Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss
It's up to Keanu Reeves to save humanity... Oh Crap!!
I must admit then when I saw the trailers and commercials for this movie I wasn't very motivated to see it at all. In fact I didn't want to see it at all, and not just because I just don't like Keanu Reeves... it looked like it was going to be one of those weird, "trippy" movies where through the whole thing you were going "Huh?" and "Why did the make this weird thing?" I am not ashamed to admit that I was wrong... completely wrong about the movie itself, and partially wrong about Keanu. The Matrix is a great sci-fi/action flick that has a believable and frigtening plot.
Keanu Reeves as Thomas Anderson/Neo
Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves, Speed, Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure) leads a double life. By day he is a white color computer programmer for a large software company in New York. By night, he is Neo, a computer hacker that has broken just about every computer law the government has ever set up. Like every hacker, he has heard the legends of "The Matrix," but nobody seems to know what it is... they have just heard of it and a hacker legend by the name of Morpheus. One night he is contacted through his computer to go somewhere, where he meets Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) who intreages his curiosity of The Matrix. The next day he is contacted at work by Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne, Othello, Higher Learning) who eventually leads Anderson (henceforth refered to as Neo) to meet him where he promises to show him what the Matrix is. After taking a pill that is supposed to implant a computer program within him Neo is thrust through a "portal" and ends up in a gelatenous goo where he is eventually picked up by Morpheus's hovercraft (don't worry, I will explain).
Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne) is Neo's leader and mentor in The Matrix
After being fixed up Neo is given the truth about the Matrix from Morpheus. It is not 1999, but around the year 2199. The real world does not look as Neo thought, it is actually a vast wasteland where all life has moved underground, the only place where there is still heat. Neo is told that early in the 21st century humans inveted artificial intelligence and eventually this intelligence tried to eliminate the human race in a huge war. To destroy the machines, humans somehow either blocked off the sun or destroyed it to cut off the machines only energy source (they were solar powered). However it didn't work because the machines adapted and after conquering the humans began using them as an energy source. Humans give off a fairly large amount of bioelectric energy and heat so in large numbers they are a fairly good energy source. Essentially the machines were using humans as batteries. What everyone was calling the Matrix is a huge computer program directly linked to every human "batteries" mind so that what Neo, and everyone thinks is reality is just a trick to keep the humans from rebeling. Morpheus and a small number of other humans had disovered how to escape the Matrix and how to slowly destroy the machines warships. Morpheus and his "troops" were able to enter the Matrix through a separate connection to "unplug" other humans and while there they would run into "agents" who were human images of the machines within the Matrix. Morpheus believed that Neo was "the one" who could destroy the agents within the Matrix and lead the humans to victory.
Neo and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) come in with guns blazing
This movie was incredible. It had some of the best effects I have ever seen (an honor that they will get to keep for about two and a half weeks until I see Star Wars) and as unplausable as my description of the plot and premise may seem, the movie itself makes sense and flows very well. That is one thing that makes it kind of frigthening... it is one of those old philosophical questions, what if I am not what I seem and am just a "brain in a vat", or in this case a human battery that is being tricked by a superior artificially intelligent machine? And as much as I hate to admit it (Especially after the Bill and Ted... Series) Keanu Reeves did a good job. There even was a little comedy as Neo is being trained to fight and defy physics (which don't really apply in the Matrix, since it is fake) in the Matrix. And the action scenes are specatacular, there is a point where Neo and Trinity walk into a building and systematically destroy about 100 "humans" all shooting at them with machine guns. If you want a great sci-fi/action flick to wet your appetite while you wait for Star Wars: Episode I to arrive, go see The Matrix it will more then tide you over until May 19.
