The Unofficial Sequel to "The Truman Show"?

Rating: 2/10 (8 May 2005)

I saw this movie in the theater back in 1999. It had its moments, but not many. To start, the acting is terrible. Keanu Reeves has the emotive ability of a toaster, and Carrie Ann Moss is about as sympathetic as that sexy sidekick babe in a video game. Lawrence Fishburne comes off a bit better, but his dialogue is the most pretentious, ridiculous garbage I've ever heard. I imagine the characters in this film spend about six hours out of every day designing the leather bondage costumes they'll wear next time they're in the Matrix.
For the first half of the movie, it seems to be interested in questioning reality, which, as the title to my review suggests, was already done more topically in previous films. "The Matrix" is astounded by what it perceives as its own brilliance, but for those of us who have thought of its ideas before, there are few surprises. Some people I know were blown away when Neo discovers the truth behind his reality, but I was waiting for something interesting to happen.
"The Matrix" has been praised for its originality, but it suffers from two traditional and clichéd movie formulas. First, Neo is the Chosen One (notice that "neo" is an anagram of "one." Was this supposed to be suspenseful?) who is destined to save the human race, bring balance to the Force, etc. He dies and comes back to life, like Jesus. Of course, to begin with he was just a pasty hacker in a crummy apartment and an anonymous office job, giving hope to all the spotty teenage geeks in the audience that they too might become the Messiah one day.
The second fault is the movie's reliance on action. Instead of coming up with interesting and exciting ways for two people to fight each other in virtual reality, Neo and Co. whip out their guns and start shooting. The techno music begins, and the audience is treated to several slow-motion kicks and scenes of people dodging bullets. I'm not sure how they manage all this, because nobody ever takes off their sunglasses to see properly. If the villains of the movie really were programs in the Matrix, shouldn't they be able to manipulate it without having to resort to kung fu? Anyway, I didn't like this movie. "Dark City" is a better, more original version of the same premise, without the Chosen One nonsense or the martial arts.