A modern classic. In 1999 it wasn't just a movie, it was an experience.

Rating: Null/10 (20 March 2004)

It seems that every few decades we rebel against conformity, against established traditions. The 20's, the 60's and 70's are some examples that come to mind, and of course the 90's. Beginning with cartoons like Tiny Toons and Animaniacs and the Simpsons, which were more honest, and more cynical animated programs than had ever been seen before, and movies like the Silence of the Lambs which irrevocably altered the serial killer movie genre, pop culture was almost self consciously fixated on bending the rules. Everything from the bizarre ending of the Thomas Harris novel Hannibal (altered for a traditonal moral finale in the 2001 movie adaptation-see we're back to square one now, the cycle has come to an end and is restarting...), to movies like American Beauty,Fight Club, Pleasantville (a '98 release), and of course the Matrix were not harmonious accidents, but the inevitable outgrowth of what began in the early nineties. A movement away from self delusion, innocence, and simplicity (which had given rise to widespread jaded cynism, and then gradually the realization that something really had to be DONE about the damaging flaws in our society).
So what was expected to be another Keanu Reeves sci-fi action flick (following his last effort Johny Mnemonic, 1995) turned out instead to be a magnificent fusion of the Terminator, Kung Fu, S & M, Bullet Time (once upon a time known as the Gap Commercial effect), anime, and cyberpunk fiction, overlaid with elements of a Western, film noir, and philosophy. At its core though, its a story of triumphant rebellion against established authority. The Wachowski Brothers quite rightly, imo, acknowledge that social conformity is a mental handicap that keeps many of us from achieving either our full potential, or what we truly desire in life, thus it is no surprise that the Matrix is described as something that you feel "when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes." Keanu Reeves even jokingly labled his character a hippie (see The Matrix Revisted, 2001),and the movie certainly is harking back to those old attitudes( but again, the anti-establishment feelings our society gets caught up in is cyclical, the feelings must be, because if they were to continue to their logical end without stopping we would all be plunged into anarchy. Still,its nice to spread our wings and fly every once in awhile). Its this surprising social relevancy which imo, helped vaunt this film into the top of the sci fi heap in what was supposed to be the year of the Star Wars: Phantom Menace (ironically what was supposed to year of the Matrix, four years later, ended in bitter disappointment for Matrix fans. Now they know how Lucas fans felt, I suppose). Now for the record, yes the pseudoscience is rubbish and flies in the face of thermodynamics, but it doesn't matter. The pseudo science was also rubbish in the classic tale "Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde", and was openly acknowledged as such by author Robert Louis Stevenson. What matters is what the story is trying to say.
Its not an especially original movie, from the perspective of plot, or visua ls. Even the iconic green computer code opening credits are stolen from Ghost in the Shell (from were we also have the image of people with electrical conduits in the back of their necks). The scenes were Neo learns that his life was lie recalls scenes in Ghost in the Shell where people are devastated to learn that a sentient computer known as the Puppetmaster has hacked into their brains and implanted false memories, in order to use them for his own purposes (or for that matter the work of sci-fi legend Phillip K. Dick-an acknowledged influence on the brothers- in particular tales like "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank" which was the basis for the movie "Total Recall"). The movie also has some visual cribs from The Terminator (the sun glasses and leather, although I must say it's done much better here), and Se7en (although the dimly lit hallways in this movie are given a cool green tint. Sadly dingy, atmospheric environments are almost entirely absent in the next movie). "The Matrix", "Jacking In", and "Zion" are names and phrases taken from the 1984 book Neuromancer by William Gibson, with which the Matrix's story certainly has some interesting parallels. The basic plot of Neuromancer is as follows: Case is a hacker who has lost his ability to connect to an interconnected system of computers known as the Matrix as the result of a deal-gone-bad. He is all but down and out, running drugs and other particularly risky transactions; he appears to have a death wish. Just as he almost bottoms out, he meets the beautiful but lethal Molly Millions who claim to be able to restore his ability to access the matrix. In the Matrix, Neo is a hacker who sells narcotic software who is haunted by the enigmatic nature of something called the Matrix (and so the now famous phrase "What is the Matrix?" is born). when he meets the beautiful but lethal Trinity who claims to know the answer to his question.
