A Piece From The Collection: The Matrix (1999)

Alo Party Peoples.

The end of the month has come again, the time when I look at a film in my DVD collection and tell you if I think you should do the same. December 2013's choice is, The Matrix. The Wachowski's second direction job was a big hit. It was very well received at the time by both the mass audience and critics. There have been homages, parodies, analysis, and ripoffs. Let's see if it is still good fourteen years later.

Setup: Do I really need to tell you the setup? Everybody knows it by now. A computer hacker called Neo discovers a strange program called the Matrix and wants to figure out what it is. He meets a man named Morpheus who gives him a red pill and reveals to him that reality is a lie. It's not 1999, it's closer to 2199, we're not sure of the date anymore. We built sentient machines that rebelled and took over the world, and now they use mankind's body heat as an energy source. To keep us complacent they put us into a computer simulation of the late 90's called the Matrix. The reason they don't just cut out the quite energy consuming brain is because, revenge I guess. Humans are terrible canadates for this kind of generator, but if they used cows we wouldn't have a movie.

Now he must work with the few free humans left to resist the Agents of the Matrix and free the mankind from it's digital prison.

It is a good and engaging story, and there are some intriguing ideas to be mined from it. Is reality just what our minds perceive, or is there something more. Is it ethical to create artificial sentience? Is Agent Smith right that mankind is a detriment to the Earth? 

Obviously those questions are subjective and answers will vary from person to person, but my answers to them are the following. I am not a solipsist*, if you create sentience you must give it the rights that come with sentience, and man isn't the best thing for the Earth but it's stuck with us for the foreseeable future.

Presentation: This film might be starting to show it's age, but as of 2013 it still looks pretty good. 

The action here looks appropriately like a video game. Characters move with unnatural speed at odd angles and perform amazing acrobatic feats, the camera slows down and pans around them during fights as if it were a cutscene, and the Matrix itself looks like it could be the setting of a GTA game. The CG is dated now, but it is used well and with purpose.

The Matrix itself is washed out and gray, reflecting Neo's humdrum normal life. It looks like the kind of place you would want to escape from, but the real world is cramped, foreboding, and it can make you think that "ignorance is bliss" and the Matrix is a better option than "the desert of the real".

Overall it looks good.

Cast: This is where I am less impressed, but it's not terrible. Keanu Reeves is a bit too quiet i.e can you speak up as Neo, but he does okay. Joe Pantoliano is enjoyable as Cypher, a free human that regrets taking the red pill. Laurence Fishburne is great as Morpheus, Carrie Anne-Moss is engaging as Trinity, and Hugo Weaving is fantastic as Agent Smith, a program designed to hide glitches in the Matrix.


In conclusion, The Matrix is a pretty good film. Well written, well shot, acted competently, well choreographed, and intruiging. Is it dated? Sure, but not as much as I thought it would be going in. I don't know if it's the best ever, but I can certainly see why it is considered to be the best.

One last thing before I go. Before you ask about the sequels or the Animatrix, I haven't seen them. Maybe next year.

Happy New Year, And Many More To Come.

Greg.B

*People that believe there is nothing beyond their brain, and that the world is a figment of their imagination.