"The Matrix" (1999). Directed and written by Andy and Larry Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss and others.
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For quite some time I'd wanted to see this movie, aroused as I was by raving reviews telling me about 'a new standard in SF movies', 'a very clever script', 'intriguing philosophical questions' and so on. Finally, last weekend, time and money gave me the eye. And so I went, expecting 136 minutes of thrilling entertainment with a bite.
Boy, was I disappointed.
"The Matrix" shows us a future world in which artificial intelligence has taken over. Mankind has been enslaved. Malicious computer programs keep human bodies alive in gigantic towers, to serve as an energy source. Nobody is aware of this fact though, as their minds are fed electronic impulses which hide the real world and make them believe they're running their daily lifes as if it were still 1999. Only one group of people, living in a renegade city called Sion, has managed to remain free in both body and spirit. This group desperately tries to wake up the 'dreamers', in search of The One: the person that posseses the power to fight the AI. They succeed in contacting Neo, a young man who might be this 'One', and manage to free him. Then the battle begins.
So far, so good. Nothing wrong with these premises. Well, one might of course ask whether the human body would really form such a good energy source. Didn't it ever occur to the script writers that to gain a certain amount of energy from a biological being you'd need to put in a *multitude* of that amount first? Why doesn't the AI use thermal energy to feed itself, just like that magical Sion is supposed to do? And why all the fuzz of providing your slaves with an illusional world? Why not just chain them, let them whine and go crazy? After all, 'they're nothing more than a virus on the face of this planet', to paraphrase one of the malicious programs. But, OK, the movie's supposed to be about the conflict between the virtual world and the real world, so let's not get too rational about all this.
What do we get then? Illusion versus reality. A nice theme for a movie, with many intriguing possibilities. Of course, "The Matrix" isn't exactly the first movie to delve into this matter. But let's not mention "Dark City", as everyone else seems to do (Oops! Oh, well ....). To be honest, there aren't *that* much movies that do. But there are lots of SF novels that do: read for instance Philip K. Dick's "Ubik" and "Eye in the Sky". And they do it a lot *better*. "The Matrix" may question the nature and independence of reality, it doesn't exactly ask the most *exciting* questions. OK, so there's this virtual world that's indistinguisable from a real world: minds are tricked into believing that the signals they get are transmitted by one's senses instead of being directly put into the brain. But hey, if it's really so very difficult to distinguish between a real world and a virtual world, then how can one be so sure the 'real' world actually *is* the real world? What if that real world in turn is also nothing more than 'a dream within a dream'? What if there's a mixture between both? What if the virtual world actually *is* the real world? And if the distinction is that hard to make, then what's so bad about living in a world that at least has some sunshine and steak instead of nothing more than eternal darkness and tasteless goo for breakfast? Etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseam. Unfortunately, "The Matrix" only seems to take the first step: this is real, that is unreal, and now let's kick some ass. Again, nothing really wrong with that, but a bit disappointing for a movie that's supposed to ask 'deep questions about reality'. Maybe it's just me, but I couldn't help thinking all this metaphysics wasn't anything more than just an excuse to show off some nice kung fu, sky jumping and spoon bending.
So, what do we keep? Essentially, a world in which our heroes possess supernatural strength and use it to fight the bad guys. Lots of high kicks, lots of ammo flying around, lots of stop-motion effects: in short, lots of John Woo. Done before, seen before. Nicely done, for sure, but hardly 'a new frontier in movie making'. Still, no real reason to get disappointed.
What really, really bothered me about "The Matrix" is not that it isn't the New Movie that it's claimed to be. It's not the lack of originality, it's not the lack of brains. I've seen worse. My main problem with this movie is that it's so utterly *boring*. Once the premises have been set (much too quick, much too early, much too obvious), nothing happens that can't be seen with your eyes closed half an hour in advance. We have to sympathise with people we never get to know, we have the obliged love interest, we have the obliged 'traitor among us', we have the obliged demi-god for a hero, we have the obliged snazzy dialogue between the goodies and the baddies - the only thing missing is the car chase in rush hour. Without all the eye candy (which I've seen better done on MTV, by the way), "The Matrix" is just your average 'saturday night and all the other channels are showing commercials' type of movie.
"There is no spoon"? Wrong. There is a spoon, and it's been polished till it shines like silver, but there's nothing in it. Don't believe the hype.
Homme A. Piest. -----
User ID: "Homme A. Piest
"Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus."
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