Reviewed 25/05/00
It appears that I should always give a film a second chance.
Having recently re watched "The Fifth Element" and decided that it was not as terrible as I had originally thought, I decided to borrow my friends copy of "The Matrix" and give it another go.
When I first saw it my feelings were that it was poorly paced, to reliant on special effects, short on plot and long on pseudo religious pretensions.
Having seen it again I have to confess that I was wrong about the pacing. It really does zip along for the first 30 minutes, then slows down to explain the plot, and speeds up again when the action starts for "real".
There is not a great deal you can say about the plot. Here comes a Hero to save the day. Mind you, it is just an action film so what did I expect. Well, I think I expected it to be more than a re-hash of Tron ("That's Neo, he fights for the users!"). Also, if an action movie is running low on plot, they usually just add in a few more fight scenes or set pieces. The Matrix doesn't do this.
There are only 5 or 6 fights in the film (including the Zen-Kung Fu Training). And they were all shown in the trailers which you could not avoid when the film came out.
Ok, so the action scenes did look good, and would have been even more impressive if you had not seen any Hong Kong actions films before. And the special effects were pretty special. The scene with the Harvesters was impressive and "Bullet Time" does open the door for even more amazing visuals (Although it had been used in nature films and adverts before). It's hard to fault the effects and action, and to say that I wanted there to be more of them is really a compliment in disguise.
It's really the holes in the plot which let this film down (send your name and address on a five pound note and I'll write out a list). And I'm with Grandpa Simpson in thinking that the "Love interest felt tacked on."
So what about all that Pseudo-Religious stuff?. Well the film is supposed to be a modern fairy tale about the dangers of putting our faith in computers and disconnecting from our fellow man (I find it ironic that so many of the techno-heads I know love this movie, since it is the computers who are the bad guys and touchy feely humans who are the good guys). The fairy tale link comes in the shape of all the references to Alice in Wonderland, "Follow the Rabbit", going down holes in the ground (or the wall), the character of Switch appearing in white leather when everyone else is in black. The bridge between the Alice stuff and the religious stuff comes in the shape of Morpheus, part Cheshire Cat, part god of dreams. Then there's Trinity, I'm sure I've heard that used somewhere religious before. The whole prophecy stuff ("and you think this Neo will bring balance to the Matrix?") It's all there to show the difference between the intuitive humans and the mechanistic agents. It's the humans who can evolve beyond their limits and have the strength to fight on, and by the end of the third film I'm pretty sure it will be the humans who are the winners.
So in the final analysis, after seeing this film for the second time, is it actually any good?
I have to admit that it is.
My gripes about the pacing and action have dissolved. The effects are special enough to lift the film above the norm. And, since this is just a big dumb action film after all, the holes in the plot do not result in any major damage.
To be totally honest, when I first saw this film my negative reaction was probably down to the number of people I talked to who preferred it to The Phantom Menace. Now, I come from a Lucas worshiping household, and that sounded like heresy to me. This clouded my judgement and made me believe that The Matrix was really the work of the devil.
It's not. And I'm sure that when Matrix II comes out I will trot off to see it.
So, now that I have re-viewed this film, and changed my opinion of it, I'm off to see if the same thing happens if I watch Showgirls again.
I have my doubts.
The Matrix 8/10
"Woah!"
or
"Guns. Lots of guns."
Home, About Me, About My Friends, Film Reviews, Short Stories, RPG S.Q.G.S, Deprivo, Devianté, Links
© 2002-2005 John Gavin Lighterness