Review of Matrix, The

Introduction

`The Matrix` is the perfect example of a film that’s searching for a destination and has absolutely no clue how to get there, so its willing to try anything in order to reach its objective, whatever that might be, like a mathematical conundrum, where everything is uncertain. In other words, the Wachowski Brothers follow up to the sexy lesbian caper ‘Bound’ is… well… everything: its action, romance, drama, sci-fi, cyber-punk, thriller, horror, cartoon and at one point its even a western.

Video

The film’s excellent visual style and special effects are certainly well-suited to a pretty slick digital transfer. The fact that everything is pitch black and shot in that annoying, ‘hip’ funky green designer ugliness aesthetic is merely amplified however.

Audio

The soundtrack, a crisp transfer, is liable to blow more than a chunk out of your auditory system.

Features

An overrated film gets a somewhat de-saturated treatment on DVD. There’s stacks for those cool enough to own a DVD-ROM, but precious little for us mere mortals: a pretty good documentary featuring some brief glimpses of the directors in action, that is sitting on a couch talking about comic books, some neat little special effects documentaries and a cool little feature which allows you to watch behind the scenes footage during some of the more elaborate SFX sequences. Unfortunately, we don’t get the audio commentary present in region one nor the grandiose trailer that got everyone excited in the first place.

Conclusion

It has to be said that the cards are on the Brother’s side, the film has a great, relatively untapped concept, dragged kicking and screaming from video games and mutilated Descartes: Keanu Reeves plays Neo, a man called upon by a mysterious individual with funny glasses called Morpheus played with a magnanimous zeal by Lawrence Fishburne, to join him in the ‘real world’. You see, the world we live in is just a game, a virtual reality projection or the ‘Matrix’ of the title. In the real world this Matrix can be entered into at anytime and interacted with, the rules of this world can even be bent and contorted giving the renegades of the real world a chance to manipulate the Matrix reality. This concept is so mind-bogglingly beguiling that its takes almost as much time to sink in with us as it does with Reeves, who for the most part performs a pleasingly gormless bout of confusion. But why has Fishburne called Reeves up? Well because he is rather ominously the ‘One’ who will save the human race from the Matrix prison and restore their freedom: Cue action, slick threads, chique cell phones, balletic gunfights and slow mo blood spurting that would make John Woo and Sam Peckinpah have a fist fight over who’s the primary influence.

Lets calm down though. ‘The Matrix’ is a mess. A profoundly superficial and startlingly glib one too. The film is composed of many eye-catching, stylish moments that seem to be connected by a thematic bewilderment, the idea that if the audience is confused enough then they won’t pay too much attention and just go with the film’s galvanising flow with some heady, cryptic philosophical analysis thrown in. But before ‘The Matrix’ gets to clever for its own boots, it explodes like a hand grenade in our face, delivering one of the most bombastically ridiculous action finales ever carved onto celluloid. Unfortunately, the saddest thing here is that there really is something great hidden under all this spectacle and visual blood-lust, what’s depressing is that the Wachowski Brothers probably saw this too, and ditched it because it doesn’t look cool and can’t fire a machine gun while doing a back flip and running across a wall.