Thought provoking

Rating: 9/10 (20 February 2000)

I have to be honest and say that when this movie came out in the theatres, I had absolutely no interest in seeing it. And a big part of it was because of Keanu Reeves. But I kept hearing how wonderful this movie was and this was at about the same time when Star Wars: The Phantom Menace came out. Now mind you, Star Wars wasn't that great either but the hype surrounding that movie promised, at the very least, an entertaining time. I recently had a conversation about movies with my sister and her boyfriend and when they found out I still hadn't seen this movie, I was soundly chastised for it and was subsequently "summoned" to come over to their place to view it on DVD. And you know what? I'm glad they did.
The story takes place in the future where technology has taken over the world. In fact, Earth as you know it has been transformed into a technological play ground where reality and fantasy are so intertwined that it is almost impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. We meet Neo (Keanu Reeves) at the beginning and find out quickly that this quiet young man is actually a brilliant computer hacker. He is quickly recruited by a band of secrete underground rebels who hope to free the world from the clutches of technology. It seems that computers in the future have become self-aware and have taken over the world by enslaving humans and these rebels lead by Morpheous (Laurence Fishburne) are hoping that Neo is the "Chosen-One" to free them from this slavery.
I have to say that the special effects are wonderful. I've seen quite a few special effects intensive movies this year and The Matrix comes out very near the top. The only other one that I thought was better is Star Wars but that was to be expected when 95% of it was computer generated and George Lucas is backing it. The Matrix comes very close and in fact in some places out performs Star Wars in the creativity department.
I mentioned earlier that I stayed away from this movie because of Keanu Reeves and I'm sure many of you will agree that he is not in the same echelon as Tom Cruise or Kevin Spacey but I was pleasantly surprised here. He did do a fairly good job as Neo but part of it was the fact that he did do his own stunts and brought a sense of believability to his character. What made this movie even better was the rest of the cast, especially Laurence Fishburne. He had a lot of thought provoking dialogue in this movie and his portrayal of the rebel leader and mentor to Neo was well depicted...although it did seem somewhat similar to Yoda and Luke Skywalker. The one actor that I really did enjoy was Joe Pantoliano as Cypher. He played the laid back, yet somewhat cynical rebel very well and when he turns on his comrades his performance becomes even more enjoyable.
If you choose to see this movie, keep in mind that this movie is primarily about ideas. Focusing on plot flow will only ruin the movie's intentions. I have seen other reviews where people commented on the laws of physics or other such scientific evaluations and to be honest, this is only a movie. Its intention is to portray some idea(s), not to educated the public about energy transfer or the laws of relativity. This movie makes quite a statement about what reality is and how we perceive it so if any of you are looking to see a thought provoking movie with some pretty impressive special effects, go see this movie.

A