The Matrix
by The Wachowski Brothers
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Carrie-anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano, Keanu Reeves, Laurence FishburneDirector: The Wachowski Brothers
Brand: Matrix
Producer: Joel Silver
Writer: Andy Wachowski
Writer: Lana Wachowski
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 136 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-05-15
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Model: 116317
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- Set in the 22nd century, The Matrix tells of a computer hacker (Reeves) who joins a group of underground insurgents fighting the vast and powerful computers who now rule the earth. The computers are powered by human beings. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: R Age: 085391163176 UPC: 085391163176 Manufacturer No: 116317
Movie Reviews of The Matrix
Movie Review: The Bitter Cold of the Matrix
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Matrix" is an adventure into thoughtfulness and action. After we rule out those that dislike the science fiction genre altogether, we find that it has the ability to please both intellectual and casual fans alike. The Wachowski brothers, who wrote and directed all three Matrix movies, actually seem to incorporate the basic story of The Terminator, where man fights in a desperate battle against superior machines, but they also maintain their originality since they add depth and symbolism into their script. Unlike movies that revolve around pure fantasy, "The Matrix" relates to philosophical questions about the nature of reality. It also contains a continuity of main ideas and sticks to the rules it creates, allowing fans to imagine themselves within the matrix world. What better science fiction movie then one that excites our will to reason, question and imagine?
We enter "The Matrix" with our own world in mind. The audience expects the usual laws of gravity and the same sort of relationship between cause and effect that holds somewhat true in the world around them, and, unless they are told otherwise, they instinctively take those basic features of their existence as absolutes. Here the Wachowski's start in difficult territory: how to bridge the gap between the machine's simulated world and the real world? However, the green coded world is in luck! Dreams are the perfect example to relate to the film: as Heraclitus writes, "The waking have one world in common. Sleepers meanwhile turn aside, each into a darkness of his own". We can mistake a dream for truth even as we blur images together in new forms. Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) summarizes the dream argument by asking Neo (Keanu Reeves) if he has ever had a "dream that seemed so real that you couldn't tell it from the real world, and how would you know the difference?" If one never awakes from the dream then it is taken for reality, so one can only notice the real world from the dream by the comparison of the two. Since we can pose these questions to our own world, "The Matrix" seems to go beyond pure story telling. The audience leaves the theater craving for more, while some viewers leave questioning: "Do appearances guarantee or deceive us about our underlying reality?" Others leave the theater never really grasping what just took place, and many only want to dash off to find some sunglasses like Morpheus or Neo!
Morpheus emphasizes the relevance of his philosophy to everyday life by asking "Ever had that feeling you're not sure if you're awake or still dreaming" (Graham)? Bob Graham, in his San Francisco Chronicle review sarcastically responds "Frequently." The Wachowski brothers do tend to cover extreme metaphysical issues. They are, however, usually taught in a low 101-level course ironically. Of course, even introductory philosophy classes tend to be complicated, and for those unconcerned with metaphysics such ideas seem useless (especially in-between eating food, watching television, and going to sleep). By comparison the concepts are, from my experience, either blown off by anyone with a mind for "real philosophy" or improved on by an essayist to include several references to the works of Descartes and Plato (to name a few). I think the movie finds a nice mid point between scholars and non-scholars, and can therefore please an array of viewers.
The job of the screenwriters, anyways, is not to perfectly display Plato or to educate the masses, but to tell their story in a way that excites our will to reason, whether concerning freewill or knowledge. They only do so in a chaotic way if we take their ideas superficially, if we pretend that references to Plato are totally different than references to Alice's wonderland, then we see the illusion of a script thrown together in pieces. But if we take the essential ideas that the movie presents, and ignore mere differences in names or places in the use of allusions to other movies, we get a smoothly connected whole. Thus, watchers that want every minute detail of a movie made simple and explicit have difficulty understanding "The Matrix". The moviegoer, in a nutshell, must look beyond the surface and just like Neo "free their mind."
