Review: The Matrix
They should have paid more attention to that old saw about last laughs. Visually, emotionally, and philosophically, The Matrix deserves a place on the list of science fiction films destined to become the next century's classics.
Reeves is Neo, a computer hacker cum software designer living in a world that is half cyberpunk slum, half IBM. Suddenly, his reasonably normal existence is disrupted by contact with a small group of cyber-rebels whose leader, Morpheus (Laurance Fishburne), tells Neo that his long-held suspicion is correct. The Matrix, the mysterious something he has detected underlying the fabric of the world, is a hideous cage in which human batteries power their own Artificial Intelligence slavers.
Morpheus tells Neo that the few remaining free humans have been waiting for a hero, a cyber-messiah who will be able to penetrate the Matrix and destroy it, starting with the sinister, apparently omnipotent constructs known as "agents." Morpheus believes that Neo is that hero.
If all The Matrix was about were Neo's defeating the monsters, all those pre-release fears would have been justified. But this movie is more than that. It is about making choices and then taking the responsibility for the consequences of those choices. It is also about seeking to change the results when those choices go horribly wrong. The Brothers Wachowski - Andy and Larry - who wrote and directed, use all of the best cinematic and authorial tools to provide what could have been a simple superhero comic book with surprising depths and complexity of both character and plot. They use light with the virtuosity of the old masters of black-and-white films until it becomes a kind of silent, uncredited actor. They use subtle comparisons, showing us Neo pacing to and fro in his sterile cubicle like an animal in a zoo just before he is taken to an interrogation room hardly less sterile.
All of this blends together in a seamless combination of thought and action, with just the right amount of subtle humor to make it not only eminently enjoyable but frighteningly believable as well. There are visceral moments reminiscent of Kubrick, particularly when we see the true nature of the Matrix as Morpheus describes it to Neo.
The Matrix could easily have followed the stale route of keeping the audience ignorant of the unreal quality of Neo's world, springing it on us like a kid jumping out of a closet and yelling "Boo!" Instead, the Brothers W establish from the very beginning that something is definitely odd here, as the rebel Trinity and the agents chasing her literally "leap tall buildings at a single bound." The agents themselves, with their dark glasses and tiny coils of wire dangling from their ears, come across like T-men - if the "T" stands for "Twilight Zone." Any lingering doubts are dispelled when the electronic bug they plant on Neo in hopes of trapping Morpheus morphs into a nasty-looking pseudo-arachnid that bores through Neo's navel.
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