The Matrix
Work, work, work! Hard at it again with one of this year's most talked about, "The Matrix" written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers (Andy and Larry) starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburn, Carrie-Ann Moss, and Hugo Weaving. MPAA Rating R for violence and language. Running time 2hrs, 25 mins. At a monster-plex near you.
I expect to hear howls from the crowd on this one.
"The Matrix" is a thinly disguised set of allegories masquerading as a science fantasy shoot-'em-up epic kung fu marathon. There are some subtle and not-so-subtle historical, mythological and Biblical references sprinkled liberally throughout The Matrix. If you don't make the connections, you're not paying attention, although admittedly, some go by pretty quickly. The special effects in this moovie are earth-shattering, and deserve to be seen on a large screen to be appreciated or even absorbed. However, it is in my book, less moovie than amusement park ride. This is not necessarily a bad thing, provided you're willing to climb aboard.
Genesis: The Matrix is equal parts Dark City, Blade Runner, Star Wars, Monty Python's Life of Brian, Men In Black, Soylent Green, The X-Files, Officer and a Gentleman, The Karate Kid, True Grit, Alice In Wonderland, Invasion of The Body Snatchers, Bound, Brazil, Rambos I through IV, and a whole dump truck full of Bruce Lee mini epics all rolled into one. Fold in Bill and Ted just for texture. (Sorry, I lied about True Grit.)
The best thing I can recommend for anyone who has not yet seen the Matrix is this: allow yourself the luxury of total suspension of disbelief. To not do so invites too much critical thought, and you might find yourself starting to get just a bit agitated and possibly even angry at this film's excesses. Accept it for what it is - eye candy - and then sit back, stuff yourself with popcorn, and roll with it. It's a moovie with no moral lesson, no message, just a certified techno-vision joy ride. As that, it's the best I've seen.
Where to begin? The stack o'subplots revolves around one Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) software engineer, also known by his hacker phreak alias, Neo. (Neo is an anagram for "one" - not that you care, but it'll come in handy later). Neo is enlisted by seemingly sinister forces that need his help in combating the even more sinister, even darker forces of The Matrix, the virtual reality machine that envelopes each and every one of us every day of our lives. We think we're sentient beings, and that we have choices, but we instead are but cogs in a great virtual reality computer sim. That's it in a nutshell kids. The rest is window dressing.
I don't want to toss out too much here, because I think you owe it to yourself to see The Matrix, so I'll depart from the regular format and concentrate on hits and misses.
What I liked about this moovie:
Special Effects. They pulled out all the stops here. They invented stops to pull out. The realization of The Matrix, the agents, and Neo's "rebirth" are some of the best overall special effects I can remember ever seeing. The bar has been officially raised a couple of notches.
Inside jokes. This thing is rippled with inside sneers, location clues, mythology and obscure references. Check out the movie playing on the TV in the Oracle's waiting room.
Basic Plot. Paranoia and conspiracy are big right now, and they capitalized on it right up to the end and beyond - I expect sequels. I thought they could do better than a remix of Men In Black for the machine "agents" of the Matrix - evil shape shifting Devo drones with Ray Bans, robotic demeanors and demonic dialogue coaches. Too benign. Reptilian, but benign.
Casting. Well, some of it anyway. Keanu Reeves avoided my patented Keanu Reeves Kiss Of Death (K.R.K.O.D.) for The Matrix simply because what makes him so dorky in some moovies - that Bill and Ted, deer-in-the-55mph-bus-headlights naivete, actually works here. He is after all, a reluctant, unknowing Messiah. I was petrified that I would actually be paying good money to see Reeves rehash his Johnny Mnemonic character, and relieved that he didn't. Carrie-Anne Moss, as Trinity, seemed to be just going through the motions, and I thought she was chosen just for her ability to wear leather and trot on vertical surfaces like she was Dale Earnhart going into turn three at Talladega. Not good enough. Laurence Fishburn plays Morpheus, the Obiwan/Yoda figure, and I think he can take some credit as the metaphysical glue that holds this whole thing together. I'm less sure how he kept his shades on. The rest of the ensemble were reasonably effective, given that a lot of the dialogue could have written by a slightly above average sleep-deprived high school sophomore. Here's my favorite line: Neo - "There is no spoon!" Dynamite stuff.
