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Matrix, The
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| Year: |
1999
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Director: |
Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski
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| Stars: |
Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Ann Moss, Hugo Weaving, Gloria Foster, Joe Pantoliano, Marcus Chong, Julian Arahanga, Matt Doran, Belinda McClory, Anthony Ray Parker, Paul Goddard, Robert Taylor, David Aston, Marc Aden Gray
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| Genre: |
Action, Science Fiction, Adventure |
| Rating: |
  7 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
There's a disturbance in this apartment block of the city, as cops assemble in one of the homes to track down a troublemaker. She is Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss), and she has been doing her own tracing, of someone online who she needs to get hold of, for very important reasons, though thus far he has proven difficult to pin down. As she makes good her escape, shooting, kicking and punching her way through the assembled law enforcers and slaughtering them without being caused too much trouble, one special agent, Smith (Hugo Weaving) proves harder to get rid of, and it's only chance that allows her to get away...
But Trinity is not our protagonist, that would be Neo, played by Keanu Reeves who with this blockbuster would become the poster boy for cyberspace and every keyboard warrior who thought themselves pretty tasty in a fight, be that in the so-called real world or in an online flame war. Indeed, there were viewers coming out of The Matrix who found themselves seeing the world in a radically altered manner thanks to its plot which discussed over and over again the possibilities for living in a society that was not genuine, it was a construct, and thus a thousand thinkpieces were inflicted on an unwary population.
The hook to The Matrix was that Neo was not who he believed he was, and on being contacted by Trinity he wakes up to the fact that he now has a mentor, Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), who can teach him precisely what is really happening in the universe. That this fed into the superhero wish-fulfilment fantasy playing out across pop culture into the next century is no coincidence, for audiences wanted to feel powerful through surrogate characters who could assert themselves, often through violence combined with superior strategy. Add to that a heightened awareness of what was a very conspiratorial take on the globe, and there was your audience.
Not that the Wachowskis, who dreamt up this scenario, were entirely original, as cyberpunk had been a thing since the nineteen-eighties, often in the work of William Gibson on the page, and they drew on a number of references to craft their dystopia. They made sure to put allusions to the influences across the film so anyone watching it who recognised them could pat themselves on the back that they "got it", much in the way that conspiracy theorists looked out for details that they could use to piece together their ultra-paranoid picture of the lives they were living. Thus the influenced became the influencer as it turned receptive audiences on to all sorts of parapolitics and theories that would only be accessible through red pill taking insider knowledge you understood, not like these sheeple who thought The Matrix was a throwaway action flick.
But the dark side, which should have been obvious, has grown more apparent down the years, as conspiracies have replaced facts in how we see the methods and functions of our societies, and the way that many try to wrest control of their lives from the overwhelming powerlessness in the face of the corporations and rogue states is to do what Neo did: turn to violence. There is a sequence late on in the film where after he has learnt his new talents for bloodshed, he unleashes them on a bunch of security guards in a corporate-style building; both he and Trinity impassively take back their agency in their world by gunning down people they do not know with zero consequences, and we are asked to applaud them for it. Yes, Yuen Woo-Ping was onboard for fight choreography, and Bill Pope's cinematography makes everything look sleek and glossy, but the grim fact was that there could be no mass shooter on the planet who did not see that and think, that's the way to do it. Obviously blaming real life violence on fiction doesn't tally neatly at all, but The Matrix remains a troubling effort for the obsessive way it boosts the paranoid while building them up as new Messiahs. Music by Don Davis.
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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| Lana Wachowski (1965 - )
Reclusive American director who, along with brother Andy, now Lilly, wrote and directed the Matrix trilogy. The Chicago-born Wachowski brothers debuted with the lesbian gangster thriller Bound, and followed it with 1999's sci-fi thriller The Matrix which was a critical and commercial smash and set a new standard for special effects. Sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions were less well received but still scored at the box office. What did not score was their live action version of cartoon Speed Racer, their adaptation of the bestselling Cloud Atlas or their original epic Jupiter Ascending, though cult followings were not far away. Also wrote the screeplays for Assassins and V For Vendetta. Born Larry, and credited as such on her first few films, she became Lana in the 21st century. |
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| Lilly Wachowski (1967 - )
Reclusive American director who, along with brother Larry, now Lana, wrote and directed the Matrix trilogy. The Chicago-born Wachowski brothers debuted with the lesbian gangster thriller Bound, and followed it with 1999's sci-fi epic The Matrix which was a critical and commercial smash and set a new standard for special effects. Sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions were less well received but still scored at the box office. What did not score was their live action version of cartoon Speed Racer, their adaptation of the bestselling book Cloud Atlas or their original epic Jupiter Ascending, though cult followings were not far away. Also wrote the screeplays for Assassins and V For Vendetta. Born Andy, and credited as such on her first films. |
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