#31 all time, yeah right

Rating: 7/10 (24 June 2000)

Alright, I possibly have more to say about this movie than about any other I've commented on here at IMDB. Well, I finally saw the Matrix. The way to describe it was that I expected to love it and give it a 10, but I only give it a 7.
First, some of the good things. The action and much of the special effects really are great. The sequences at the end are incredible. Laurence Fishburne and Carrie Anne Moss looked really cool in their outfits.
Now, some of the bad things. I don't remember thinking that Keanu Reeves was so bad in say, Speed. But here, he's just not very good. He sure looks cool in the black attire and in the action sequences and all, but in the scenes where he has much dialogue, he's just not very good. Actually, my biggest complaint is something that judging from other people's comments, I am in the minority on. I'm talking about the villains. Were they meant to be seen as sinister or funny? I found them to be neither. I found Agent Smith to be highly annoying. The way he talked just grated on me. And, I swear, I fully expected the MIB team of Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones to come out and tell someone to look at their little light. The other two agents were even worse. The part where all the bullets stop before hitting Neo at the end and the three agents simultaneously lower the guns was so ridiculous. The lowering of the guns made it look like a farce of a movie. Was it mean to be seen like that? One other little complaint and I have to apologize for this one. During the interrogation scene when they put the bug or whatever in Neo, they call him a "program writer". Please. If they are going to portray someone in the software engineering profession, they should have asked someone who knows about it. It looks like they should have asked one of those many computer people who worked on the movie to look over the script. I know it is a tiny complaint, but when you have been doing that kind of work for several years like I have, calling it "program writer" sounds highly, highly hokey.
But, overall, the movie is pretty cool. The action to a great extent make up for the bad things. I rented Blade Runner also this weekend, and I'm hoping it'll be better than the Matrix.