|
|
|
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne Director: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski |
|
|||
| Though some critics dismissed the Wachowski
Brothers' debut Bound as a steamy lesbian-noir gimmick, few could call
them untalented after witnessing the spectacle that is The Matrix. Overflowing
with high-tech sturm und drang, and enough references to Alice in Wonderland
to get Lewis Carroll's heirs on the phone with their lawyers, Matrix looks
poised to resurrect the cyberpunk genre and download buckets of ducats
in the process. Keanu Reeves is Matrix's hero Neo, a programmer who counters
his cubicle-confined days' tedium with a double-life hacking pleasure
programs. No sooner has Neo met some interesting strangers in wet leather
than he's arrested, ostensibly for his illicit activities. It's then that
the story kicks into high gear, whipping the viewer through a maze of
paranoid neo-Cartesian plot twists and often-Boschian landscapes to an
explosive John Woo-like finale. Story-wise, The Matrix at first seems the stuff of geek daydreams, giving us the not-so-shocking revelations that mundane day-to-day life is an illusion, machines really control the world, and inside every skinny office worker is a gun-toting kung-fu warrior waiting to get out. Luckily, the Wachowskis take their story seriously enough to make it work. Rather than hyperactively edit a two-hour trailer a la Michael Bay, the two anime-obsessed brothers carefully weave together a combination of brooding drama and reality-bending spectacle on par with Akira or Ghost in the Shell. The Matrix also offers easily the most impressive visuals since Terminator 2's T-1000. While mainly through the use of gravity-defying "bullet-time" photography, it also dazzles through the use of real-life martial artistry. Unlike Lethal Weapon 4, which managed to mangle the hand-to-hand talents of star Jet Li through bad editing, the Wachowskis hired Hong Kong veteran director Yuen Woo Ping to make their stars fly like Iron Monkeys. Though playing second fiddle to the effects, Matrix's cast members acquit themselves nicely. Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss are remarkably un-annoying or eye-pleasing, depending on your preference, and Laurence Fishburne nearly out Obi-Wans Alec Guinness with his reverential sci-fi-philosophizing. Speaking of Star Wars, there's another film this summer that purports to be "The Chosen One." Don't be fooled. Take the red pill. |
|||||
|
|
|
| | | |
|
|
Click
here for the Soundtrack