Average Film

Rating: 7/10 (4 July 2002)

The action sequences are good, but the acting (minus Lawrence Fishburne) isn't that good at all. Keanu Reeves does his best with "Whoa", just like his Bill and Ted days. Catherine Moss isn't much to write home about, but she does have some good acting bits. The rest of the cast isn't much. Hugo Weaving gets tiresome as Agent Smith, but his little talk to Morpheus is very well done.
Action sequences...are actually something to write home about. The bullet-time effect is not as spectacular as everyone makes it out to be, but it was quite refreshing to see a different style of slow-motion. The fight between Morpheus and Neo is spectacularly done. The last fight though is delivered poorly. The set-up to that scene is one of the funniest scenes in the entire movie, and funnier because it wasn't intentionally made to be funny. Or when Neo "dusts" himself off...that's quite amusing as well.
Major fans of this kind of science fiction will praise the movie with glory it doesn't deserve. Casual fans of this kind of science fiction will do the same. Those who loved "Blade Runner" and "Total Recall" may see this flick as a total rehash of the past 20 years of science fiction (both good and bad). 7 out of 10.