The Matrix
Official Warner Brothers Site
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fishburne, Carrie-Ann Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Hugo Weaving
Category: Fantasy-Action
Rating: R
Released: 1999
Available for rental.
This is the movie to blow your entire view of reality clean away. Don't wait for the 13th Floor - see the original. And pay attention - none of the reviews I've read "got" it. I loved this movie. It was imaginative and NEW. The special effects, created especially for The Matrix during its filming, beat everything else I've seen this year, including Episode 1 and The Mummy.
Reeves plays Neo, a introspective character with little direction who knows there's something more - typical of christ figures in literature and film. His world is turned, literally, inside-out when he meets Fishburne's Morpheus. Neo discovers that the life he's been living is a computer-generated world, and that human beings are nothing more than "coppertops" for A.I. (artificial intelligence) machines. Believe it or not, this is just the start - and when the interesting stuff really begins.
This film should make you question reality also - if not to wonder what else is out there, then at least to stretch your own imagination and say "what if?" There's a lot more to this movie than the single shoot-em-up scene negatively portrayed - and unfairly singled out - in popular media.
The Matrix is supposed to be one of a trilogy, and a deal has already been struck in Hollywood for two more movies, which are planned to be filmed back to back. The creators have yet to decide whether The Matrix is the first, second, or third installment of the series. But it could easily be any one of the three - so complete is the world they've created.
The Matrix is not for children. Not only will they not understand the film's adult themes, but there is also a lot of violence (explaining the R rating).
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Copyright 1999 by Kathe