“The Matrix” is a 1999 science fiction action film written and directed by the Wachowskis, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving and Joe Pantoliano. It follows the disillusioned hacker Neo (Reeves), who discovers that the life he knows is an elaborate deception created by intelligent machines. Underground rebels Morpheus (Fishburne) and Trinity (Moss) recruit him to join the rebellion against the machines.
The story begins in 1999, when Thomas Anderson, a programmer known as Neo in hacker circles, investigates the mystery of the “Matrix.” Trinity puts him in touch with Morpheus, who offers him a choice: a red pill for the truth or a blue pill to return to normal life. Neo takes the red pill and wakes up in the real world, immersed in a mechanical pod, before being rescued by the flying ship Nebuchadnezzar.
Morpheus explains that the year is approximately 2199 and that humanity lost the war against its artificially intelligent creations. Humans darkened the sky to deprive the machines of solar energy, but the machines responded by creating vast fields of artificially grown humans from whom they harvest bioelectric energy. To pacify their captives, they built the Matrix, a simulated reality based on human civilization at its peak. Free humans founded the underground refuge of Zion, and Morpheus believes Neo is “the One,” a prophesied figure who will free humanity.
The crew enters the Matrix to seek guidance from the Oracle, who hints that Neo is not the One and warns him of an impending choice between his life and Morpheus’s. The crew is ambushed after being betrayed by Cypher, who longs to return to the virtual comforts of the Matrix. Morpheus sacrifices himself to confront Agent Smith and is captured, while Cypher disconnects and kills crew members before Tank kills him. Neo and Trinity reenter the Matrix, free Morpheus, and Neo fights Smith; he is initially killed but returns to life with the ability to perceive and manipulate the Matrix’s code, destroying Smith.
Following the success of the 1996 film “Bound,” Warner Bros. gave the Wachowskis the green light for “The Matrix.” Its action scenes were influenced by anime and martial arts films, particularly the fight choreography and wire fu techniques of Hong Kong action cinema. Other influences include Plato’s allegory of the cave, the Telnet hacker communities of the 1990s and William Gibson’s cyberpunk novel “Neuromancer.” The film made terms such as the “red pill” and the visual effect “bullet time” famous.
Bullet time allows a shot to unfold in slow motion while the camera appears to move through the scene at normal speed. The technique was based on an expanded version of time-slice photography, with an array of cameras around the subject triggered fractions of a second apart, creating extremely slow motion at up to 12,000 frames per second instead of the usual 24. Katsuhiro Otomo, the creator of “Akira,” and director Michel Gondry are cited as artistic influences. According to descriptions, the effect serves as a “visual analogy for privileged moments of consciousness within the Matrix.”
The film was released in the United States on March 31, 1999, to widespread critical acclaim, with praise for its innovative visual effects, action scenes and cinematography. It grossed more than $460 million on a budget of $63 million, becoming Warner Bros.’ biggest box office success of 1999 and the fourth-highest-grossing film of the year. It won Oscars for Best Visual Effects, Film Editing, Sound and Sound Effects Editing, while in 2012 the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the US National Film Registry as “culturally, historically and aesthetically significant.”
Reviews were mostly positive.
Its success led to two sequels in 2003, “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions,” as well as comics, video games and the animated anthology “The Animatrix.” A fourth film, “The Matrix Resurrections,” was directed by Lana Wachowski and released in 2021. The franchise has also inspired books and theories that expand on the religious and philosophical ideas explored in the films.
Comments