Fancy camerawork and interesting concept cannot compensate for the shoddy acting and woeful script.

Rating: Null/10 (17 June 1999)

"Are we really sure of the reality we live in?" An interesting question which "The Matrix" sets out to explore. Unfortunately the film is let down by poor acting, a lack of tension and an absolutely woeful script consisting primarily of rather nonsensical pseudo-science.
What really disappointed me about "The Matrix" was that it had the potential to be a good film. The overall concept was interesting enough to pull it above the average sci-fi plot and at the start there is some tense action when the audience is left in suspense as to who is on who's side and whether everyone is actually human, vaguely reminiscent of the earlier "X-files" series. However, after the first twenty minutes or so the film completely loses direction. The suspense is lost entirely, since from that point on there is never any doubt where the film is going. The plot also loses all credibility by trying to be overly scientific. As a general rule for sci-fi films, if you want people of any scientific persuasion to suspend their disbelief then last thing that you want to do is start offering half-scientific explanations as in "The Matrix". They simply end up sounding like nonsense and the film loses credibility. Wonderful though the human body may be, the thermodynamic properties, which it is given in "The Matrix" come across as being simply contrived.
As for the acting, although I was not expecting great characterisation since it is after all an action film, the most flattering comment I can give on the characters in "The Matrix" is that they are two-dimensional stereotypes. Keanu Reeves can pull it off at the beginning as the slightly geeky computer-hacker, but as an action hero he just ends up looking silly. Laurence Fishbourne never gets into his part either and looks rather disinterested all the way through. To be fair to the actors the script that they have to work with is dire. When not going into contrived semi-scientific explanations, it generally consists of meaningless prophetic babble.
It would be hard to talk about "The Matrix" without saying something about the special effects. There is no denying that they are impressive, however they add absolutely nothing to the film. Normally such effects are used to increase the credibility of a film by making out of the ordinary events look as if they are actually happening. In "The Matrix" it seems that the effects department decided to simply use the movie as an excuse to show off. The fight sequences are nicely choreographed, although they tended to rather inexplicably go into slow motion with lots of camera panning. While the effects were pretty, they seemed to be rather extraneous to the film, rather than complementing the action, as they should.
A large number of people seemed to really enjoy "The Matrix", which is a fact that I find completely inexplicable. I guess if you are the sort of person who goes in for meaningless action and pretty special effects then this film may be for you. Otherwise I find it very difficult to recommend this film to anyone. The question as to whether we can really be sure of reality may be interesting, but it is nothing novel, as countless philosophers have asked it over the ages. This film really is a woeful effort to explore the concept and no amount of fancy camerawork can hide that.