Everything is not as it seems

Rating: 8/10 (12 February 2013)

The Matrix is a film starring Keanu Reeves as Thomas Anderson, who is a computer programmer that comes to a harsh reality while under his alias Neo, he tries to uncover the meaning behind some messages on his computer. Machines have taken humans hostage to use their bioelectrical energy as a power source, in essence they are a human battery. Laurence Fishburne plays Morpheus who helps Neo see the truth behind the matrix. The theme of this film is that not everything is as it seems. This is presented as what we conceive as reality is actually a masterly engineered program to keep our minds alive an active solely for the purpose of harvesting our bodies electrical discharges. Another film that is of a different nature but has a similar theme is The Recruit starring Al Pacino and Colin Farrell. In this film set inside the CIA, where Farrell is trying to make sense of who's working who. While the theme and plot of this film are quite exceptional, the most remarkable thing about this movie is the editing. The producers chose to use slow motion in the fight scenes to make the audience feel as if Neo was really faster than a bullet. This type of editing was not new to films but the Matrix definitely perfected it. The editors skillfully created a variety of transitions throughout the film. In some scenes they used inside/out editing to skip from one place to another unfamiliar place. This can be seen in the scene right after Neo takes the pill, the viewer goes from thinking the entire thing is bs, the scene changes quickly to the inside of an incubator-like apparatus that keeps Neo alive to harvest his bio-electric energy as it dumps him out of the waste shoot where he is retrieved by Morpheus, we see rows upon rows and stacks upon stacks of the same type of apparatus that Neo was just in. Another type of transition the editors use is flip frame. The scene abruptly changes from one place to another.