The Matrix (1999, R)

Written and Directed by Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski

Starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburn, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Hugo Weaving

As Reviewed by James Brundage

It's about damn time. The last truly great action film I saw on video was John Woo's Hard-Boiled. The last one in theaters Woo's Face\Off. Sure, there have been ones in between here and there that I enjoyed, but nothing that stunned me as completely as did The Matrix.

No film, including Face\Off and Hard-Boiled has contained such a complete mastery over all aspects of proper action filmmaking: well-choreographed shoot-outs, fight scenes. Hair-raising tension, psychological and physical. Special F\Xs that are sure to at least be nominated for the 1999 Best Visual Effects Academy Award (although they will definitely end up going to Star Wars: The Phantom Menace). A plot that's... wait a second... plot's not supposed to be part of an action movie?

But, in The Matrix, it is. A formula is not employed per se. What is actually employed is dozens of formulas, a hybrid that becomes so original on the merit of combining things never combined before.

The Matrix is a marriage of science-fiction, kung-fu, and shoot-em-up, much like 1998's Dark City was a marriage of science-fiction, film noir, and mystery. Perhaps it is best to describe the plot in similar terms. Like Dark City, The Matrix deals in false realties layered one over the other.

As you may have heard, it focuses around a world where Artificial Intelligence is the dominant life form. We, in the words of the movie, are equivalent to their Duracels. We generate power and heat for them to run on, and, as their paying us back in spades, we become part of a complex virtual reality called The Matrix. There, I've told you more than any other critic will tell you, but only because that is the simple part of the story.

Like many movies that the newborn production company Village Roadshow peddles, its plot does sound so used and ludicrous that one would wonder how it could possibly ever be good. For those who have seen it, I will remind them of Analyze This, from about two months ago, which has an equally used plot and still ended up being a pretty good movie.

The Matrix is the second film by brothers Andy & Larry Wachowski, who previously released the overlooked crime thriller Bound, which, if you can accept a few liberal aspects, is a wonderful yarn to rent. It is to these people that the acclaim should be sent. Admittedly, Fishburn and Reeves (who both had fairly disastrous encounters with science fiction in the form of Event Horizon and Johnny Neumonic, respectively) give fine performances, but the fraternal duo deserves most of the credit. As they have adeptly demonstrated, they have the golden touch. They are able to turn rags to riches, garbage to gold. They have the lacking ingredient in the modern director: an ability to actually tell a story that is enjoyable.

Like they did with Bound, they littered the script with countless references to items within the genre. Bound, a crime film, did The Godfather, Casino, and countless others. The Matrix inserts references to Virus, Dune, Terminator 2, Dark City, Blade Runner, Total Recall, and just about every other sci-fi film, cult or popular. It is my personal belief, perhaps biased by respect for the authors of this film, that they have done this as a way of saying: hey, we have a story to tell, so listen and we'll entertain.

The Wachowskis prove themselves once again as excellent storytellers: masters of the screen but very conscious of the audience's desire for some pulp. The Matrix, as was Bound, is both great story and great pulp. To screw around with the slogan of Nike: Just See It.