Brilliantly pointless.

Rating: Null/10 (8 November 2001)

Hey, how to lose all your friends in one short review - watch this!

I cut my film-critique molars on sci-fi! Grew up with WAR OF THE WORLDS, FORBIDDEN PLANET, WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, THEM, THIS ISLAND EARTH etc. Developed a brain with 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, BLADE RUNNER and its ilk. (Do films of THIS stature HAVE any ilk???). Then with the advent of such as ALIEN, ALIENS, HARDWARE etc, things were running hot. The 90's brought about a slump in intelligence but a boost in box office with SPECIES (and its cretinous sequel), INDEPENDENCE DAY and insane gothic madness like DARK CITY....Then there's THE MATRIX!
I think I'm the only person on this planet didn't like the Matrix! Lets find out why, coz I'm really not too sure myself! A devotee of sci-fi, I have nothing against Keanu Reeves. Hugo Weaving is indisputably one of Australia's best actors (Agent Smith is a role well below his talents, which if you have seen THE INTERVIEW or PROOF you will realise is a fact). THE MATRIX has action aplenty, a somewhat convoluted plot but still nothing stands out to account for my total apathy and inherent disinterest in the film. Perhaps it is that I have this feeling the world's audience has been conned into thinking how good the flick is and in fact THE MATRIX does exist and manipulates viewers into (a) handing over truckloads of money and (b) leaves them with the impression they've had a great time. Take away the FX and you find..."Hey man , there isn't a movie here!" It's brilliant!
From my perspective, the movie is just a riot of activity, designed to rivet in place the minds of today's (for the most part) attention-deficient audiences. The film has plasticity, a veneer of smart-talk and bad-ass hero worship - maybe that's precisely why it was so popular! What it DOESN'T have is depth!
I will admit, had I really gotten off on this flick and held it dear to my heart, reviews like THIS would totally rub me up the wrong way, but you see guys, thats the beauty of cinema - we all have our own (perhaps churlish) opinions and we see things differently.
Purely in the interests of diplomacy I WILL be charitable and nominate one solitary aspect I DID find impressive - The alien attack on the ship at the end of the film - gr8 stuff, it almost made up for the preceding 130 minutes!