Art Direction, Cinematography, Editing and Set Design. This is the best, darkest and most overpoweringly sinister world since Dark City, or maybe Blade Runner. The realities fade and blend convincingly, and you become a part of the fiction. A genuine white knuckle roller coaster in places.
What I didn't like:
The disbelief problem. This is a known fault with your reviewer. It should be fixed in the next upgrade. This story supposedly takes place two hundred years or so into the future. But as a friend so aptly pointed out, we have by this time, apparently, not progressed beyond hot lead pellets for killing humans with whom we disagree. They then elaborate on that theme by spewing literally TONS of hot lead at everything that moves, and a helpless office building that doesn't, supported by still more computer tweened 3D multi-camera special effects and a couple of million explosive squibs. This is not a commentary on current events - I don't think The Matrix, considering an inflation adjusted societal index, is inherently any more violent than say, Star Wars. Lots of bullets fly, lots of people get shot and die. It's just that with all this supposed technology, bullets are still the best they can come up with?
Then, to navigate between the Matrix and the real world, the good guys use common telephones. With bells. More specifically, they call home from a cell phone and say "come and get me" like they're teenagers at the mall. They are then instructed on how to run through the streets and alleys, dodging artillery fire and spooky agents of the Matrix, to get to yet another land-line phone at a different location, so they can be transported via THAT phone back to Allegory Central. JEEZ! They're ON THE PHONE ALREADY. Pay the cell charges and BEAM 'EM UP!!
Kung fu. When they weren't blasting everything to atoms, everybody was Kung Fu fighting. Granted, the choreography and execution were flawless, further augmented by the now ubiquitous special effects, but the chasm here was too wide to leap. I give them credit, Reeves, Fishburn and Moss all trained for months before the making of The Matrix. It really didn't add anything though, except as a container for still more special effects. What it really needed was Pat Morita getting his house painted and his car waxed. Maybe in the sequel, they can wheel-kick Adam Sandler into acting school.
Pacing. At one point in The Matrix, I actually nodded off. They didn't transition very well between the basic plot and the road to the inevitable showdown. It was an atom bomb - all on or all off with nothing in between.
With all the aforementioned caveats in place, I highly recommend you see The Matrix while you can. It's visually stunning; complex, yet straightforward in its way; and reasonably engaging as a science-fantasy story. You'll be disappointed if you wait for video. It's not a particularly insightful film, but it is truly a spectacular ride.
Believing I had a choice, I gave it three cows.
I expect to hear howls from the crowd on this one.
"The Matrix" is a thinly disguised set of allegories masquerading as a science fantasy shoot-'em-up epic kung fu marathon. There are some subtle and not-so-subtle historical, mythological and Biblical references sprinkled liberally throughout The Matrix. If you don't make the connections, you're not paying attention, although admittedly, some go by pretty quickly. The special effects in this moovie are earth-shattering, and deserve to be seen on a large screen to be appreciated or even absorbed. However, it is in my book, less moovie than amusement park ride. This is not necessarily a bad thing, provided you're willing to climb aboard.
Genesis: The Matrix is equal parts Dark City, Blade Runner, Star Wars, Monty Python's Life of Brian, Men In Black, Soylent Green, The X-Files, Officer and a Gentleman, The Karate Kid, True Grit, Alice In Wonderland, Invasion of The Body Snatchers, Bound, Brazil, Rambos I through IV, and a whole dump truck full of Bruce Lee mini epics all rolled into one. Fold in Bill and Ted just for texture. (Sorry, I lied about True Grit.)
The best thing I can recommend for anyone who has not yet seen the Matrix is this: allow yourself the luxury of total suspension of disbelief. To not do so invites too much critical thought, and you might find yourself starting to get just a bit agitated and possibly even angry at this film's excesses. Accept it for what it is - eye candy - and then sit back, stuff yourself with popcorn, and roll with it. It's a moovie with no moral lesson, no message, just a certified techno-vision joy ride. As that, it's the best I've seen.
Where to begin? The stack o'subplots revolves around one Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) software engineer, also known by his hacker phreak alias, Neo. (Neo is an anagram for "one" - not that you care, but it'll come in handy later). Neo is enlisted by seemingly sinister forces that need his help in combating the even more sinister, even darker forces of The Matrix, the virtual reality machine that envelopes each and every one of us every day of our lives. We think we're sentient beings, and that we have choices, but we instead are but cogs in a great virtual reality computer sim. That's it in a nutshell kids. The rest is window dressing.
