Players: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Carrie Anne Moss
It has been many years since the start of the computer revolution, and we have seen many doom and gloom artificial intelligence computer movies come and go... the Forbin Project, 2001, War Games , etc. It seems that every crackpot in Hollywood that had ever played a video game wanted to make a movie about intelligent computers taking over the world.
The Matrix is different.
This movie will be a tremendous influence, I think, over the next several years as far as the way that people think about computers in movies and artificial intelligence, not to mention special effects and cinematography. Not since T2 has there been such tremendous strides in realistic special effects, and The Matrix makes T2 look like a Warner Bros. cartoon.
To start off with, I love the Stanley Kubrick style opening. The flawless and fluid effects that are used to simulate ’’the matrix’’ are dazzling. And there are several scenes with really well done and emotional cinematography and style. The music is perfectly matched too and actually interesting - I may buy the CD.
The acting isn’t stellar for the most part but Keanu Reeves does the most convincing job that I’ve seen since his Bill and Ted days. I think the fact that the movie has some humor helps him out a lot, he seems more at home. Definitely a lot better than ’’Johnny Mnemonic’’. Also, the computer agents get a little trite but they are still very well acted.
I love what the movie has to say philosophically, although admittedly it focuses more on action. Still, there are some really interesting plot premises about deja vu and also the question of why there is suffering in the world. The plot was very well thought out and actually makes sense, which is extremely unusual for computer movies. The premise fits the world very well, at least at first glance, which is what makes it so cool.
One final note is that a lot of the material in The Matrix is not new, but the movie does a much better job than the original sources. It puts together odds and ends from many films and TV shows but does them in a much more believable and cohesive way, which is cool.
I guess if there were two downsides to the film, albeit small ones, the first is that it tends to overdo the technology i.e. gadgets and wires, in the beginning of the film, and the other is that I will now have to answer even more questions about ’’aren’t you afraid that computers will ...’’ when I mention that I am an AI researcher. So be it.
If you are at all interested in action, humor, philosophy and/or AI/Cog Sci, see this movie. You will not be sorry. I have seen it thrice already!!