"The Matrix" (1999) - Lawrence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Keanu Reeves...
"Cyberpunk" is a young literary genre, but one intriguing enough that Southeast already has a class devoted to its study. Dominated by writers like William Gibson ("Mona Lisa Overdrive," "Neuromancer") and Neal Stephenson ("Snow Crash," "Cryptonomicon"), cyberpunk fiction tends to focus on a dark, gritty near-future setting where attitude and high technology reign.
"The Matrix" is one of very few films that would fall into the cyberpunk genre - the only other in recent memory is "Johnny Mnemonic" (which, coincidentally, also stars Keanu Reeves). To fans of the genre, "The Matrix" will likely seem a bit derivative, but the rest of us will discover a action-packed film with a gripping story and some of the most awe-inspiring visual effects since "Dark City."
Our hero is, naturally, a computer programmer. By day Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) works in a Dilbert-style dystopia, but by night he's Neo, computer criminal. For the most part, his life is quiet and lonely, uninspiring, the kind of cubicle Hell most of us have nightmares about. He sits in his apartment most of the time, a bank of computers his only friends, selling computer data like drugs.
Enter Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), THE legendary hacker. Morpheus offers Neo an answer to the one question even he can't fathom - "What is the Matrix?" As it turns out, the Matrix is the ultimate computer, the ultimate virtual-reality device, and the ultimate hack, all rolled into one.
Explaining too much more would give away the plot, which would be a shame since the rest of this review will be dedicated to convincing you to see this movie.
So Keanu Reeves can't act. Many of his lines are delivered with all the conviction of a cup of coffee. So what? The other actors (Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano) don't do too much better, but they get the point across. The real stars of "The Matrix" are the story and the effects.
The story was written by Andy and Larry Wachowski ("Bound"), who have turned out a splendid sophomore effort. "The Matrix" and its McGuffin, the Matrix, has just enough twists to keep you off-balance, but not so many as to make you dizzy.
That's the role of the camera and the special-effects team. Some shots will, in fact, make you dizzy, but that's exactly the point. And the visuals are uniformly stunning - you've seen the commercials, where characters dodge bullets by making time seem to stop around them, but those are actually some of the film's less impressive effects. All the best parts are reserved for the theatre. The action sequences are similarly stunning.
So, what IS the Matrix? That, gentle reader, would be telling. But if you go see "The Matrix" you'll find out, and you won't be disappointed.
(This review was originally published in The Capaha Arrow, the student newspaper of Southeast Missouri State University.)
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