I don't want to toss out too much here, because I think you owe it to yourself to see The Matrix, so I'll depart from the regular format and concentrate on hits and misses.
What I liked about this moovie:
Special Effects. They pulled out all the stops here. They invented stops to pull out. The realization of The Matrix, the agents, and Neo's "rebirth" are some of the best overall special effects I can remember ever seeing. The bar has been officially raised a couple of notches.
Inside jokes. This thing is rippled with inside sneers, location clues, mythology and obscure references. Check out the movie playing on the TV in the Oracle's waiting room.
Basic Plot. Paranoia and conspiracy are big right now, and they capitalized on it right up to the end and beyond - I expect sequels. I thought they could do better than a remix of Men In Black for the machine "agents" of the Matrix - evil shape shifting Devo drones with Ray Bans, robotic demeanors and demonic dialogue coaches. Too benign. Reptilian, but benign.
Casting. Well, some of it anyway. Keanu Reeves avoided my patented Keanu Reeves Kiss Of Death (K.R.K.O.D.) for The Matrix simply because what makes him so dorky in some moovies - that Bill and Ted, deer-in-the-55mph-bus-headlights naivete, actually works here. He is after all, a reluctant, unknowing Messiah. I was petrified that I would actually be paying good money to see Reeves rehash his Johnny Mnemonic character, and relieved that he didn't. Carrie-Anne Moss, as Trinity, seemed to be just going through the motions, and I thought she was chosen just for her ability to wear leather and trot on vertical surfaces like she was Dale Earnhart going into turn three at Talladega. Not good enough. Laurence Fishburn plays Morpheus, the Obiwan/Yoda figure, and I think he can take some credit as the metaphysical glue that holds this whole thing together. I'm less sure how he kept his shades on. The rest of the ensemble were reasonably effective, given that a lot of the dialogue could have written by a slightly above average sleep-deprived high school sophomore. Here's my favorite line: Neo - "There is no spoon!" Dynamite stuff.
Art Direction, Cinematography, Editing and Set Design. This is the best, darkest and most overpoweringly sinister world since Dark City, or maybe Blade Runner. The realities fade and blend convincingly, and you become a part of the fiction. A genuine white knuckle roller coaster in places.
What I didn't like:
The disbelief problem. This is a known fault with your reviewer. It should be fixed in the next upgrade. This story supposedly takes place two hundred years or so into the future. But as a friend so aptly pointed out, we have by this time, apparently, not progressed beyond hot lead pellets for killing humans with whom we disagree. They then elaborate on that theme by spewing literally TONS of hot lead at everything that moves, and a helpless office building that doesn't, supported by still more computer tweened 3D multi-camera special effects and a couple of million explosive squibs. This is not a commentary on current events - I don't think The Matrix, considering an inflation adjusted societal index, is inherently any more violent than say, Star Wars. Lots of bullets fly, lots of people get shot and die. It's just that with all this supposed technology, bullets are still the best they can come up with?
Then, to navigate between the Matrix and the real world, the good guys use common telephones. With bells. More specifically, they call home from a cell phone and say "come and get me" like they're teenagers at the mall. They are then instructed on how to run through the streets and alleys, dodging artillery fire and spooky agents of the Matrix, to get to yet another land-line phone at a different location, so they can be transported via THAT phone back to Allegory Central. JEEZ! They're ON THE PHONE ALREADY. Pay the cell charges and BEAM 'EM UP!!
Kung fu. When they weren't blasting everything to atoms, everybody was Kung Fu fighting. Granted, the choreography and execution were flawless, further augmented by the now ubiquitous special effects, but the chasm here was too wide to leap. I give them credit, Reeves, Fishburn and Moss all trained for months before the making of The Matrix. It really didn't add anything though, except as a container for still more special effects. What it really needed was Pat Morita getting his house painted and his car waxed. Maybe in the sequel, they can wheel-kick Adam Sandler into acting school.
Pacing. At one point in The Matrix, I actually nodded off. They didn't transition very well between the basic plot and the road to the inevitable showdown. It was an atom bomb - all on or all off with nothing in between.
With all the aforementioned caveats in place, I highly recommend you see The Matrix while you can. It's visually stunning; complex, yet straightforward in its way; and reasonably engaging as a science-fantasy story. You'll be disappointed if you wait for video. It's not a particularly insightful film, but it is truly a spectacular ride.
Believing I had a choice, I gave it three cows.