Despite this grab bag of "borrowed" ideas, the film that emerged had its own unique identity. An undercurrent of sado masochism runs throughout the film, with its emphasis on control, slavery, subjugation and domination. Its only fitting in this S and M fairytale context that the hero is a mostly passive wimp who must ultimately be rescued by a leather clad biker girl in climatic scene that plays like a modern Sleeping Beauty (inevitably the man plays the role of Beauty). Trinity is the second in a line of tough, haunted women with unsual names and a fondness for leather and sunglasses (see Bound, 1996). Although she has striking similarities to Molly Millions, I have to say that in the end, she is definitely a "Wachowski-an" character first and foremost. Given that the Wachowski's first movie celebrated lesbian love, it is interesting to note the gender role reversal in the romantic relationship b/t Neo and Trinity. Neo is very clearly the female (in the sequel, Matrix Reloaded, it is he who is revealed as the needy one, calling out to Trinity as she leaves), and in fact not unlike so many of the passive, put upon heroines of 1950s Disney movies who have to be rescued by friends (singing mice for example) from a life of subjugation to cruel authority figures. The maligned climatic kiss then becomes much more appropriate seen in that light.
The Wachowski's also give us one of cinema's greatest villains in the form of the sneering Agent Smith. He's at his sinister best in the original, as he could send a chill down your spine with a single well timed smirk, and always speaking as if he was talking to a small child he didn't like (as one reviewer put it). Unfortunately his menace fades as he became more human in the sequels. Emotion is the enemy of Agents (something confirmed by reading the original screenplay); any sign of anger or frustration on their part is a sign of weakness. Sadly its a hambone joy at his own villany in the sequels which proves to be the undoing of Agent Smith, but nevermind. In this movie he is one helluva cool baddie.
The movie also gets a lot of mileage out of Christian mythology (with Morpheus playing something like John the Baptist to Neo's Jesus) buddhist principles of mind over matter (you can will yourself to leap tall buildings in a single bound), and the allegory of Plato's cave (a model used to illustrate why it is important for humans to achieve reflective understanding), Descartes (who tells us that the only thing we can trust to be real and irrefutable are mathematical principles), and some rather glaring, unsubtle symbolism (like naming Lawrence Fishburne's character after Morpheus, the Greek god who could enter dreams and change their shape), but most viewers will simply view it as a great action movie with a ball busting opener, that segues into a slow second act, before going crazy with action again at the end.
Speaking of which, the ending though considered weak and more like the intro to a television series (not unlike the ending for X-Men), was for my money immensley satisfying because even though it was left open to accomodate last year's sequels, Neo was revealed to be the One, and victory was assured ( Billy Wilder once said that whether a story has a happy ending or a sad ending depends on were you chose to end it, and this certainly would have been a much more rousing finale to the story, imo). It is the Quentin Taratino of sci fi movies, in that it blends disparate elements into a cohesive and stunning new whole that emerges as a true original.
Although I enjoyed the flawed sequels (which deepend the world of the Matrix, but not the characters), it was inevitable that they wouldn't run on the same delirious anarchic juice as the original, those feelings reached their dramatic crescendo in 99'. It was 2003, a different world, where terrorism is afoot in the world and a time for a return to normalcy (so politicians say). I suppose ultimately maturity is learning to cope and compromise with the authority figures hovering over you in life, rather than obliterating them in an orgy of bullet shells and kung fu kicks. That (unfortunate?) fact of life became the point of the Matrix trilogy, and one of the reasons that it turned off so many fans who went in with a definite "destroy the machines" bent. *sigh* It's not the nineties anymore, and I-whoops, its time for me to get back to work...