The most intelligent science fiction blockbuster in ...

Rating: 8/10 (5 September 1999)

... I don't know how long. Probably that's why it didn't do as well as big, dumb, lumbering things like "Independence Day" and "The Phantom Menace", and a dozen or so films I didn't bother to watch.
Much of what you will have heard about this film is false. You will have heard that the premise is that we're all prisoners in a virtual reality world; but the premise is not that WE are prisoners in a virtual reality world - it's a good deal more interesting than that. You will have heard that it's hip and cynical; but thankfully, it's neither. You will have heard the word "cyberpunk" being used, with the odd allusion to films like "The Ghost in the Shell" and "Blade Runner"; but it's NOT pretentious, deep-breathing, tawdry angst of that kind at all. It's really quite charming once you get to know it. Beneath all the up-to-the-minute computer gimcracks lies a gentle and trusting heart.
The central character is played by Keanu Reeves, and I retract my claim that there's no use for the man. Indeed he acts rather well. Admittedly he plays a character who spends most of the film, and indeed most of his life, with the air of someone who (in the words of another character) isn't worried because he expects to wake up soon; but being able to do this well is being able to do something well. Besides, we spend the opening half being at least half as bewildered as he is - even if we've read the plot synopsis. When the set-up is revealed in all its glory I admit that one or two details are a bit far fetched. But I never felt that my intelligence was insulted in the way things had been revealed to me.
Special effects are marvellous. I don't think I've ever seen computer-generated images look this convincing - usually they disfigure a movie - and there are several reasons why they work so well. A dark (but attractively dark) style of lighting shows them at their best. Psychological tricks - well-chosen camera angles, misdirection - are used to make us believe in what we see: no-one makes the assumption that George Lucas made in "The Phantom Menace", that software alone will do the trick. And more to the point, a story has been chosen where the kind of technology favoured by Hollywood these days is not out of place. The air of vague phoniness that computer effects impart, the sense that something is deeply wrong, is exactly what we want in a story where something really IS deeply wrong.
Only two things let the film down: the last couple of minutes (and after two fantastic hours I can forgive a little fumble at the end), and a HORRIBLY synthetic musical score, which seems to be there only to make us glad when it stops. Luckily it stops often enough and it only succeeds in ruining one or two scenes. I don't know - maybe this kind of musical pollution has been around for a while, and I only noticed it now because "The Matrix", unlike the brainless action movies surrounding us on all sides, deserves better.