The Matrix (1999) ½
cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Ann Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano
kung fu choreographer: Yuen Woo-ping
director: Larry and Andy Wachowski

Science fiction has always been a test for the limits of imagination--glossed over with hints of reality and warnings to the inhabitants of the world of what our future will doomed to become. Distorted levels of the subconscious, alternate realities, manufactured personas, and apocalyptic futures are simply par for the course in science fiction material.

"The Matrix" is directed by brothers Larry & Andy Wachowski (hence "The Wachowski Brothers" as they are credited), who made their freshmen year project in 1996, with the interesting Jennifer Tilly film "Bound." "The Matrix" is somewhat interesting in its own right...if not downright bizarre even by the means of its own genre.

Once again exploring the outer realms of the reality distortion, "The Matrix" takes us down a familiar road. The story comprises of us living in a fabricated world in the 22 Century. Oh we don't know it's fabricated; everything around us looks, feels, sounds, and smells the same--but it's not--in reality it is simply a virtual hoax.

To help us (the audience) understand the veil that's been yanked over our eyes, we have the film's protagonist Keanu Reeves (who has been absent from the screen since "The Devil's Advocate"). Reeves portrays Thomas Anderson who is employed as a software author and hacks under the pseudonym "Neo" in his spare time.

Eventually, through his computer and telephone, Neo is being contacted by a mysterious character that dubs himself "Morpheus" (Laurence Fishburne). Unbeknownst to Neo, secret agents (who are horrid carbon copies of "The Men in Black") of this fabricated society that we are presented with--are following him and are about to close in on him at his office--when Morpheus places another cryptic call to his desk and mythically guides Neo to safety.

Neo is introduced to Morpheus and to fill holes in an already confusing plot, Morpheus stops several times throughout the film to preach to Neo that our world isn't really a world at all. The world is computer generated and most of the inhabitants of the world's society are simply software identities. "The Matrix" simply refers to the machines that are responsible for these virtual fabricated realities. Morpheus, along with his loyal team (or somewhat--you always have to have a traitorous snake in every crowd) are among some of the last humans left on the real "face of the Earth." An Earth that in reality is a dismal, black, and sluggish metropolis...but then again aren't they all. The remainder of the humans not affiliated with the team are supposedly in a secret holdout that the Matrix is struggling to locate to begin the final wipeout of mankind.

The Wachowski Brothers seem to have a Tarantino view with their latest creation--lifting plot/story devices from every angle of science fiction literature to create "The Matrix," which sometimes feels like excess baggage leftover from other more prominent films like "The Terminator," "Altered States," "Akira," and more recently Roger Ebert's pick for the best film of 1998, "Dark City."

However, in a film with the latest nihilistic views of what our modern world will eventually evaporate into, The Wachowski Brothers insert old methods as means of partial defense. The action choreographing of the film was executed by Hong Kong legend Yuen Woo-Ping, who first caught the attention of the directors for his work on Jet Li's "Fist of Legend." Towards the hazing of Neo into the "real world" he is taught kung fu through a virtual reality of sort. The two things that make these hand-to-hand combat scenes work is the fact the Woo-Ping directs them so well--keeping excessive under cranking and wire work to a low, and the simple fact that Fishburne and Reeves are able to convince us that they know what they are doing. Early in the film's intro actress Carrie-Anne Moss demonstrates as well that she has a basic understanding of the art.

Of course then mesh these with high-powered weaponry and mind-bending effects for protection and it's understandable that that aspect of the film never wears thin. The action scenes are always present to lift you from the boredom of having to sit through more speeches about the destruction of the planet and maybe even our very existence on it.

"The Matrix" always shifts in and out of being on the borderline of a so-so/good film. Around the last quarter of the 135 min. it runs at--I could care less on what side of that line it was going to settle on.