Eye candy, not brain food.

Rating: Null/10 (12 December 2001)

I have mixed feeling about 'The Matrix'. As a long time science fiction fan I saw this on its original cinematic run and was completely entertained. A great popcorn movie. And while it really demands to be seen on the Big Screen to be fully appreciated, I bought a copy for my own collection, and have watched it several times since and have always enjoyed it. Fine, great so far.
But the problems for me begin when fanatical fans of the movie make WAY too many claims for it. This is an ACTION movie folks, nothing more, nothing less. It surrounds the Woo/Lam inspired action with MTV-friendly simplified ideas lifted from Grant Morrison's sensational comics 'The Invisibles', and from Morrison's source materials - the paranoid, reality bending, Gnostic influenced SF of Philip K. Dick, the mankind-as-aliens-property ideas of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, and the techno-shamanism and multiple realities of Robert Anton Wilson and Terrence McKenna.

Unfortunately very few 'Matrix' buffs seem to be aware of the writers and thinkers the Wachowski brothers are basing their supposedly "amazing" concepts from, and are over rating the movie to a ridiculous degree. Enjoy 'The Matrix' for what it is, but don't believe the hype!