The Matrix (1999)

Starring - Keanu Reeves; Laurence Fishburne; Carrie-Anne Moss; Hugo Weaving & Gloria Foster Director - Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski MPAA - Rated R for sci-fi violence and brief language. Let me first say that the conditions that I was forced to watch The Matrix under were less than ideal. So I have tried to be as fair as possible considering that my viewing experience was significantly less than ideal. I watched The Matrix in a theater that is in serious need of upgrades at the best of times. Under no circumstances, should it have ever been allowed to show a big budget special effects laden film like The Matrix. This theater, owned by the parent company of one of Hollywood's biggest studios, hasn't even graduated into stereo sound yet. The mono sound that the audience was subjected to sounded as if it was coming out of a speaker that was many years past mandatory retirement age. In other words, the sound sucked. As someone used to digital sound in a movie theater, bad sound doesn't do anything to add to a film. I'm not even going to go into the horrible splicing job that the projectionist did putting this film together. There, I've had my rant, now on with the regularly scheduled review. Which sadly won't include commentary on the film's sound which I'm assuming was spectacular, but I'm just guessing. My guess on the sound seems like a fairly solid one considering the visual quality of The Matrix. It is nothing short of stunning visually. Sadly, the rest of the film, while pretty good, doesn't quite measure up to the obvious effort that was expended on making this film look so darn good. The Matrix has at its core a good concept, although it strays into the confusing side more often than I would have liked. Keanu Reeves plays a computer hacker who is drawn into the frightening realization that reality is just a hoax. It turns out that that many years ago the world was devastated by some sort of disaster. Now machines run the planet and humans spend their lives in a sort of incubator, plugged into a computer network. The computers are generating a virtual reality world which is a representation of the Earth before it was destroyed. The population of the planet never realizes that their entire life is a hoax and that they really spend their entire lives as comatose. That is except a small band who have discovered this horrible secret and have escaped their virtual prisons. They now spend their lives combating the computers in an effort to expose this lie. Reeve's character, Neo, is recruited by this band of rebels led by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). Newcomer Carrie-Anne Moss and one of Hollywood's most underrated actors, Joe Pantoliano, join Fishburne in the band of freedom-fighters. The action sequences are nothing short of spectacular. This can be attributed as much to the amazing special effects as to many of the actor's extensive pre-production training in martial arts. This lends itself to some of the best martial arts sequences that you are ever likely to see in a film. When you add this to some of the wild effects in the computer generated world, it all adds up to an eyeful. As I already said, the visuals far outpace the rest of the film. Acting in The Matrix is not bad, but it certainly isn't real good either. Keanu Reeves gives his usual fairly emotionless performances. Although to his credit, it is one of his better performances. Laurence Fishburne on the other hand often seemed to forget that he was in a sci-fi action film. More than a few times he delivered his lines as if he thought he was performing in some sort of Shakespearean drama. Joe Pantoliano was a little under used in this film but he made the most with what he had. Carrie-Anne Moss turned out a surprisingly good performance for this her first feature film role. It's nice to see that she was cast as much for her talent as for her breathtaking looks. You have to give all of the main actors a healthy dose of credit for the work that they obviously put into the physical training for their roles in this film. It was clear that no small effort went into getting the moves down perfectly for the fighting sequences. I also put much of the blame for the somewhat strained performances in The Matrix on the dialogue, which was terrible at times. In more than a few places it got way too existential for my liking and at other times it was just plain weird. It almost seems as though the writers were having a difficult time trying to figure out how to explain the concept for the movie. So they decided to make the dialogue as obtuse as possible so that no one could figure out what the heck they were talking about; thereby covering up any leaps of faith that they may have had to make in the departments of logic and believability. My other major complaint with The Matrix was with the very unsatisfying ending. The setup for it was hokey and frankly used in many a bad film before. The ending itself was just plain strange. The main reasons to recommend The Matrix are the visual effects and computer animation which make this a real treat to watch. While the rest of the film (acting, dialogue and to a degree plot) detract from the high production values, they don't detract enough to prevent me from recommending The Matrix as a fun way to spend an evening. 7/10 Reviewed April 4, 1999 by Joe Chamberlain