Jaw droppingly brilliant

Rating: 10/10 (15 September 2006)

1999 had a great deal to go for it cinematically. Unfortunately, much of what we were all breathlessly looking forward to turned out to be more cold bath than hot stuff... case in point the first of the disastrously bad Star Wars prequels, the Phantom Menace, which apparently is the most successful Star Wars film ever...
However, one film did live up to its hype, perhaps because it wasn't rammed down our throats for months in advance with advertising, marketing and cults far in excess of anything seen before or since... That film was the Matrix. This is not to say that the Matrix was under budgeted. With funds in excess of $100 million it was an enormous gamble by Joel Silver, throwing Keanu Reeves into another Sci-Fi superhero role when the world had only recently recovered from Jonny Mnemonic. But the Wachowskis stood by their nth choice man and Silver stood by them as they tore around Sydney blowing up helicopters and generally misbehaving. No one knew anything about it. Most of the industry insiders, those who even knew about the Matrix, predicted a massive flop. They were wrong. The Matrix kicked ass!
Thanks to a brilliant advertising campaign, (remember asking yourself just what was the matrix!?!) the film opened to full houses and, more surprisingly, rave reviews which were completely justified. Using seemingly brand new effects, like bullet time, as well as the novel incorporation of tried and tested tools, such as wire work, the Matrix took what could have been your average superhero and made him a human being who was both fallible and liable to fail. At no point in the movie does the conclusion feel foregone and, with the brilliant twist around Cypher, there is a real sense that Neo mightn't succeed... and when he does it all the more enthralling because of it.
Credit for all this lies with the Wachowskis, who seemed to have every single moment planned out to perfection before filming. Similarly Reeves deserves praise, for taking advantage of his perceived weaknesses as an actor to create the Anderson/Neo character. Lawrence Fishburne is also great, delivering a performance perfectly balanced between seriousness and pantomime, while Carrie-Anne Moss' Trinity provides much of the soul of the Matrix, especially given that she's no damsel in distress. Of the remaining actors both Weaving and Pantoliano deserve much praise for their roles as bad guys, the latter doing remarkably well to make as odious a character as Cypher three dimensional while Agent Smith has to be the coolest villain since Darth Vader. Finally we shouldn't neglect Joel Silver in all this. Producer of what must have seemed like the biggest loss maker since Waterworld, Silver instead gave us one of the best films of the 1990's and a movie that will continue to excite future generations of action fans. His courage in bringing the Matrix to our screens should not be forgotten, although the missteps made with the sequels are not entirely forgivable.
All in all the Matrix represents the culmination of a great deal of work and thought that, should any of the principle people involved have not believed in it 100%, we would probably have never even seen, let alone enjoyed. The film is second to none for juxtaposing philosophy with martial arts, but drives across its messages about Mankind's over reliance on technology without making the audience uncomfortable at being preached to. Overall there is very little that can be held against this movie and, despite the rather debatable suggestion that violence can be the answer, it works well for the younger and older crowds alike. If you haven't seen it then I cannot recommend it enough, but that is unlikely to be the case for many of you!