Marcus' Rating and Review:

Directed by: Larry Wachowski and Andy Wachowski
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving and Joe Pantoliano

* This review contains spoilers, if you haven't watched this film, it's time to stop reading.

"The Matrix" is a piece of action packed science fiction with a brain. It could have been more, but just as it begins to take off, it bounces back to standard Hollywood action. The film is entertaining throughout with great stunts and effects, but I would expect more.

The film has a great opening, for it chooses not to disclose everything. Keanu Reeves is Neo, a computer hacker who just got picked up by the police. He is brought out of trouble by a mysterious woman named Trinity, who seems to know more than she should. Audience are left in a haze until Neo meets Trinity's boss, Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). Morpheus tells Neo a breaking news: the world is not real, it is just a virtual environment produced by a giant computer to control humans so it can rule the world. In the real world, we are all put into hibernation, plugged into specially designed cells so our body can provide electricity to the machines.

Morpheus is telling Neo all these because he believes Neo is "the One", the savior of the human race. No explanation is offered to us as to why he holds that belief. Maybe he has watched too many cheap science fiction flicks that involve such a plot device. Ironically, the film starts losing cabin pressure the moment Neo learns about the truth. From this point onwards, the film indulges itself in automatic weapons and kung-fu duels. Everything is melted down to a fight between Neo and the villains, which in this film takes the form of "agents", men in black that are actually security programs guarding the virtual world.

With all the mystery solved, it's time for the special effects to kick in. They are exhilarating and a lot of fun to watch. In a number of sequences, characters are freezed in the air, while the camera takes a 360 degree turn. In another, we see Trinity defies gravity and evades bullets by walking on walls vertically. This film employs some very good looking visuals, but sadly, when they are not there, we are fed with mainly loud machine gunfire.

Without the actions, "The Matrix" would have been a fundamentally different film, but it would have made more sense. Even today I still cannot understand why a super-computer will need to go through all the trouble of fighting the humans with bare knuckles. It's amazing how the few human rebels can sneak from place to place in an environment that is solely controlled by the computer. If it is the computer that wiped out the whole world, why it is not smart enough to deal with Morpheus and his little bandits? It is simply hilarious that when the film tells us Neo has to "fight" the computer, it really means he has to fight it with Chinese kung-fu.

With a few more pounds of creativity, "The Matrix" could have been an even better film. Had it not deviated from the direction it was heading in the first half, it could have leapt to a whole new level. The rock music is fantastic, and black leather is sensational, what is missing is just that ambition to bring it further.