Bad action movie but a pretty good sci-fi movie

Rating: 6/10 (17 September 2004)

When I first saw this movie it wasn't the finished version, they hadn't even added all of the music yet. And I thought it was much better that way . The lousy music just destroys too much of the feeling in the movie.
Apart from the music, this movie is pretty good for being a big budget movie. The background story is well thought out and doesn't have many holes in it, partly thanks to the fact that they leave most of the missing pieces untouched. But the actual story isn't that well written. It just goes along with the standard action movie pattern. Perhaps that was a trick to try to sell it to a broader audience, but it just drains the substance out of the movie. The characters in the movie lacks any kind of personality, which makes it uninteresting as an action movie. It also makes the love story hard to believe. I'm left without any kind of emotions towards these people, and that makes it useless as an action movie. You need to be able to relate to the characters in some way to be worried if they'll survive or not. And when Trinity tells Neo that she loves him I just though "What? you have just met and barely spoken to each other. Besides, he's a really boring guy." it takes a whole lot to be in love with someone that deeply and it just doesn't seem reasonable that she love him. And even if that was true, why would he automatically love her back? That kind of cheap solutions just makes me sick. Why not spend a few nights to figure out a reasonable explanation and make the movie believable? Oh wait, we need a love story so the girls we can sell the movie to the girls as well.
The special effects were interesting at the time but after a while they just bores you. The actions scenes aren't very exciting, partly due to the fact I described above, but also due to the lack of creativity. If they would have made the same scenes with the knowledge they have today I bet they could have made them a lot better.
The acting in this movie is poor. But that's understandable, they are pretty good actors but the characters they play have no personality to work with. Besides, they have to care about all the technical stuff as well. I think it would be hard for any actor to play good with this kind of script in this kind of environment.
So is the movie any good? Well, the idea of a fake world isn't new but it develops it a bit further and it's visualizing it in a pretty good way. So as a sci-fi film it's actually a good one. But as an action film it's below average. But I'd take Donnie Darko or Cube over Matrix as a Sci-Fi film any day, because it's better written and more thought provocative. And I'd take Commando or The Rock over Matrix as an action movie any day, because they are actually entertaining.
It's not a bad movie however, and it's an important part of movie history, so if you haven't seen it you probably should. But it's no masterpiece that's for sure. Not all movies has to be that anyway.