good effects, stale acting

Rating: 4/10 (23 September 1999)

Sorry, I had to break up the monotony of review after review that essentially all read like this: "The Matrix is AWESOME!"
I'm as much of a Keanu Reeves fan as the next girl... I even think that he did a decent job in Much Ado About Nothing, but I was very disappointed in his performance in this movie. His acting was so wooden that I rarely sensed any well-conveyed emotion.
Also, what was up with the writing? I remember when I first saw the trailer for this movie, I laughed for weeks over the fact that the shot of a supposedly amazed Keanu saying "whoa" in a breathy voice was the highlight of the 30 second advertisement. There were several points during the ridiculously absurd and unbelievable movie that caused both my date and me to guffaw when we saw it on the big screen.
One thing I do have to say in the Matrix's favor is that it looked pretty damn good (this description does include Keanu, by the way, who looks excellent in the wardrobe they gave him). Lately a lot of bad computer generated effects have made their way into movies, but this one was nearly visually perfect. Some of the scenes involving the twisting of reality were pretty amazing. If only the actors could have been as convincing as the effects... and if only the plot they had to support wasn't so silly, I might feel differently about this film.