The Matrix: A Doomed World Saved by A Boring Messiah These sunglasses are so great at hiding the fact that I can't act!
The Matrix is two hours of cool effects and kung fu that all comes down to a good-old shootout at the OK Corral and a big ol' smack on the lips.
If you like science fiction, Keanu Reeves, video games, and kung fu movies, you'll probably give The Matrix four stars. But if you're bored after five minutes of martial arts (like me), or if you (also like me) think Keanu Reeves has yet to learn diddly-squat about acting, you'll probably enjoy the special effects and poo-poo the rest.
Don't get me wrong, The Matrix is a wild ride, and worth the ticket price if only for the first-rate special effects. There's enough visionary work here to hold your attention for all 130 minutes. And the premise has potential: In the future, machines have conquered the world and are using living human beings as batteries to keep the machines running. The humans are in suspended animation, being entertained by a false reality transmitted into their brain by the "Matrix" so they will relax and keep pumping out the power. Problem is, gasp, a few people have escaped this illusion-world and are forming a rebellion against the Matrix. And those few, led by technology guru and philosopher Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), are waiting for a Messiah--a Christ who will have the power to save the world.
I love science-fiction films and action movies. I know most of them seek only to entertain, rarely to challenge. Films like Die Hard and Face/Off are among my favorites for repeated viewing. But even frivolous action movies are capable of giving us memorable characters and exploring ideas in such a way that there's something to think about. The Matrix has cool action and raises some interesting questions, but it abandons any attempts to address the questions it so melodramatically raises, providing only brain-dead action figures to play out the story. It can't decide whether it's a tongue-in-cheek action adventure or a soul-searching sci-fi epic, and it never strikes a satisfying balance.
A couple of years ago I would have enjoyed this film a lot more.
Last year, two films--Dark City and The Truman Show--were
about fabricated worlds in which a hero tries to make sense of all that
is artifical and learns how to overcome it. There are allegorical
implications in each. But both of those films outshine The
Matrix in almost every way. Only the action and the digital animation
are worthy of praise in The Matrix. (And very worthy.
I challenge you to find a film with more breathtaking action or more stunning
digital animation.) Dark City director Alex Proyas and The Truman
Show's Peter Weir actually let their actors do some acting. Proyas
also knew how to tell
a complicated story and address serious philosophical questions
without giving up his relentless (and astonishing) pace. In The
Matrix, I found myself yawning through the middle of the sixty-fourth
kung-fu fight, wondering when we were going to be allowed to contemplate
this fascinating premise and implications.
Face/Off and Die Hard demonstrate that fast frantic action movies can also develop memorable characters. Watch Face/Off again; notice how a few short scenes of intimate drama, performed by actors who are acting (John Travolta and Nicolas Cage), make the two characters into witty, intelligent, driven individuals that we actually care about. The Matrix just resorts to beating our heroes up a lot; after all, audiences will care about anyone if he just suffers enough. If The Matrix had replaced a few tedious minutes of men using each other as punching bags with a few revealing minutes of character development, the movie might have become a lasting action classic or even a tongue-in-cheek kung-fu movie like Big Trouble in Little China (which also has memorable characters and lines I remember more than a decade after seeing it).
I knew that I had paid to see an action movie, but The Matrix kept raising questions that made me want it to be so much more. For example, if these revolutionaries have been waiting for years for "the One" who would be their savior, I want to know what is special about "the One"--why he's so unique, what he can do that's superior to any of the rest of them. Surely he can boast of better things than merely fighting harder and faster. Sigh ...I guess not. All of that religious anticipation and we're left with a savior whose answer is "Guns. We need lots of guns."
Keanu Reeves, who became famous by looking stupid in the Bill and Ted movies and then attempted to become an actor (Much Ado About Nothing, Devil's Advocate), seems to have surrendered to his fate: he's an action figure. Playing Thomas Anderson, or "Neo," the long-awaited Messiah of cyberspace, he doesn't even attempt to act; he just looks angst-ridden and then shows off some slick kung-fu moves. Wow! Break out those palm branches and welcome him to Jerusalem!
If anybody had a chance to act in this movie, it was Fishburne. Fishburne has demonstrated his ability before in films like Searching for Bobby Fischer. Unfortunately, he blows his opportunity here for a defining role. Morpheus, a mysterious renegade Yoda who endures to train the Savior and see the world freed of the curse of the machines, could have been a fascinating stranger. Instead, he's expressionless (unless a toothy half-grin makes one expressive), and he makes every line sound like a pronouncement of historic gravity spoken from a pulpit. His declarations of the "truth" to Neo are so condescending and melodramatic that, if I were Neo, I would have laughed at him. These "teachings" are meant to inspire respect and awe, but they're so lacking in substance that they just become annoying.
