The Matrix (1999)
Review
3/27/2001
Format: Theatre
Stars: Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fishbourne, Carrie-Ann Moss, Hugo Weaving

The world has become a wasteland after robots have taken over, and now they're using humans for power and reality as they know it is actually a virtual interface. Reeves is chosen to fight against this new order and save humanity.

This movie is overly hyped so much I don't know where to begin. From the acting to the fighting to the overuse of computer graphics, I wasn't very impressed. I'll start off with the basic stuff. Keanu CANNOT act, ever. He plays the same character he always plays, the cool guy who whispers and always looks confused. His lines are uninspiring. Fishbourne is nerdy as a computer.. nerd, and his lines are boring as well, and he could have worked on his delivery. I really didn't give a damn about the guy. Carrie-Ann Moss is a nobody, playing the same exact kind of character as Fishbourne and Reeves. Weaving, whom can be seen in many Australian films and is quite talented in them, seems to be the only interesting thing happening among all these people, and he's not even human. His look is surprisingly outlandish, unlike anyone else. His cronies are Elvis impersonators and don't do anything special.

I doubt, though, that anyone will argue that this movie doesn't have interesting cinematography. Lots of green, which gives us a good feel (sadly, it's a comic book movie anyways), and a decent soundtrack, not the one released on CD but the score itself. The shots are impressive and have a very clean feel to them, but I wonder how much was spent on cleaning all that shooting up. Lots of computer effects, from helicopters to entire environments, bring this grade down a big notch because it looks like a big computer game. That would be ok had the fights not looked so fake, but... I'll get into that later.



Story-wise, I'm glad the idea has been done on screen, but it's incredibly nerdy. Robots taking over the world; Plato would be disgusted. It was HIS idea afterall. And now, whenever we see something about reality not being exactly how we perceive it, everyone in the theatre will say "... Matrix...." The script, like I said, seems so contrived. I could guess what words were coming out of everyone's mouths next. And the acting itself needed serious work (except for a select few who had a good 2 minutes of screen time and then poof they die, like that good guy with the long hair). Now, onto the stuff everyone cares about...

This movie is mistakenly called a "kung fu fest" which is so misleading to me that I wonder why they don't call Highlander Endgame a kung fu fest, or even Lethal Weapon 4 which had a real Wushu player doing real stuff and blowing up the screen whenever he appeared (Jet Li of course). Our first glimpse at this so-called kung fu appears when Trinity (Moss) beats up some policemen and uses some heavy wirework to run along a wall. Being me, of course, I had to try this and completed it successfully upon a few tries without a wire. My friends found it easy to do as well. Just run up, turn hard, and take a few steps. Yea you're not gonna stick to the wall and have time to bust a cap while you're up there, but you can still "run along a wall". And whenever I do this, people say "... Matrix...." Moss is slow and thankfully her scene is short. She jumps across a gap between 2 buildings with a buttload of computer effects, and Weaving follows her. Too much bs for me.



Then there's the scene in the dojo. I was impressed when I first saw this, the choreography was fast in the beginning and at the end. Then I watched it again and started getting tired of the wirework they put into it, and I couldn't stand how they kicked. Their kicks make them look like gumby, arms flying. And then I noticed something else: these hits are extremely weak. It seems like each punch is pulled before it gets even close to the opponent. What I have learned is this: HIT THE OTHER GUY. Even if it's a 5 pound hit to the stomach, the person can react. But there's no contact and everything looks weak. Sorry if I sound overly critical, but for an overly hyped movie, someone has to do the job. The choreography is fine, Yuen Wo Ping stuff, some of which is a bit bland like the kicking parts (these guys would have had better luck with all upper body stuff). At the end it gets pretty fast but, again, the guys pull their punches a bit too soon.



The fight in the bathroom is short and more of the same, but I did kind of like how Fishbourne stuck to the corner, and Weaving's getup move was cool too. But most of the scene depends on stuff breaking, not on the actors' abilities to look powerful. Neither of them look very tough when they punch or kick.



