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The Matrix
***1/2
Cinema
Releases - June 11, 1999
Rated on a 4-star
scale. USA. Written and directed by Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski. Starring
Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano,
Gloria Foster.
(NOTE: This review was my entry into Film
Education's Young Film Critic of the Year Competition 1999, and since there
was a 250-word limit, it's more concise, and let's face it, therefore not
as good, as my usual reviews. I would have written another review, at full
length, but after spending hours getting this to the right short length,
and still trying to get in at least a few valid comments, I was drained.
Sorry, guys...)
The Wachowski brothers, Larry and Andy, started
careers in comic books before entering movies with an impressive film
noir, "Bound". "The Matrix", their first cinematic attempt at sci-fi
adventure, displays the energetic imagination of the former art and the stylish
brooding of the latter.
Keanu Reeves stars as computer hacker Neo, whisked
from ordinary life by Laurence Fishburne's Morpheus and told he lives in
illusion. The real world is enslaved by robots, and most of humankind is
trapped in an electronic matrix. Neo is vital to Morpheus's band of rebels,
who struggle to free earthlings into reality.
"Dark City" (1998) explored a similar idea, and
its deeper premise had greater harmony with more imaginative visuals. "The
Matrix" uses ideas as stepping-stones to a violent climax, and dwelling on
the plot, awkward questions arise. If this matrix is exactly like Earth before
its robotic capture, and since these automatons rarely interfere, isn't it
the safest place to be? And aren't humans to blame for the situation, having
created artificial intelligence? One almost has more sympathy for the arguments
of the machines, rather than those of the mortals.
Nonetheless, even on the level of gunplay, "The
Matrix" is a wonderful film. The action is intensely involving, executed
with technical wizardry, and at times evokes the rhythm of "Star Wars". Even
the biblical resonance of that masterpiece is emulated, with its own messiah,
definitions of good and evil, and story of Creation. "The Matrix" ultimately
seems incomplete, but still... I'll happily watch a sequel.
COPYRIGHT©
1999 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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