What makes 'The Matrix' the film of the decade

Rating: 9/10 (29 August 1999)

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS
Forget about the screenplay, it's all about the effects`, they said. When I went to see the film at an exclusive midnight premiere I didn't know anything about the film. 136 minutes later I decided to never go to an exclusive midnight premiere again. The punishment was the knowledge that I would not be able to see the film again until its official screening one full week later. Somehow I survived. The story is mind-blowing and discusses a lot of essential questions about reality, everyday life, who each one of us is and who decided it that way.
The protagonist, Thomas Andersen, not really satisfied with his existence as an average employee, finally gets the contact he had always been seeking. A group of matrix-resistant individuals share their knowledge about the matrix with him and furthermore tell him that he was chosen to put an end to that fake reality and free humankind from slavery by the machines. The exposition of the story and the characters is great. The film starts within the very first second but still leaves the viewer unsure about what really is going on. Is Thomas A. Anderson only dreaming? Or is he really Neo? Is Neo more than just a night-life name? Is Neo Thomas A. Andersons true identity? The way the story unfolds is thrilling and the turning points come with good timing. One of two weak points in the story comes when the writers-directors must get Neo to confront his antagonist. Trinity at that point has to play the poor part of bringing on the delay. The way we got to know her throughout the film makes it anything but convincing that she would start long talks at that rather delicate moment. Whoever wants to criticize Keanu Reeves for his acting probably has a problem with actors that don't show that they are acting while they are acting. He's not in flirtation with the audience or the critics while he's performing. He's too busy doing a great and extremely convincing job. I have never been a fan or something so please consider me as neutral. Lawrence Fishburne is the most charismatic Morpheus I could ever imagine, and the rest of the cast is the perfect choice also. Carrie-Anne Moss handles the extremes between the cool matrix-trinity and the sensitive reality-trinity impressively well. Stock music rarely works in movies but when Rage Against The Machine hit it after Neo flies away in the end, something just works. The Wachowski Brothers got me. I want to see their next movie. Right now.
I don't see The Matrix as bringing on easy answers. Every answer is followed by a question, and the one in the end only becomes the one because he chose himself to become the one. Nothing more, nothing less. While the matrix is all clean and colorful, reality is dirty and cold. The parts of the dialogue who deal with essential questions (like what is the matrix`) are brilliantly written. (There's just that other thing that irritates me: when Morpheus tells Neo about how the machines got the power over humankind, he says humans darkened the sky so that the machines would stop working while the humans themselves depended on the machines and therefore caused their own misery. I always raise my left eyebrow when I see this part of the movie. Wouldn't it make more sense to say the irony comes from the fact that humans depend on the sunlight and that way caused their own misery by darkening the sky? That analogy would work well with a lot of short-sighted actions humans have come up with over the centuries.) It's surprising to see subjects like this being discussed in a mainstream hollywood movie especially at that length. Since the Wachowski Brothers had troubles to get the project financed, it might not be that mainstream anyway. In fact, at least the outlook of the film is avant-garde. Ground-breaking camera-technology and breathtaking choreography of the fighting scenes team up with innovative direction. Neo's wake-up scene in the incubator, the showdown or the white room won't be forgotten so fast.
Since the first human being was walking the planet, there have been speculations about what is real, if or how that might be proven, and what kind of consequences that might have. Therefore not too many themes could be more classical than the one of The Matrix. But it's not only classical, to some it might be scary: it invites us to see parallels in our world, igniting questions about who based on what kind of legitimacy- makes all the rules and how much power each of us has in that game. The choice of the theme and the way the theme is presented is what truly makes this film the first film of the next millennium. It already has entered movie history.