You see what you want to see...

Rating: Null/10 (12 January 2001)

Like most sci-fi, The Matrix isn't as much character-driven as it is plot or premise-driven... and what a premise! Existentialism meets hard-core action and mayhem in a fantasy cross-time epic! If you are looking for some Liberal heart-bleeding and introspection, you are clearly watching the wrong movie... but if you want a railroad train of action, guns, and destruction, turn the volume up, the lights down, and buckle your seat belt!
The scripting (and acting) varies widely from less than adequate to almost profound so be prepared to be a little forgiving in the weaker moments. Reeves plays his character nearly drone-like, but that only works in the movie's favour... allowing the viewer to insert his own persona into Neo's with a minimum of friction. Fishburne takes a character riddled with plot-holes and inconsistencies and fleshes him out as dominant and interesting. The others? Well, I TRIED to tell you this wasn't a character-driven movie... A notable stand-out is Hugo Weaving's portrayal of the bad guy, "Agent Smith." Thoroughly convincing even during the worst of his diatribes (what's with that whole virus thing? Rodents are mammals, and in the absence of predation they also will reproduce well beyond their environment's ability to support them).
An MTV gothic atmosphere pervades the movie, and the nearly stop-action editing of the fight scenes makes even the most fantastic maneuver believable! The often unusual camera angles and centers of focus meld the action perfectly to the premise of the unreality of existence and the computerised enhancements blend in precisely to form overwhelmingly satisfying fight-sequence experiences.
And the premise... Is it better to live in real poverty and squaller as a truly free man, or to live in illusory comfort as a slave? Do you care? If your idealist streak is stronger than your materialist one, you may truly get something more out of this experience than what shows on the surface of this film. And if you are a fan of Richard Bach (Jonathon Livingston Seagull, Illusions, etc.) you just may have a religious experience in watching The Matrix.
Yes, this really IS among the best sci-fi movies ever made!