Cross-posted to LiveJournal.
WARNING: MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
Don’t like? Watch the movie first.
Everybody’s heard of The Matrix right?
So what can I say about this movie?
The plot premise was rather ingenious. Thomas Anderson, played by Keanu Reeves, is a nondescript, normal businessman by day and the hacker Neo by night. Through his hacking he hopes to uncover the answer to the question “What is the Matrix?” His quest leads him to an encounter with several different sinister entities called Agents, as well as to an underground hacking group led by a man named Morpheus. Morpheus tells Neo that he can reveal to him the secret of the Matrix and several members of Morpheus’ group, including a famous female hacker named Trinity, take him to a meeting with Morpheus where he is given a choice:
The famous red pill or blue pill.
Neo, of course chooses the red pill and learns that the world he knew is a computer program called the Matrix, run by the machines of the real world. Humans are used as batteries and those that are “woken” from the Matrix can escape their life of being a battery for the machines and can now attempt to fight them. He is told by Morpheus that he is “The One” who can lead them all into a new era of human rule.
The plot is way too big to be summarized in a couple of sentences. This is a trilogy, and since this is only the first movie, the vast majority of the plot is concerned with finding Neo, waking him up, learning about the Matrix and him becoming The One.
It’s a little convoluted and hard to follow sometimes but they shy away from doing too much that would interrupt the ability to actually watch the movie. They also pad the movie heavily with special effects. There is a lot of slow-motion, pause-y fighting. Then again, this is the movie that made that in vogue. Lots and lots of computer generation to get them to do things that are pretty impossible and of course, lots of wire work. These effects do a good job of entertaining you even if you lose bits of the plot. Granted, this one does not get as convoluted as it could but it does have just enough bits to keep you wondering. Especially that whole “is he or isn’t he The One” question.
I found it very original making our world into a computer game, essentially. It allowed for a liberal bending of certain rules. Having our world be nothing more than a computer gave a new definition to déjà vu, made killing people moral because they didn’t actually exist and allowed for all sorts of imaginative fight scenes. Like people running up walls, fighting while flying, moving faster than light, bending in ways nature never intended and stopping bullets with a thought. All of these things make the Matrix at the very least wicked entertaining to watch.
The characters, or the ones that matter, are rather nicely thought out as well.
First, the villain. I usually have some issues with the villain not being evil enough or not being given the right motivations. There are none of these issues in this movie. There are two main villains: the Matrix itself and the Agents acting for it, and Cypher.
Cypher is being puppeted by the Agents to deliver Neo to them. They tell him they can re-insert him back into the Matrix and make his life inside happy and wealthy. Not the greatest motivation, sure, but look at the world he lives in. He knows that everything tasty, warm and good is all an illusion and that life of struggling to get by is the real one. Being reinserted into the dream sounds pretty damn good.
The Agents are mostly run by an Agent Smith (played by Hugo Weaving) and while he follows the rules of the program, he is given the most leeway to bend them. The thing I liked about his character was that it wasn’t just a computer program. He seemed to have a glitch that made him a bit more of a free thinker. Now he still thought along the lines of destroying those that oppose the Matrix but he had a little more spunk to him that made him hate mankind more than the other programs did. It was nice to see.
The three main heroes are of course Morpheus, Trinity and Neo.
Now Trinity was cool but not too much of a major player. We know she’s a super-cool hacker chick. We also know she can kick ass and hold her own against the programs she fights. But then again, they all can. The same training has been uploaded to all their brains. She plays the love interest of Neo. In fact going so far as to say that the Oracle predicted that they’d be together and that’s how she knows he’s The One. But for all the problems being the romantic love interest can be, she never compromises on her beliefs. She’s still smart, and stubborn and willing to fight for her friends and what she believes in (like freeing the human race) despite what Neo or even Morpheus will tell her. Which makes her better in a lot of ways than some of the other romantic leads movies have given us.
Morpheus is there to play the mystical father figure. He takes Neo under his wing, guides him, teaches him. Has faith in him when no one else does. Morpheus is like the leader of some religious cult. He so firmly believes that Neo is The One that regardless of what anyone says, he can’t be talked out of it and will die for the cause. One could equate him to a suicide bomber in that regard because at one point he literally hands himself over to the Agents so that Neo can get away. Because the Agents are pretty much unbeatable, it’s pretty much committing suicide. Still, he has some good things to say and his faith in something is what keeps the group going no matter what, and that proves to be a useful thing.
Neo is the one everybody cares about. But part of his character flaws can be contributed to Keanu Reeves’ acting. For instance, anyone who has seen Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure can see a bit of that acting in here. For the first half of the movie, he remains in a constant state of confusion about what’s going on around him. The second half of the movie he remains in this doubtful, angsty place because he doesn’t believe he’s The One, he’s been told that he’s not and still people expect him to be. On the upside, he does man up after a while and go after his friend and comrade and attempts to find out if he is indeed The One.
It’s a little annoying when the ending hits because of the way he becomes The One, but I’m not going to completely give that away.
Final Thoughts: When everything’s said and done, even if you can’t follow the plot you can still be entertained by the movie. It’s got great effects, and they put a lot of work into making it look good and seem like a real world all on its own. The characters are likeable and like most movies, the good wins in the end. It definitely gets a 5 star rating all around from me.
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