The Matrix Review
by "Mr Q. Z. Diablo" (diablo AT hyperion DOT humsoc DOT utas DOT edu DOT au)June 3rd, 1999
EXPLANATORY NOTE: Mr Q. Z. Diablo would like to apologise in advance to The Phantom for the tone of this review. The Phantom reviewed horror films from about 1989 until about 1993 in this forum (rec.arts.movies.reviews). Mr Diablo has derived more pleasure from The Phantom's film reviews than those of any other reviewer, either in cyberspace or on paper, amateur or professional. He hopes that The Phantom will regard this review as a homage rather than a cynical attempt to ape the style of another for some kind of perverse personal gain.
It was an inclement Sunday night when Mr Diablo dragged a reluctant bandmate to view THE MATRIX. The local multiplex is not necessarily Mr Diablo's preferred haunt but the sheer power of hype was to be reckoned with. Unlike The Phantom, Mr Diablo actually prefers art-house cinemas with their coffee and black-clad patrons discussing possibly mediocre films in an oh-so-serious manner (readers should refer to the explanatory note and search in IMDB or DejaNews if this reference escapes them). The plan was initially to go to the 6pm screening but distractions of a musical kind caused attendance to be delayed until the 9pm show. The assumption that the late screening time on a Sunday would dissuade Joe and Josephine average from venturing out to the cinema was horribly mistaken. They were out in their droves and Mr Diablo was to be found muttering obscenities sotto voce while staring in dismay at the lengthy queue, which stretched almost from the ticket office almost to the amusement arcade opposite. It seemed that Sunday night's treat was to be abandoned. Somehow he obtained a ticket and his response to the cinematic entertainment purchased for the princely sum of $10 is the subject of the next few paragraphs.
THE MATRIX is a not so much a genre film as a genres film and yet somehow avoids being generic. It simply bristles with ideas, albeit mostly other people's (just like this review, the author hopes). Loosely speaking, the genre can be classified as science fiction which runs a distant second to Mr Diablo's preferred horror films, of which there has recently been a sad lack in either mainstream or art-house release, the abysmal URBAN LEGEND and I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER notwithstanding. As SF goes, THE MATRIX is a rather seductive excursion into cyberpunk which possesses all the usual accoutrements of the stable. There are hackers, evil government agents, gunplay, urban sprawl, dim lighting and a healthy dose of virtual reality. In short; everything a growing boy or girl needs for a satisfying night's entertainment - in theory. It also boasts a more than healthy dose of eye wear, and Mr Diablo will attempt to refrain from obsessing about it in the course of this review; an attempt that is probably doomed to failure.
Mr Diablo will attempt to outline as much of the plot as possible without revealing details which will blunt the film's appeal. It concerns a young man (the irritatingly wooden Keanu Reeves, replete with pudding-bowl haircut and Eastwood-esque squint) who works for a large software company by day and operates as a hacker with the prophetic nom de plume Neo in his spare time. It seems that Neo has been a less than well-behaved cyber-citizen as the merciless hounds of the law have taken a particular interest in him. Fortunately, an unknown organisation has taken an interest in Neo's welfare and, while these unknown people seem to be able to bend reality in uncomfortable ways, the alternatives to throwing his lot in with them seem rather dire. They are fighting a construction called The Matrix which seems to be somehow woven in with reality in some kind of sinister fashion. When the nature of The Matrix is revealed, all hell breaks loose as Neo and his new-found companions battle the evil forces which have set it in place.
The last part of the plot synopsis is, as far as Mr Diablo can make out, the chief flaw in the film. Director/writers Larry and Andy Wachowski (whose previous film, BOUND, escaped Mr Diablo's notice) have penned a script whose exposition is absolutely enthralling but the lack of any real plot means that the film begins broadcasting its structural defects as soon as the protagonists' circumstances have been explained. This left Mr Diablo with action and computer generated effects in abundance which appeared to be imposed upon the films central ideas rather then to grow out of them. As a result, he was left feeling a little ambivalent about the action set pieces which populated the last forty minutes of the outing. He was also left wondering why anyone would squint as constantly as Mr Reeves in such dimly lit locations, let alone why so many people were insistent upon wearing sunglasses indoors in semi-darkness. He assumes that sporting sunglasses in tenebrous locales represents some kind of cyber-chic that has heretofore eluded him. Perhaps someone had been listening to too much 80s music when the costume design was being finalised.