The gunfight inside the office building is ok, lots of bulletholes in the tiles everywhere and a bunch of guys get shot, and Keanu uses a wire to jump off a wall. Almost all of it is done in slow motion which gives a decent effect. He goes to the roof and shoots at some guys and dodges bullets and you can see the trails the bullets leave in the air, something that will be done repeatedly I just know it. Keanu and Trinity look so nerdy here, all dressed in black leather, it's like they couldn't creative and just said "We'll just put them in black." How often has that been done? Right afterwords Keanu shoots at the 'agents' from a helicopter with again some good camerawork.



Finally Keanu fights Weaving in a computer generated subway. Something I noticed about this was that in the beginning, the background just kind of rotates around the two of them, which is neat if you don't really notice that kind of thing easily but when you pay attention, you see that the two of them made no such movements. The choreography is blah, kicks and punches, they can't do either really except Weaving looks a bit tough. Keanu pulls his punches too fast. And Keanu kicks a few times in this scene too and it's aweful, there's no power and I doubt Weaving was supposed to get kicked hard for any realism. When he did a reverse roundhouse I started to get sick. It's the most generic thing I've ever seen. Look at any HK fighter do a reverse roundhouse, they use their heel, not the side of their foot like Keanu. That's something cheerleaders do. Go cheerlead. Not only that but they are slow most of the time. It's like hit/block, ... hit/block, ... hold, cut. Some hideous wirework where Keanu does a bunch of bike kicks in the air (like 6) against Weaving, a getup move where Keanu tries to put out some capoera moves or something (again wired), and then Weaving gets hit by a train. This is a nightmare, everything looks so fake. For those of you who like seeing "cool stuff" but don't mind the effects, it's fine, you're the kind of people who rave about this movie, but personally I'd rather see them actually do the bike kicks, the get up moves, I wanna see them actually hit eachother, and I like real environments. Perhaps the best way to illustrate this is to recall The Shaolin Temple, where the actors all did the choreography themselves and everything looked super real because these guys were wu shu team members, they could handle it. Weaving and Keanu can't.




My final thoughts on this movie are that it's an INCREDIBLY American film that's done to impress boys between the ages of 8 and 20. They brought in Yuen Wo Ping to add some kind of "Asian Exoticness" with the fighting or some sh*t, but totally failed because Wo Ping realized that Keanu and everyone else didn't really have what it took to be good screen fighters. They're just not made for that, despite the 6 (so-called) months of training that they all went through. I wish American audiences were moreaccepting towards new actors, people who have the potential to do stuff WAY better than these stooges but just don't have the looks (of course these are all beautiful people in The Matrix). My point is that the actors in this aren't capable of doing this stuff properly, and I'm not at all excited about The Matrix 2 and The Matrix 3 and 4 and 25. Yea so what, Jet Li will be in them, but what good is one excellent screen fighter when the others can't even react properly, and knowing directors now, they'll just throw Jet around on wires, he'll be told to do the same kicks, and he won't get ANY interesting choreography. And he'll die too because he'll be a bad guy, I can't imagine otherwise.

So, had this movie replaced Keanu with Chiu Man Cheuk, Fishbourne with Sammo Hung, Trinity with ... nevermind just delete her character, and Weaving with Robin Shou, Ken Lo, or Donnie Yen, I think this would have been exceptional beyond boundaries because those guys need no wires. But then we have to ditch the director to avoid wires, and do REAL environments where they fight. The dojo scene should have been more complex, with actual styles instead of meshing crap together, and wireless too. Where the HELL was the drunken boxing? ... of course Fishbourne and Keanu can't do that. I enjoyed the scenery and coloring though, but the clothes should have been more than just BLACK, acting should have been less of this solid face crap, and the script re-written with less cliches (both vocal and physical). I liked the soundtrack, but the sound effects during the fights should have been totally ditched, whipping sounds don't fit here. Bring back the sounds from In the Line of Duty 4. And to finish things off, get rid of the stupid roboworld idea.

And sorry for the lack of pictures. I figure almost anyone has seen this movie and I didn't wanna bother renting and capturing if it wasn't necessary.

1/5

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