After the Nebuchadnezzar (Morpheus's ship) catches Neo, we get to follow his enlightenment; in fact, the first scene is lighted in an extra polarized white gleam as to symbolize the "coming out of the cave." The Wachowski brothers smartly connect their film to the imaginative spirit of two of the most playful and vivid philosophical writings: Plato's allegory of the cave and Descartes' demon. Plato describes a scene with prisoners restrained and shown shadows of objects (while being unaware that they are being shown fallacies or mere shadows). Neo, like one of Plato's slaves, comes to understand and find the truth (gets released from his chains). But only the few can go to Plato's heaven since the rest are "hopelessly dependent on the illusion."
As we follow Neo "deeper into the rabbit hole," Neo's quest involves questions about his identity and past memories. In this way he is similar to Rene Descartes, who imagined a malicious demon who could deceive him by sending false impressions to his brain much like the matrix computer simulation does to Neo. Descartes asks the question along with Morpheus: "if real is simply what you can touch or taste ... then real is just electrical signals interpreted by your brain." Descartes calms himself by deciding that a demon could not deceive him about the fact that he has to exist to be able to be deceived at all - even if he is just a brain in a vat. For Descartes the certainty of his own existence is a starting point and solace, but Neo never seems to find such a pure and simple solution. The Wachowski brothers are known for their love of philosophy and religion (including Christianity and Buddhism), but the usefulness of such themes is in exciting the viewer's ability to imagine rather than providing philosophical depth or correctness.
Part of the coaxing power of the film comes from its continuity of theme, for every scene seems to hint at deception and the enlightenment of Neo. Early in the movie Keanu's character is interrogated by the primary Agent, simply referred to as Smith (Hugo Weaving), who tells Keanu "It seems as though you have been living two lives": one as a computer programmer named Thomas A. Anderson, and the other as a computer hacker named Neo. The motif is also echoed by four or five references to Alice in Wonderland like "follow the white rabbit," which should remind the audience of a real versus illusionary world. And throughout the movie Agent Smith continues to refer to Neo as Mr. Anderson, to which Neo fires back with "my name is Neo," as to remind the viewer of his old versus new perspective.
The story is also strong because it is believable, or as Aristotle advocates: events should have a probable or necessary connection, so effects should arise or be caused by events in the story rather than out of nowhere. The first clue that we are not in a normal world is the initial fight scene between the uniformed police and Trinity. She fights off the armed policemen alone, and in the process hangs in the air, as if suspended in time, waiting to do a karate kick and run up the side of a wall before shooting the last cops. The special feats all occur for a reason, which is later disclosed to the audience as breaking or bending the rules of the computer simulation. How does this occur? Simple, just "free your mind." In a scene where Neo is waiting to see the Oracle he finds a boy bending spoons with his mind, and we get the explanation: "do not try to bend the spoon; that is impossible - only try to see the truth - there is no spoon. And then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is you." If looked at from a distance the movie seems unconnected, but with the central themes in mind one can see that the story does step in a logical framework.
The biggest surprise in Neo's adventure is how he lives in such a fascinating world, but then concentrates on martial arts and fight scenes instead of the visions around him. "It's kind of a let down when a movie begins by redefining the nature of reality, and ends with a shoot-out. We want a leap of imagination, not one of those obligatory climaxes with automatic weapons fire" (Ebert). On the whole most of the story seems nothing more than action and combat, but what really happens is that the ideas move faster as the movie progresses. They are not completely stagnant, for example, as the Agents try to force Morpheus to give his access codes for Zion, we hear that "the mind is just like a computer, hacking into it is only a matter of time," which makes us reflect on the modern progress over Descartes in our ability to compare the mind to a computer program. At the same time we hear Agent Smith smartly discuss evolution from the machine's perspective, so the themes of over-reliance on machines and others are present for those who are patient enough to pick them out. The movie does take a few screenings to get the full benefit of its content, but those chase scenes do get annoying after about the second time (believe me)!
Some moviegoers have trouble relating to the characters in "The Matrix" world, especially in the second two installments. The first movie at least had the minor theme of love between Neo and Trinity, and the feel of a team setting out to combat a common foe. All of those elements are mostly lost after the first film. Roger Ebert is passionate about his sentiments: "My admiration ... is limited only by the awkward fact that I don't much give a damn what happens to any of the characters." A. O. Scott comments on how the Wachowski's cheated "us who counted on a little more old-style movie star voluptuousness to warm up the virtual chill." One gets a computer game feel to Neo, who makes may us interested in him as far as he can collect "kill points," but one does not worry about what happens to him. After the first movie, he loses his connection to the audience and turns into a sort of super-Jedi, or more accurately a Green Lantern without the special ring! He started as a depressed lowly computer hacker that one could warm up to, but as the special effects take over, he becomes detached and frosty.
