Fascinating and flawed example of cinematic art.

Rating: 5/10 (2 April 1999)

This film excels at being a movie. It is filled with images and concepts only possible in today's cinema. I've been waiting for computer imagery to finally lend itself to films which were impossible before. This is such a film.
However, certain elements detract. The filmmakers obviously became very involved in the universe they created. So much so that they tend to either delve into meaningless details or worse; Explain the mystery away. At a point about a third of the way into the film the curiosity that kept me involved was quickly dispatched with filler dialogue. "What?" I thought, "How can they cripple this film so easily?".
Regardless, the action scenes are involving. The dialogue is largely tolerable (compared to recent fare), the cinematic style is interesting, and the effects are sometimes subtle and sometimes breathtaking. Keanu Reeves seems to have settled for a much more subtle approach here, an improvement in my mind.
Personal peeve... When did Laurence Fishburne go Michael Jackson on us? Obviously the the cinematographer did not know how to handle the exposure of dark skin. In almost any given shot Fishburne appears to have had his ethnic heritage stolen from him.