Film: The Matrix

[liv]

Reason for watching it: I was starting to feel embarrassed by not having seen it, and missing pop culture references.

Circumstances of watching it: After two weeks together, jack and I had more or less run through our urgent stack of conversations we wanted to have right that minute, so we felt ok about spending a couple of hours watching a DVD instead of chatting.

Verdict: The Matrix is watchable and original.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed The Matrix. It's not a sophisticated film, nor a flawless one, but it tells a good story. It's atmospheric and emotive and the characterization is strong. Well, apart from the main character who is a bit of a Mary-Sue: brilliant because the plot says he should be brilliant, but not showing any particular signs of ability, intelligence or even independent thought. Though I'm possibly biased because I have never been able to see the point of Keanu Reeves; he's not pretty and he can't act. But I really enjoyed the interactions among Morpheus' crew, and I found myself easily manipulated by all the ways that the film makes Trinity competent and just cool.

The SF background is quite clever, though the film tends to over-explain things and goes into excruciating detail spelling out the philosophical implications. It's unusual for me to have this kind of complaint about a film, cos I'm a very unsophisticated viewer and I generally have a hard time inferring background from hints, but The Matrix goes too far in the opposite direction. (The "science" is stupid, and indeed jack paused the film at one point to calm me down from getting angry at the stupidity, but basically that's not the point.) In spite of the info-dumping, I thought the pace at which the background was revealed to the viewer did a good job of building tension, even if the background itself has some stupid elements. Also, it was doing Christian themes in a way that didn't offend me, because it felt like a retelling of a great myth, rather than heavy-handed propaganda.

It's visually cool, a bit gritty and a bit futuristic. Though some parts of the background look amazingly dated ten years after the film's release. I couldn't quite decide if 1999 really did look like that, or if it was a subtle commentary on the Matrix' imperfect construction of reality. There's quite a lot of violence, but it contributes to the plot and there's enough empathy with the characters to make it not seem gratuitous. The Agents and Sentinels are impressive as monsters, scary and creepy. Also I really liked the soundtrack, but that probably reflects my taste in music as much as anything.

Someone on the internet somewhere has explored the triangle relationship between Morpheus, Trinity and Neo, right? I think the romance plot would have been much more satisfying (and less clichéd) if Morpheus had been given the True Love denouement. Ahem.

Comments

[jack]

I think tepidity towards Keanu Reeves is fairly universal. IIRC he was fairly good in Point Break (where he was an FBI agent who pretended to be a surfer) and awesome in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey (who were two metalhead slackers who travel in time and say "Whoa!" a lot), but come in for a lot of criticism for other things.

[nanaya]

I would also like to defend him on the basis of his sterling turn in 'My Own Private Idaho'. Not as good as River Phoenix, perhaps, but excellently nuanced. I may be biased though, I absolutely adore the film.

Yes, I agree he was vg in 'Point Break'. He was kind of adorable naive as Danceny in 'Dangerous Liaisons' too. And not bad in 'A Scanner Darkly', IIRC.

[gool_duck]

*love* to My Own Private Idaho. It was at one point my favourite film.

[nanaya]

One of mine, too. Makes me cry every time.

[rysmiel]

It struck me as an interesting experiment in terms of resetting Shakespeare in a different context, but suffering from not quite having the social pressures work for the decisions the characters make; Keanu Reeves in that is no Prince Hal/Henry V, basically. Bob Pigeon is rather good as a modern Falstaff, but the rest of it just does not quite hold together for me.