What's the big deal?

Rating: 2/10 (14 January 2002)

I honestly don't know why this movie is touted so much as being the ultimate scifi flick or whatever other tags it's gotten over the past 3 years. The story was hard to wrap my mind around, but that's perhaps because the explanation for The Matrix itself was done in the middle of the film in the cheesiest manner possible: sitting the hero down and explaining it to him. My mind just blanked it out. Not only is this device as old as time, but it doesn't involve the audience at all. It's like we're just listening in. It would have been better for Neo to actually experience it firsthand and find out exactly what the reality is around him and how it came to be. I found the FX to be pretty cheesy as well. I felt like I was watching someone play a video game rather than watching a movie. The whole concept of the story may be "deep" for the latest generation (I'm one step ahead of you folks), but it sounded like contrived dreck to me. 2/10 cuz Keanu's pretty cute, but cuteness does not a good movie make.