I'm torn on this one...

Rating: 5/10 (25 April 2002)

My impression is that those giving out 10's on this one give out 10's way too liberally and often. There's too much about this movie that, in my humble opinion, brings up too many questions as to its value as cinema. Myself, I'm torn between giving it a 9 or so out of 10 and a 5 out of 10 (I end up splitting the difference, as the movie is at least well above average). I first saw this one a couple years ago and was impressed by the effects as anyone but didn't think it good enough as a movie to merit repeat viewings.
Well, I happen to have a close family member with very good taste in movies for whom this movie rates #1 (somehow I expect this to change as the family member grows older), so I felt compelled to come back to this one to see what I didn't get. So I gave it as much leeway as I thought reasonable, and my thought as I was about 45 minutes in watching it through it again was, "this is a heck of a movie." The story really develops well and draws you in. It's the last half of the movie that, upon reflection, is a real let-down. You get the most amazing and memorable special effects in that last half, and, perhaps not coincidentally, the coherence and believability of the plot really breaks down.
I'll just touch upon one that seems to have a gaping hole in its logic (spoilers!): Humans are used for energy. Why humans, in particular, and why bother placating them with a virtual-reality life? Humans may be an energy source, but they ultimately need some outside source of energy, and where does it come from? No sun, remember. It seems that whatever energy source is available for humans to function as batteries -- and remember, batteries eventually run out without an outside source to fuel them -- could just as easily and directly be tapped by the machines who run the Matrix.
You raise questions like this, and the story falls apart or just looks too arbitrarily constructed. I would urge the viewers of this film to really ask themselves whether, as a work of CINEMA, this has enough strength as script/story to have lasting value. In 10 years, something with even more impressive special effects will come along. Lack of script/story quality cannot be covered up by flashiness and "coolness" forever. And I just don't see how this succeeds in terms of story. Sci-fi films can really suffer in this regard, though they really don't need to. My favorite film of all time (_2001: A Space Odyssey_) is science fiction, after all, and films like _Blade Runner_ carry immense weight today because of the intellectual value they bring, even when the special effects have become "dated." I think that a recent, similar film like _Dark City_ holds up better under scrutiny.
This one has enough entertainment value in it that I give it a hearty 7/10. Maybe it does belong in this site's top 250 (giving it a 7 would probably put it in *my* top 250), but certainly not in the top 40 or so. But will I come back to it again any time soon? I don't think so; the thing that most grips your mind is the special effects, but that's already in my head now. Ask yourself what movie from 1999, in 10 years, will stand out most. The one that wowed or was "hip" with audiences then, or something that could wow audiences 10 years from now? As much as it seems "made for its time," I'll probably have to go with _Fight Club_ and a number of other films before this one. _The Matrix_ will likely have the same fate as _The Sixth Sense_: a big hit the time it came out, but more or less lost in the mix many years down the line.