The Matrix
“The Matrix” is going to make one hell of a video game (rest assured, there will be a video game)! As a film, it sucks more than Monica Lewinsky.
“The Matrix” disappoints on so many levels, but the biggest disappointment is that this hodgepodge of ideas comes from the filmmaking team of Andy & Larry Wachowski, the dynamic duo who brought us the chilling “Bound.” “Bound” was such a delicious concoction, a wicked mix of sexual tension and quirky characters wrapped up as film noir.
Quite an accomplishment considering that “Bound” was the brother’s audacious debut. Unfortunately, the filmmaker’s suffer the sophomore jinx with “The Matrix,” a film that is visually dazzling yet ultimately empty. It’s eye candy for computer nerds. It’s also a butt-numbing experience.
As written and directed by the Brothers Wachowski, “The Matrix” might have made a tolerable ninety minute film. At two hours and twenty minutes, the film overstays its welcome long before the end is in sight.
Keanu Reeves is okay as computer genius Thomas Anderson, who is known as Neo to other hackers. When he’s not wasting away his days as a computer programmer, Neo is tapping into the full potential of the Internet.
Shot in Sydney, Australia, “The Matrix” has a cold, concrete look. Garish flourescent lighting, buildings lined with dark, featureless glass. It’s just one of the brothers attempts at symbolism, showing us that even though Neo has become a prisoner in his own dank apartment, he’s able to escape to a much more colorful world through his computer.
Little does Neo know that his computer will play a much more important role in his future. It all begins with an on-line cryptic message which takes him to a funky nightclub where he’s approached by a mysterious woman named Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss, giving lesbian leather chic a whole new life).
She claims to know the whereabouts of computer guru Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), a legendary and elusive figure. After a run-in with the law, Neo agrees to go with Trinity, unaware that his curiosity is going to get the best of him.
After meeting with Morpheus and his crew (think of the crew from the first “Alien” film), Neo is in for a rude awakening. Everything that Neo believes to be true is in fact a reality created by computers.
It’s not 1999, but the end of the 21st century. The battle between man and machine has ended, and machines now rule what’s left of the world. Morpheus and his crew are renegades who have escaped from the clutches of the mainframe, and cruise about in a hovercraft that looks like something out of Jules Verne.
Neo learns that he was recruited because Morpheus believes that he is the chosen one who will end the micro chip hell. The film’s most inspired sequence is Neo’s rebirth, a nightmarish sequence that finds Reeve going from shaggy haired matinee idol to Sinead O’ Connor look alike. After his rebirth, Neo is programmed to become the savior, including some neat Kung Fu moves.
There isn’t an original bone in the infrastructure of “The Matrix.” The screenplay is so derivative and cold that it’s hard to take any of this seriously. There’s no emotion in the characters, so its hard to invest in them one way or the other. They’re just human props for the filmmaker’s to move about so they don’t get in the way of the visual effects.
The plotting is rudimentary at best, embarrassing at worst. What the Wachowski brothers attempt to pass off as symbolism are nothing more than cliches.
I couldn’t help buy laugh out loud when Morpheus is being held captive by the bad guys, his hands chained behind his back. After some grueling grilling, Morpheus decides he can’t take any more and snaps the chains. The sight of an oppressed black man breaking the chains that bound him was too much for me.
Then the filmmaker’s dig out the old chestnut where the love of a good woman is enough to bring someone back from the dead. I laughed so hard I almost coughed up a lung. This is one case where you shouldn’t kill the messenger. The actors are okay, and do what they can to flesh out their paper thin characters.
It’s the writer-director team of Andy and Larry that are at fault. They failed to deliver on the promise of “Bound,” a film that was ten times more entertaining and probably cost 10 times less than “The Matrix.”
Hey guys, more isn’t necessarily better. Here, it’s overkill. There’s an interesting little story wrapped up in a big pile of stinking crap, but I don’t want to be the one to peel away the layers.
BYTE ME
THE MATRIX
Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Hugo Weaving, Marcus Chong in a film directed by Andy & Larry Wachowski. Rated R. 139 Minutes.
LARSEN RATING: $2
