voice behind a
sheep dog (Rex in Babe) I didn’t put two and two together. As it turns out it’s a
shame I hadn’t seen him in more things, as the guy is good. A friend of mine (Hi Stu!
*waves*) ran in to him in London back when they were promoting Reloaded and apparently
he’s a very friendly guy. Agent Smith is not. I know that’s the whole point of acting,
but when someone does their job well they should get a pat on the back.
Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus) has had quite a range or roles in his career, from a
Cowboy on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse to Othello. He calls more on the later role than the
former here (unless the Cowboy did Kung Fu, I’ve never seen Playhouse). Morpheus is
a pretty sedate character, a man who knows his purpose in life and is walking that
path. He suffers and struggles but never brakes. And incidentally kicks some ass
along the way. Larry got most of the difficult dialogue in this one, speaking most
of the philosophical mumbo jumbo that provides the basis for the plot here. After
Shakespeare any dialogue gets a little easier, but this must have been a challenge.
Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity) was another person I hadn’t seen. Before this she was
mainly a TV and voice over actress (she was actually in a show called Matrix, which
I have never heard of and was about Gangsters) so I probably have heard her before
on Spider-man. Trinity is our introduction to the Matrix’s world, and her opening
scene where she escapes from the Agents is stunning. It’s also bloody confusing when
you first see the film. She looks pretty good in leather too. Hell, she looks good
in her real world garb so it’s not just the leather.
While I’m not going to focus on anyone else (except briefly Marcus Chong) the whole
cast here is great. No one gives a bad performance (and there’s a couple of soap
actors here) which isn’t very common for a science fiction / action movie. Now Marcus
(Tank) blew it. Tank is a great character and he gets his teeth in. Tank is meant to
be in the sequels but he reportedly went a bit nuts and was annoying the hell out of
Andy and Larry Wachowski about his role or money or something. So they wrote him out.
A lot of fans aren’t happy with them about this, but I blame him. He didn’t do
anything for 4 years after this so he must have done something, or had some problem.
I hope he’s better now if it was a medical thing. And he’s in the new Crow movie with
David Boreanaz and Edward Furlong so we can all see him in that.
The Wachowski Brothers had two smaller movies under their belt before this, though
only one directing effort. A film of The Matrix’s size was a big gamble for the Warner
Brothers. Maybe it’s the fact they have the same initials that got this made. They
took this film very seriously, and put a lot of effort in to getting it right. The
actors all had to learn how to do the moves, over a very long and grueling training
period. Every shot was detailed in storyboards that weren’t the normal sketches, but
basically a Manga of the movie. They got Yuen Woo-ping to do the training and
choreography; he’s the man in Hong Kong.
And of course they invented bullet time (with help). It’s been ripped of in pretty
much everything, including commercials, but this was the first time anyone had ever
seen the effect. And like the T1000 in T2 it was very groundbreaking and pretty
simple when you know how it’s done. The effect itself might be a bit gratuitous,
the Matrix would have been great without it, but it actually fits here. Unlike many
of the places it’s been ripped off.
Conclusion:
The brothers are two big geeks, and it’s all up there on screen for the rest of us.
They basically wanted to film a live action Anime movie, and that’s what the Matrix
is. It was pioneering in many ways. For one, there were effects in there never done
before. The actors did their own stunts for the most part, and that doesn’t happen
very often in American movies. And the story was intelligently written and made you
think. For a summer movie; infamous popcorn country; that’s pretty much unheard of.
I must have seen this film, well I’ve lost count how many times and I’m still not
tired of it. If you can get tired of the gunfight in the bank then you may never
enjoy movies ever again....
Macgyver Rating: A big fat 5 planets. If possible add more planets and then give those to it too
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