Film Review: The Matrix Last update: 29th August 2000

I love this film - it's fun, action-packed and has some great visuals which are held at cinematic quality by the DVD release.

The plot is pretty basic and harks back to fairy tales where a hero takes a nobody from the masses and trains him, turning him into a hero who can overthrow the tyrannical rulers and install a better rule to benefit all.

Here the recruiting hero is Morpheus, a father figure to a band of techno-whiz freedom fighters battling against the robot overlords who control humanity through the use of The Matrix; which is the a virtual reality world into which the majority of the human race are plugged. The Matrix makes them believe they are living in the year 1999, in our world; while in fact they are being used to power the machines. Morpheus recruits Neo, our hero and the main character, whom he believes is 'The One', a mythical figure who will bring about the end of The Matrix.

Fighting against them are Agents, represented by a trio of Men In Black figures who have been created by the robots to thwart the human rebels. Cue many martial arts fight scenes and action aplenty. It's good fun.

There are some pretty cool special effects in this film and it's nice to see that the majority are downplayed; letting the action take centre stage. Okay, for the first 20-30 minutes the special effects get a good outing and they're pretty in-your-face (Neo turning transparent, Trininy and Agent Smith jumping between buildings across a major road) but after that they're still there, just more subtle and as a part of the action. This, I think, is a great decision on the part of the directors - it's good to see a sci-fi film which doesn't rely to heavily on budget-swallowing effects.

The fact that The Matrix isn't completely destroyed by the end of the film wasn't all that much of a shock but when you know the whole thing was originally thought-up as an idea for a comic it comes as no surprise that it's not going to be a stand-alone film. Roll on Matrix 2.