Matrix - Film Review

The Matrix

Action / Sci-Fi (US); 1999; Rated R; 135 Minutes

Cast

Keanu Reeves: Thomas "Neo" Anderson

Laurence Fishburne: Morpheus

Carrie-Anne Moss: Trinity

Joe Pantoliano: Cypher

Hugo Weaving: Agent Smith

Produced by Bruce Berman, Dan Cracchiolo, Andrew Mason, Barrie M. Osborne, Joel Silver, Erwin Stoff, Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski

Directed and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski

Keanu Reeves as a martial-arts master and savior of the earth? Laurence Fishburne as his mentor? The world as we know it does not even exist? Surely, you can't be serious.

Welcome to the fascinating and confusing world of "The Matrix."

In this sci-fi thriller, Reeves stars as Neo, a computer programmer by day and cyber-hacker by night.

Out of nowhere, he is contacted by a group of super hackers who tell him that his life is in danger and his only hope is to trust them. The group's leader, a quiet but confident man known as Morpheus (Fishburne) tells Neo that he is the one chosen to save the world and that the "Matrix is the wool that has pulled over your eyes - that you are a slave."

Neo is the world's only hope. In a nutshell, Morpheus explains that computers developed on their own and won a brutal war against man. So the computers made a program to put all of the slaves back in the past, which is our present day. He tells Neo that he can chose either to live now or to see what the world is truly like. Neo chooses the latter, and the trip down the rabbit hole begins as does the fight for the salvation of humanity.

But the battle must be fought out in "The Matrix", not the real world, where computer sentinels are seemingly invincible and where the laws of physics can not only be bent, they can be tossed right out the window.

With that kind of freedom, characters can run up the sides of walls, leap incredible distances, dodge bullets, and with the help of Hong Kong stunt specialist Yuen Wo Ping, pull off some of the most impressive kung fu fight sequences ever filmed.

Slow-motion film sequences, some shot at the rate of 12,000 frames per second, allow the filmmakers to manipulate the on-screen action much like in the Gap commercials where the dancers are frozen and the camera angle shifts around them.

Andrew Mason lends the film the same look he gave Dark City, only this time the good guys wear black and everyone else is either a sentinel or prime fodder for target practice.

Another reason this movie is so great is that the stars actually did their own stunts and learned martial arts. There are close-ups during the fight scenes of the actor's face, not some stunt double. Each showdown between good and evil, in the form of robots that look like human agents, becomes more thrilling with both the action and the special effects.

The acting in this movie is exceptional. Keanu Reeves was perfectly past for his part as Neo. The part did