Characterisations are somewhat less complete than one would hope for in a cyberpunk outing, with most characters trying desperately to expand from one to two dimensions. Mr Diablo regards this as something of a pity, as cyberpunk in written form has tended to produce extremely complex characters and interpersonal interactions. The good guys are essentially the stereotypes presented to us in the STAR WARS trilogy. We have Luke (Reeves), Leia (the rather visually appealing Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity), a Han Solo and an Obi-Wan (Morpheus, guru-ed in fine style by Laurence Fishburne). The remaining good guys are, of course, cannon-fodder apart from the addition of a traitor, whose demise occurs altogether too early for Mr Diablo's taste, despite an irritating performance straight out of the worst of the crop of action films that arose, unbidden, throughout the 80s. His scenery munching and eye-rolling seems so much out of place that he broadcasts himself as the rat almost as soon as he is introduced.
The action sequences are well-realised and exciting. Mr Diablo has read some reviews which have referenced Hong Kong action cinema as a jumping-off point (so to speak) and he was pleased to observe a large amount of Wing Chun Kung Fu amongst the variegated bare-hands fighting styles on display. Action sequences, therefore, tend towards the choreographed which adds to the style-over-content feel that seems to dominate the film. Special effects are variable with computer generated imagery veering between the well-integrated and the cheesily tacked-on. Some of the make-up effects have a high ick-factor and the various mechanical contrivances seem to have been designed solely to take advantage of our aversion to all things arachnid, insectiod and cephalopod. The soundtrack is often delightful, featuring very contemporary electronic music that undercuts the action very effectively indeed. Readers should think Propellerheads (whose "Bang On" is used in one of the better action sequences) and they've got the, erm, picture.
As concerns the borrowing of ideas that has been referred to, Mr Diablo observed pieces of THE TERMINATOR, GHOST IN THE SHELL, HACKERS and the awful THE LAWNMOWER MAN, grated and melted together to produce a fondue-ish plot and themes. Throw in the STAR WARS trilogy for characterisation and mythic feel and add, when the mixture begins to bubble, a dash of Terry Gilliam's wonderful TWELVE MONKEYS for that little bit of post-apocalyptic flavour. Other borrowings are present but Mr Diablo would prefer not to try to remember all of them, both for the sake of space (brevity not being his best attribute, in any case) and because the hour grows late as he types this magnum opus. In any case, there are enough of them to keep train-spotting viewers entertained almost as much as the film itself.
The basic premise of the film is almost reasonable but some considerable suspension of disbelief is required to let the many inconsistencies in plot devices go unheeded. The very nature of The Matrix is such that Mr Diablo fails to understand how the good guys cannot immediately be wiped out at the whim of the evil forces at work. He can't explain this in any detail without revealing too much about the film's resolution but he hopes that even the dimmest in the audience worked it out after the first forty five minutes. The only thing that Mr Diablo couldn't work out was why the hell Mr Reeves didn't don a pair of sunglasses substantially earlier to ameliorate his need to squint. There was a strong feeling that he'd blend in better with the rest of the cast as well as avoiding strain on his vestigial acting muscles induced by attempting to express emotions by adopting various facial casts.
Readers of this review should not labour under the misapprehension that Mr Diablo thought that THE MATRIX was a bad film. Far from it; despite the unabashed borrowing of other films and styles, THE MATRIX has an awful lot going for it. The camera work consists of that mix of the static and the mobile that Mr Diablo finds appealing He regards any film that gives him unpleasant flashbacks to INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE as overdone in this department and was pleased that no such unpleasant, dizzy, pop-music-video sensation was engendered during THE MATRIX. The vilification of a certain software giant (intentional or otherwise - Mr Diablo hopes that the former is true as this would add a certain mordant symbolism to the goings-on) is welcome, as is the epic father-figure theme that underpins the sometimes empty action.
Mr Diablo enjoyed himself almost thoroughly for a couple of hours and this is all that can really be asked, even though there was the constant nagging question of WHY DOESN'T MR REEVES PUT ON SOME #$%&ING SUNGLASSES. He will refrain from awarding marks out of ten, a letter grade or an arbitrary number of stars in deference to The Phantom, whose work inspired him to pen this prose. THE MATRIX is far from flawless but will serve as a stop-gap until THE CUBE or a piece of respectable horror cinema comes to town, whichever occurs first.
Mr Q. Z. Diablo.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
