The Matrix

Sebastian Peill-M
12/8/15

     That is right, I am reviewing one of the most famous sci-fi movies of all time, The Matrix. This 1999 film starred Keanu Reeves, Lawrence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Hugo Weaving. The film had a budget of 63 million, however it only made 28 million opening weekend. This does not change the fact that it is immensely popular. It has so many different aspects and scenes and effects that one could write an essay on, I am not going to do this but I will cover a variety of things in this film.

     Neo(Reeves) is a computer hacker who has been obsessed with finding him- Morpheus(Fishburne) the legendary man, who knows about the Matrix, something that little is known about. When Neo is contacted by Morpheus he is immediately targeted by the Agents led by Agent Smith(Weaving). Neo is captured and literally bugged (you have to see to understand). He then is taken by Trinity (Moss) one of Morpheus's people, to Morpheus. Morpheus gives him a choice, either find out about the Matrix or go back living his old life. Neo chooses to learn about the matrix and is hooked up to a machine to find his body in the 'real' world. He wakes up in a weird pod in which he hooked up to tubes and wires and is submerged in a goo. He is drained out of the pod and is picked up by a hovership, Morpheus's ship. He collapses on board and spends the next few months sleeping and having acupuncture preformed, as he has never used his muscles before. He then wakes aboard the ship and is shown what the Matrix really is, a computer program created by robots to keep humans asleep while the robots use their body heat to power themselves. Neo is then told that he is the One, the person who will destroy the Matrix and free all of the humans. He is then trained for hours learning all known types of  fighting and other skills. He is brought to the Oracle who tells him that he isn't the One and they are betrayed by one of their own to the Agents. The Agents capture Morpheus and begin to interrogate him, Neo and Trinity escape and get back to the real world. Neo tells them all that he isn't the One but he will rescue Morpheus, and he and Trinity venture back in. Neo and Trinity destroy the lobby of Morpheus's holding place in a very cool scene. Then they rescue Morpheus and get him and Trinity out of the Matrix, Neo is trapped and must fight/run from the Agents and in a very large twist find out that he is indeed the one, he can move as fast as he wants and can even stop bullets with his mind. He destroys Agent Smith and gets out of the Matrix, Trinity confesses her love to him and the movie ends.

First off the music, this film is not known for its music bu that doesn't change that it is still pretty epic music. Most of the music is a reprise of the opening music just played at different speeds and pitches. However sound is very important in this film, whenever there is slow motion all of the sounds are very pronounced, each bullet casing hitting the ground, an Agent punching through brick, and bullet impacts. Each character has a volume at which they speak, Morpheus and Smith both talk in low whispers. Smith however has the tint of anger and danger, whereas Morpheus is wise and thought provoking. Whenever anything weird happens the sounds correspond, a window moves like a puddle ripple and it makes a strange bendy noise. All of the sounds are very well done and chosen perfectly.

The camera angles and the effects, this is the most famous parts of this film, it would take pages to talk about them all so I will talk about some of them. There are so many different angles in this film it is amazing, you have basic portrait and landscape but then you have slow motion 360 (the frame freezes and the camera moves around the object completely, when people run on the walls the camera tilts and canters. There is an infinity shot, the camera shows an object extending forever, the pods with the humans inside. There are amazing shots in which you have an object in the foreground doing something to an object in the background. The effects are spectacular with slow bullets in which you can see the bullets spinning and slowing down. Explosions and windows bending like ripples. Peoples mouths disappearing while they try to talk and people dodging bullets in slow and fast motion. I simply can not say it enough, this film is amazing because of its effects. When Neo eventually realizes he is the One he see the Matrix as it is, a computer program, he see symbols instead of objects. He even jumps into someones body and makes them explode from the inside (they dissolve into code). The film even ends with a change from medium close to extreme extreme long shot(there are supposed to be 2 extremes there) and Neo flies up to the camera and out of shot. This film is amazing because of these effects and deserves all of its fame.

Slow Motion

What Neo sees after he is the One

Neo's mouth sealing

Infinite shot

Fast Motion

The acting skill in this film is rather good with Keanue Reeves who had already done some acting. Fishburne portrays the all knowing yet dangerous Morpheus very well and has perfected the voice that goes along with that as well. Weaving does an amazing job playing a computer program Agent, who lives to hunt and stop the One and his associates, he too has his deadly scary low voice down. Moss, or Trinity does a good job playing a girl who is afraid of her feelings at first but comes to terms with them by the end of the film, slowly letting them show more and more as time progresses, the other actors do good job as well, especially the traitor, who does an amazing job not seeming guilty until necessary for the film to progress. All in all a very good job done over all.

This is one of my favorite movies and I highly, highly suggest it to anyone and everyone
Interesting Fact 1: All scenes that take place within the Matrix have a green tint, as if watching them through a computer monitor, while scenes in the real world have a blue tint, blue was also used at a minimum in the matrix scenes since the directors thought blue was more of a real world color. The fight scene between Morpheus and Neo, which is neither in the real world nor in the Matrix, is tinted yellow.
Interesting Fact 2: Will Smith was approached to play Neo, but turned down the offer in order to star in Wild Wild West (1999). He later admitted that, at the time, he was "not mature enough as an actor" and that, if given the role, he "would have messed it up".