THE MATRIX (1999)



Spoiler alert!  The Matrix is people!  Just kidding...but really, if you haven’t seen it by now, allow me to ruin the surprise for you: according to Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus, the Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change human beings into the copper-top batteries fueling our cybernetic overlords. And yet, when Keanu “Whoa!” Reeves’ messianic Neo finally “wakes up” in his real world goo pod prison, the all-knowing cybernetic overlords just...uh...flush him down a drain so he can be enlisted by Morpheus and his band of human rebels in their fight to overthrow the Matrix.  Huh?  Wha?  That logical inconsistency blew a gaping hole in my willing suspension of disbelief the first time I saw the Wachowski Brothers' cyberpunk classic, yet later I realized I’d worried my pretty little head over nothing...NOT because the disappointing sequels kinda sorta explained away the seeming plot contrivance (since Neo was really the sixth integral anomaly and thus was supposed to find his way to the Architect and blah, blah, blah...), but rather because the original Matrix was so fresh and visually exciting, with a paranoid, unified-field conspiracy theory of a plot that captured the unease (and exhilaration) of life in the digital age better than any movie since...well...Tron. (AO)

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