Isn’t it amazing how much time a person will spend on their title? I almost went so far as to use ’’MaTRIX are for kids!’’, but that just seemed a little lame.
So how long has it been now since this movie came out? I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve had the following conversation with my sister, who has had this movie since its video release.
Me: ’’Cool, The Matrix.’’
Mary: ’’Yeah...’’
Me: ’’You know I still haven’t seen this yet.’’
Mary: ’’YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT?’’
This eventually leads to her saying I can borrow her copy of the movie, and by the time I leave, I have forgotten about it. Well, last time, I remembered to bring it with me, and now I can finally say I have seen it. (Big whoop, I know.)
First off, this is definitely one of those movies that you have to see it twice or three times to pick up on everything. You are soon introduced to ’’the girl’’; her name is Trinity, but she looks an awful lot like K.D. Lang in some shots (the one after she jumps through the window and points the two guns at it comes to mind). She is a headstrong fighter, and the ’’freeze frame and circle around’’ action begins almost too quickly as she floors a handful of cops before escaping back to whence she came.
Then we have Neo, played by Keanu Reeves. He seems to have a real problem with authority and pretty much everything about the way the world works today. Neo is actually the ’’alternative world’’ equivalent of the person that he is on this plane of existence. But rather than delve into a mind-blowing speech of sorts regarding the relationship between the two worlds, I’ll just leave it at that.
The movie itself has its moments that may make you curl your arms over your stomach and cringe, such as a shot of a metal scorpion with all its swirly extensions working its way into Neo’s belly button. Or worse yet, the scene where it is extracted, and comes out looking like it’s covered in peach-flavored applesauce. I do apologize.
There are quite a few gunfighting scenes, but they don’t make up the majority of the fights as they did in, say, Face/Off. There are very deftly choreographed scenes where Neo learns kung fu and jujitsu and a dozen other fighting arts, simply by having the training sessions simulated in his mind via computer disks and a long metal rod that sticks through the back of his head and looks sort of like those thermometers they keep in freezers or stick into turkeys while they cook.
As far as disturbing scenes, yeah there’s a few violent takes here and there, and one particularly freaky shot of a baby with black wires all around it, foretelling the future of this world when computers take over, using human bodies as batteries and the heat generated by the bodies for energy. The shot of Morpheus holding the size D battery between himself and the screen and saying ’’To turn a human being, into this’’ is almost funny, in that it looks just like it could be a commercial for Duracell, white background and all.
There’s a lot to love about The Matrix, but aside from the makes-you-think-till-you-drop plot and the subdued development of the characters, what makes this movie so intriguing are the little things that all come together to create the atmosphere and reality that is The Matrix.