An Actually Great Film

Rating: 9/10 (6 March 2010)

I was hesitant to approach this film, as it seemed like a pointless, overblown action film. Maybe it is all that, but it is also a great film, and perhaps the most important film since The Battleship Potemkin. It has a deceptively simple plot. Just another apocalyptic robot rebellion. Still, it not only draws on biblical and mythological stories, but it creates the fascinating concept of the Matrix. It blurs reality lines between the various worlds in play, and uses all the implications of artificial reality to its advantage in great visual innovation. The Matrix used CGI and bullet-time in never-before-seen ways that have already become clichÃ©d. It came at the end of a 20-year innovation starved era of film, and shocked the world with something new. Who could forget Neo and Smith diving at each other, their guns blazing? Who could forget Neo leaning backwards, dodging bullets, sharing the screen with objects moving at impossible speeds, but somehow making us forget that they were bullets? Perhaps most stunning of all: who could forget Neo, to Uzis blazing, straight in front of him, as he runs, cloak trailing, through a hell of flying tiles and marble as untold numbers of bullets fly around him? These unforgettable moments are the excuse for such overblown action. Finally, it is worth mentioning that this film has one of the most perfect villains ever to grace the screen. A demented but calm, crazed but intelligent, ruthless but calculated agent known as Smith laughs, yells, and taunts his way through his great lines filled with pregnant pauses. A perfect villain for a messiah of a hero.