The Matrix

Year of release : 1999

 

Run time : 2h16min

 

Genre : Sci Fi / Action

 

Cast : Keanu Reeves, Carrie Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving

 

 

I watched the original Matrix a few nights ago,a movie I watched and loved as a teenager(as a teenager is a person between 13 to 19 apparently). I still loved it today,and although the movie has more than 2 hours,it did not bore me,and I didn't feel the passing of time. I was surprised to see that watching it,I knew the lines and so on,as I don't remember watching it that often,although,I have the trilogy on original videotape.

 

The movie opens with this incredible action scene with Trinity,in which we can see the laws of the world the characters live in.

 

Neo receives a strange message which tells him to follow the White Rabbit. Right after,one of his clients knocks on his door,just as the message says,and he notices the White Rabbit the woman he's with has on her shoulder. He decides to go with them to the club .

 

There, Trinity approaches him and tells him she can tell him what the Matrix is.

The next day,after being scolded by his boss for being late,he receives a phone which starts ringing right away. The man introduces himself as the legendary Morpheus and tells him he needs to run because agents are after him.

The only way out was by jumping off the building,so Neo is taken into custody.

 

Neo works as a program writer at one of the top software companies in the world by day and is a computer hacker by night. The agents tell him he's in custody mostly due to the fact Morpheus contacted him,and he is considered to be the most dangerous man alive.

 

As Neo agrees to meet Morpheus,a legend in the field,just as Trinity,Morpheus tells him what the Matrix is - the world which has been pulled over his eyes to hide the truth,the fact that Matrix is a computer program in which everybody's consciousness lives in,as their bodies are in pods.

Morpheus tells him there was a war between humans and machines,and the machines won. But,they needed the humans to generate heat,so now they grow them in pods.

Morpheus offers him 2 pills, a blue and red one,the blue taking him back to the fake world of the Matrix,the red one,uncovering the truth,and the reality behind this illusion.

 

Neo chooses the red pill,is taken out of the Matrix,and as he trains,Morpheus tells him he's been waiting for him for a lifetime,as he is the chosen one,the one to end the machines' rule and help humanity. He also tells him that Neo's previous incarnation was the one who freed the first humans from the control of the machines.

Ironically,the Oracle Morpheus takes him to,tells him he's not the One.

 

To me,the Matrix is the follow up to the Terminator franchise. As in,there was a war between humans and the machines,and the machines won. Now ,the machines grew people as batteries for heat,to ensure their own survival.

 

I loved the way the movie was shot,the angles from which it was shot,it is just perfection!

The movie has this noir movie vibe to it,due to the way the shadows are cast,the way the light shines only over certain places .

 

The colors are dark,mostly on green to khaki,as if telling us there's something wrong with this world.

 

Everybody wears dark colors in the Matrix,mostly black,there's only one character,who looks a bit like an albino,who wears white.

The agents wear these bland suits,on a sort of khaki,as if they want to go unnoticed. Everybody blends in in this world,nobody stands out.

 

I loved the way the actor who played Mouse portrayed him, Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith,and Joe Pantoliano as Cypher. The rest of the cast was good too,but these were the ones who stood out for me.

 

Everybody knows by now,the movie had some revolutionary features,special effects, that many movies,like Charlie's Angels copied throughout the years.

 

Neo is an anagram of the word One.

 

The Wachowskis said they were inspired by the 1984 novel Neuromancer for the movie,and by a certain scene in Ghost in the Shell when creating the scene in which Neo is unplugged from the pod,to such a degree they asked permission before working on it.

 

The Matrix is streaming on the HBO channels and Hulu.

 

Rating : The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of !