|
Hollywood’s efforts to excite audiences with expensive explosions and nonstop violence have become a tradition of disappointment. It’s a rare occasion when a sci-fi movie is able to fill the gaps between big-budget special effects shot with an interesting, thought-provoking story. Amazingly, The Matrix, does just that.
In the not-so-distant future, humans are not born, but cultivated by artificially intelligent machines so that the machines may fuel themselves by using human bioelectric energy. This premise could be very difficult to bring convincingly to life on the silver screen — but it’s almost believable in Matrix.
Enter a small band of rebels, led by Laurence Fishburne’s mysterious character, Morpheus, who fights to free humankind from this bondage.
This is where most movies turn into pure eye-candy, with little or no intelligent backing to cause the human mind to exert any effort. Somehow, using a blend of intriguing storyline, masterful cinematography, and state-of-the-art visuals, The Matrix is able to tap into the audience’s cerebrums and forces them to think.
Surprisingly, the script is able to stay away from the one-liners that take a movie from serious to laughable in a millisecond. The days of “hasta la vista, baby” being cool and original have passed, but films continue to assault watchers with cooler-than-cool supermen shooting down men and then shooting off witty comebacks. The Matrix stays away from this, and relies on depth of character to fill out its dialogue.
Yet, even deep characterization and surprisingly good dialogue can’t hide the fact that Keanu Reeves was a bad choice for the lead. The role he plays, Mr. Anderson, a.k.a. Neo, requires an actor able to pull off emotional struggle and growth, while brandishing intense martial arts and superhero machismo with credibility. One would assume an Asian actor would be easier for the audience to accept. The need to make a profit must have proved ultimately more important, and Reeves’ box office power worked in his favor. Perhaps Reeves’ casting was intentional, so that it would be harder for the audience to accept him, and give the film a more human character in the lead role.
Whatever the casting decisions, nothing will draw people to this movie more than the incredible special effects. The actors seem to defy laws of gravity and physics, and the machine-controlled future world has a frightening reality, mostly because of its simplicity. The future shown in The Matrix does look technologically advanced, but the producers did not fill the scenes with too much for the audience to absorb.
The Matrix is a rare movie gem. It is a splendor of special effects with an engaging story and plausibility. If an audience can accept Reeves as a sci-fi action hero, then The Matrix is a surefire success.
|
|
