The Matrix (1999)

I'm going to say this once and once only. If, for some reason you haven't seen The Matrix before, stop everything right now. Open Netflix or Itunes, or go to Walmart or whatever and get yourself a copy. But this is the important part so listen (read) carefully. Don't try and get any information about it beforehand. Don't watch any trailers, don't ask anyone about it, and don't even read the back of the box. Trust me, the less you know going into this, the better it will be.

This is your last warning. Don't read any farther until you've watched The Matrix.

Okay, I think they're all gone now. As the rest of you have probably guessed, I think The Matrix is best seen for the first time if you have no clue what the actual "Matrix" is. I had no idea when I first saw it, and it really "made" the movie for me.

Anyone who's looked at the other pages of the site will know that I put The Matrix in my personal movie geek bible. The reason I did this is because it is the most influential movie of this decade. The fact that it came out in 1999 is irrelevant. It injected pop culture with a huge jolt of martial arts action, not to mention bullet time. Some of you may be skeptical. Some might say that The Matrix wasn't really that influential even a few years after it's release, let alone now. Lets think about that shall we?

I could give you probably a hundred different ways that The Matrix has changed the film landscape. But I only need one.

Batman. Is. A. Ninja.

Batman was trained in martial arts, swordplay, and stealth techniques by a secret society who call themselves ninjas. This should be familiar to everyone who has seen Batman Begins, which I hope is just about everyone by now. The fact that Christopher Nolan decided that it was a good idea to make Batman a matial artist and ninja shows that The Matrix has changed film making, and action movies specifically in a big way.

Now I might as well do a proper review for the movie. Humans have been conquered by a race of intelligent machines. We are now grown in farms, and our body heat is used by the machines as a power source. We are kept docile by being permanently plugged into a computer program called the Matrix. The Matrix is the world we live in, everything we know. It's all an elaborate computer program, meant to be a cage for our minds. A small group of humans have escaped and they are trying to find the One, who can manipulate the computer program as he sees fit. This "One" is a computer hacker called Neo. The film centers on him as he is pursued by Agents, (programs designed to hunt down escaped humans), and his experiences in the real world after he has been freed from the Matrix, leading to a climax where he learns whether or not he is really "the one".

Neo is played by Keanu Reeves, who does an excellent job of playing a quiet unassuming computer programmer, and later does an excellent job of showing true strength as the character matures. Laurence Fishbourne plays the leader of the humans, Morpheus. He does a great job playing a character who is not only a wise leader type, but also a badass. In fact, if you're looking for badasses, this movie is the place to go. Just about every character dons a trench coat and multiple guns at some point, not to mention beating tons of people to a pulp with their bare hands. Carrie-Anne Moss plays Trinity, a love interest, and does an excellent job with what she's given. Finally we come to my favorite character. Hugo Weaving plays Agent Smith, an AI program who's goal is to hunt down Morpheus and Neo. He plays the part amazingly and is honestly one of my favorite movie villains of all time.

As I've mentioned, the standout part of the movie is the extreme martial arts action. The scenes are extremely over the top in a way that brings to mind the martial arts epics of Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. Because of the way the plot interacts with the action scenes, the incredibly over the top action scenes don't just not detract from the story, they're expected in the story, and flow very well with the sci-fi plot.

Let me put it this way: the movie works. The plot is clever and well thought out, the action is over the top in all the right ways, the actors do some excellent heavy lifting, and the special effects are excellent for 1999 and do a fine job even today. This movie is a true masterwork of 90's cinema and still stands up eleven years later.

Alex Thor