The Matrix actually delivers on that amazing trailer!

Rating: Null/10 (5 April 1999)

The Matrix is the first film I've seen in years which warranted paying full price to see at the cinema.
Several months ago I saw the early preview trailer for the Matrix. I was blown away! Everybody in the theatre sat slack jawed afterward for about 10 minutes. Mysteriously, after seeing previews and ads for a few weeks, they seemed to disappear. When the trailers reappeared and a release date was announced I tried to temper my enthusiasm. Rarely does a film with such eye popping effects in a trailer deliver on that promise. I fully expected to pay my $8.50 and find the best material was in the trailer. All I knew of the Wachowski brothers at that point was Bound. Great modern noir thriller Bound was (and it really was) it didn't exactly set me up for a brilliant cyber punk sci fi action thriller
The thing which elevates The Matrix from simple eye candy to great cinema is the fact that the special effects don't exist merely to be pretty. Every effect makes sense in the plot. The stop and circle around perspective effect first unveiled in the memorable Gap advertising campaign last year, used again in Wing Commander, is utilized here in such a way that the action wouldn't have made any sense without it. The cgi effects manage to work without that over slick seamlessness which so often makes them look ridiculous. Instead the film makers have created a world where every cgi character seems perfectly at home.
I am not the sort of person who normally sees a film twice, with so many great movies out there I can barely manage to get to see everything I want to once! After two viewings I am still impressed by the visual impact of this film. Every aspect of design from great costumes to really great sets is there. The men are dressed as sexy as the women yet nobody looks ridiculous. When Keanu goes to his work cubicle even those of us who've never had a corporate job know how he feels. As great as it all looks the film still manages to be plot driven, rather than an exercise in visual coolness. There is not a moment wasted.
Keanu Reeves has often been criticized for his performances, perhaps because he has picked a couple of inappropriate roles for himself. In The Matrix he works well. His martial arts sequences are wonderfully performed as well as being amazingly choreographed. He has a couple of lines which even make him appear to have a sense of humour about himself. If you look at his entire body of work, he has done as much good work as bad but his bad work is sooo bad!
Laurence Fishburne, of course, is as brilliant as ever. Carrie-Anne Moss is a woman heroine rather than a pretty sideliner. As a woman I particularly enjoyed seeing a female character who is pretty and tough without being either of the extremes we are accustomed to in film. She isn't Linda Hamilton steroid tough. She's not an unbelievable pretty girl like Denise Richardson in Starship Troopers. Joe Pantoliano is one of those bad guys who audiences love to hate. He is not simply evil, he appears to take great glee in his badness.
I am writing this review because when I drove to work this morning the morning radio guys were talking about the film. They enjoyed it but essentially dismissed it as "eye candy" while berating Keanu Reeves' performance. I simply can't believe they saw the same film I did! To me it ranked right up there as a perfect futuristic science fiction piece with 12 Monkeys and Blade Runner. When it comes out on DVD I'm sure Ill be buying it!
Of course, after having said all of that, if you weren't impressed by the trailer, you probably won't like the film either.