Great Movie with a Couple of Plotholes

Rating: 8/10 (12 May 2003)

Since there are already plot summaries of this movie, I won't waste your time rewriting them. On to my review...
I only had 2 problems with this movie:
1) Since the machines are dependent on solar power, (as if they couldn't CHANGE where they got their electricity from) the world governments decide to block out the sunlight. Well. Isn't that bright. Wakie, wakie... without sunlight, plants don't grow. Without plants, animals don't have anything to eat. Without plants and animals, PEOPLE have nothing to eat. So... Let's kill off every living thing on earth, just so we can say we won. We beat the machines. Someone's got the IQ of a grape. Peeled. Still, that's par for the course with governments, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility.
2) Even accepting that our twits... er... governments DID block out the sun, here comes Morpheus, the freedom fighter. His plan is to release all of these people (who are COMPLETELY unaware of their actual situation are are living perfectly happy "lives" INSIDE The Matrix) into the real world... where their muscles have to be rebuilt, where there is no sun, no plants, no animals, and NO FOOD. What's the phrase? From Scylla to Charybdis, perhaps? From frying pan to fire? Given that we only know what our senses tell us, and the input from our senses is interpreted by our brains, wouldn't these people be better off INSIDE? There they may be "slaves," but they are living comfortable, happy lives (according to the sensory data that their brains are registering, at any rate). They get to determine the course of their virtual lives just as if they were living in the real world (excepting that they're more comfortable than they would be aboard the Nebuchadnezzar).
Now, having gotten THAT off of my chest, this is a great movie, provided it is approached from the correct perspective. I didn't see Top Gun for the plot. Nor did I see Days of Thunder for the plot. This movie is EYE-CANDY. Great special effects, decent (while not outstanding) acting, lots of action sequences, and visually pleasing thespians (Carrie-Anne Moss and Belinda McClory are both knockouts and, I assume, the feminine gender appreciates the surface aspects of Keanu Reeves). Perhaps the best acting was done by Hugo Weaving (compare Agent Smith with Elrond in "Lord of the Rings" and you'll see the range that Weaving achieves).
I have to dock the movie a point each for the plotholes mentioned above, but, subsequent to the suspension of disbelief, the storyline follows the expected paths and provides substantial entertainment (which is what we were watching it for in the 1st place). "If one expects plot, one will be disappointed. If one does NOT expect plot, the lack of it goes unnoticed." (Credit: C.S. Knepper)
8 out of 10