However, "bitter coldness is just as stimulating as great warmth" (Nietzsche)! One must judge the quality of the movie by its own standards, and not attach to it one's own preconceptions or prejudices. A certain type of audience finds itself at odds with the science fiction genre, but one can not dismiss a film only because it does not fulfill humanistic expectations. The more human one makes a movie the more boring it becomes for Matrix fans, who associate more with computer games, comic books, and animations. Movies primarily concerned with interpersonal drama are absolute nightmares to these fans: a bunch of women in whining about mundane affairs, a long love story with colorful dresses, and continuous silly emotional drama - who cares! Give us toys to play with, dark worlds to conquer and abstractions to concentrate on! The Wachowski brothers direct their screen to entertain the imaginative and "cold" at heart.
One is hard pressed to find a movie that so uniquely blends special effects, science fiction, and philosophy. Herbert Muschamp best summarizes the film's impact: "The message is freedom from repression, symbolized by the ability to move fluidly through space." Freedom, that is, by making us ask questions, reason and imagine, while also still appealing to a large audience (of course, the money is the primary goal)! With all the new improvements in movie making and special effects the audience will cease to be amazed by dazzling computer tricks. A story will need an even layering of ideas and action, and a plot that works within itself. There is a delicate give and take that a director must weigh, and hopefully future film writers will spend more time on the ideas of the movie rather than on shoot-outs and fight scenes; nonetheless, "The Matrix" is perhaps a sound influence for future science fiction writers and to help us improve on the depth of science fiction. Now if only we could add more speculative science into science fiction!
Summary of The Matrix
Set in the 22nd century, The Matrix tells of a computer hacker (Reeves) who joins a group of underground insurgents fighting the vast and powerful computers who now rule the earth. The computers are powered by human beings...By following up their debut thriller Bound with the 1999 box-office smash The Matrix, the codirecting Wachowski brothers--Andy and Larry--annihilated any suggestion of a sophomore jinx, crafting one of the most exhilarating sci-fi/action movies of the 1990s. Set in the not too distant future in an insipid, characterless city, we find a young man named Neo (Keanu Reeves). A software techie by day and a computer hacker by night, he sits alone at home by his monitor, waiting for a sign, a signal--from what or whom he doesn't know--until one night, a mysterious woman named Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) seeks him out and introduces him to that faceless character he has been waiting for: Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). A messiah of sorts, Morpheus presents Neo with the truth about his world by shedding light on the dark secrets that have troubled him for so long: "You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad." Ultimately, Morpheus illustrates to Neo what the Matrix is--a reality beyond reality that controls all of their lives, in a way that Neo can barely comprehend.
Neo thus embarks on an adventure that is both terrifying and enthralling. Pitted against an enemy that transcends human concepts of evil, Morpheus and his team must train Neo to believe that he is the chosen champion of their fight. With mind-boggling, technically innovative special effects and a thought-provoking script that owes a debt of inspiration to the legacy of cyberpunk fiction, this is much more than an out-and-out action yarn; it's a thinking man's journey into the realm of futuristic fantasy, a dreamscape full of eye candy that will satisfy sci-fi, kung fu, action, and adventure fans alike. Although the film is headlined by Reeves and Fishburne--who both turn in fine performances--much of the fun and excitement should be attributed to Moss, who flawlessly mixes vulnerability with immense strength, making other contemporary female heroines look timid by comparison. And if we were going to cast a vote for most dastardly movie villain of 1999, it would have to go to Hugo Weaving, who plays the feckless, semipsychotic Agent Smith with panache and edginess. As the film's box-office profits soared, the Wachowski brothers announced that The Matrix is merely the first chapter in a cinematically dazzling franchise--a chapter that is arguably superior to the other sci-fi smash of 1999 (you know... the one starring Jar Jar Binks). --Jeremy Storey
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