"You want to know what the Matrix is, don't you? You're not ready yet." (insert action scene) "You will know soon." (insert action scene) "Are you ready?" "The answers are out there, waiting to be found. The truth is hard to swallow." "No one can tell you what the Matrix is." (insert action scene) "You have to experience it for yourself." "Are you ready?" (insert action scene) "Soon." (insert chase scene)" Guess what? I don't actually have the answers."
After Yoda taught Luke Skywalker, there was still a lot of movie left for Skywalker to put his education to work. But there's no story left by the time Keanu is finished. There's only room for a big gunfight.
The guy that sat next to me shook his head after it all and said, "You know, now that they finally explained the Matrix world, they've set up a context for a cool story!" Maybe a sequel will fulfill the promise that the first hour of The Matrix gave us. Maybe there IS more to Neo than met the eye in this film. Maybe he's got more than fast hands.
So go see The Matrix, buy some popcorn, and check your brain at the door. Enjoy the fights. Enjoy the effects. Just don't think about how good it could have been.
Jeffrey Overstreet writes regular reviews, news, and
essays on the arts and Christian perspectives at the Green
Lake Reflections web page and in The Crossing, a magazine
for Christian artists. He has been published in Christianity and
the Arts Magazine, The New Christian Herald, and AngliCan
Arts Magazine, and he is a founding member of Promontory Artists Association.
You can contact Jeffrey at Promontory@aol.com .
The mystery of The Matrix revealed at last: the future resembles a Hong Kong Kung-Fu flick where the concepts are deeper than the people who live them out. Despite the well-known fact that Keanu Reeves graduated from the Pinocchio School of Acting, The Matrix succeeds as a science fiction action thriller for four basic reasons:
1.) First, it is based on a great concept. Notwithstanding last year's Dark City, The Matrix is the most cleverly conceived idea blending sci-fi and action since Terminator 2. A hundred years or more in the future, a race of artificially intelligent machines have won an apocalyptic war against humanity. These sentient computers grow and harvest humans as batteries, and suppress rebellion by duping their imprisoned adversaries with an imagined reality. The few humans free of this virtual bondage are searching for a Messiah that can beat the machines at their own sinister game. The result is an uncommon combination of science fiction, cyber-thriller, martial arts action, and a pinch of romance. Although the plot is not without its problems, it gets points for making sense within its own internal logic. A sequel could deliver even more on the promising situations and themes proposed in this film.
2.) More importantly, the special effects are amazing. Anyone who grew up on comic books has imagined what it would be like to jump over tall buildings like a superhero. The heroes in this adventure get to do that and more with the help of the same computer imaging process that allowed the jitter-buggin' dancers to freeze mid-air in the clever Gap commercials. As expected, Keanu Reeves takes a back seat to these impressive special effects in much the same way Arnold Swarzenegger does in most of his movies. In contrast, the dialogue is not particularly clever or memorable--and sometimes borders on the utterly absurd--but neither is it as wooden as the abundant cliches found in the Star Wars films and its many imitators.
3.) Of course, science fiction movies are really only as good as the bad guy is bad, and often fail without an interesting and effective enemy. This is definitely not the case here. Hugo Weaving as the relentless, computerized, karate choppin' CIA-type is a delight to watch whether he's making intimidating speeches or pummeling the good guys.
4.) Surprisingly, the number one reason why this Hollywood movie works is because of the Judeo-Christian allegory. Does this sound familiar? Oppressed humanity living in a deceptive world of darkness await a prophetically foretold Messiah to rescue them from certain doom? Reeves is no Jesus, of course, but a tale expounding on our need for someone greater than ourselves to save us from evil satisfies on a deep spiritual level and resonates with our true reality. Less extreme violence and vulgarity would have made this an even more acceptable analogy.
Instead of over-indulging in some of the long action sequences, The Matrix could have spent more time exploring some of the more interesting aspects of the plot and deepening the characters. This would have made this clever, effects-laden film even more satisfying than a mere thrill-ride. Regardless, if you are looking for a bit of sci-fi fun to tide you over until The Phantom Menace, this is it.
Steven Stuart Baldwin (4/29/99)
