Awe-inspiring action sequences, insufficiently rigorous science

Rating: Null/10 (9 June 1999)

The people who made this movie were smart enough to give Keanu short, easy lines. No deep philosophical discussions for Neo, but rather one-word utterances like "Whoa." He did much better in this movie than in any other I've seen him in. The first third of the movie, including the setup, was a bit slow, but then it kicked into high gear. The Wachowski brothers out Cameroned James Cameron with the lobby sequence.
I was rather disappointed, though, that the premise and its implications weren't worked out with more rigor. A few changes there, and the movie would have been _just_ as good from an action standpoint but would have pleased all of us anal retentive types who actually expect movies to make sense. For one thing, the entire thing about the machines' motivation for creating the Matrix was just dumb, and I can imagine a much better way to set that up. I would also have preferred to have the movie take place almost entirely in the Matrix, not in the Real World.
Still, above-average eye candy. Worth seeing at a matinee or on video.