90's Throwback Month - The Matrix (1999)
Hey guys, Chuck here, and welcome to 90's Throwback Month. Throughout the month, we'll be looking at a selection of movies from the 1990's. And while we'll be looking at a few gems throughout the month, this will mostly be a cornucopia of 90's cheese fest movies. So, let's kick off 90's Throwback Month with a film that not only was the definition of 90's cinema, but changed action movies going into the 2000's. Let's take a look at The Matrix.
Released in the year 1999, the film focuses on a faction of humans who are able to perform incredible feats, and are on the run from green-suited Agents, who are able to perform similar feats, but are limited by the world they inhabit. It turns out that both parties are looking for a man named Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, who is met by one of the human Resistance fighters, Trinity, played by Carrie-Anne Moss. Trinity tell him that she knows that he's looking for the answer to a question that's been itching at the back of his mind: what is the Matrix?
The next morning, we see Neo working at a white collar job, where he is sent a cell phone, from which he is contacted by the mysterious Morpheus, played by Laurence Fishburne, who guides him away from the Agents. However, when Neo finds the escape route to be suicide, he goes away in the Agents custody willingly. The Agents, led by Agent Smith, played by Hugo Weaving, offer him a clean slate in return for leading them to Morpheus. Neo refuses, and is bugged by the Agents. Neo wakes up that evening, assuming that he just experienced a nightmare. Morpheus calls him, and instructs him to allocation, where he is picked up by Trinity and a few others. Trinity removed the bug and tosses it out the window. After leading him to Morpheus, Neo and Morpheus sit and have a chat regarding the nature of the Matrix: The Matrix is the world that is used to bling humanity from the truth, and humanity is trapped in a prison for the human mind. Morpheus then offers Neo a choice: take the blue pill and return to his normal life, or take the red pill and see the real truth. Neo chooses the red pill, and is taken to the next room, where he is drawn to an unusual mirror, and upon touching the mirror, Neo is covered by a shimmering substance that begins to cover him completely.
Neo wakes up in a strange, terrifying place, where he sees humans sleeping in large pods as part of what looks like a massive power station. After being inspected by some kind of machine, the plugs in Neo's body are unplugged, and Neo is sent down to another area, where he is picked up by Morpheus and his crew on board a ship called the Nebuchadnezzar. After a night of rebuilding muscles, Neo wakes up, now with some hair and clothes, and is greeted by Morpheus, who tells him that he's now in an undetermined year in the future. Neo is shown the truth, that sometime in the early 21st century, humanity created a new form of intelligence: A.I, which then led to an entire race of machines, upon which humanity went to war with the machines, and cloaked the sky with an eternal storm in a last ditch effort to stop the machines for good. However, the machines managed to find a new form of energy, and now humans are artificially grown and used as an energy source for the machines. The Matrix itself is a computer generated dream world built to keep human minds in a perpetual dream state in order to use their bodies for energy, like an organic battery of sorts. Neo is at first unable to accept this, and is left in a daze of confusion. The next morning, Neo is greeted by crewmember Tank, played by Marcus Chong, who hooks him up to the machine from which the crew enters the Matrix, and begins to download martial arts training programs into Neo's mind. Ten hours later, after learning a series of martial arts styles, Morpheus challenges Neo inside of a sparring program. Morpheus and Neo engage in a martial arts battle, which is among the more memorable moments of the movie, and Neo then continues his training with another series of programs, including jumping from rooftop to rooftop, and learning that most humans aren't ready to be unplugged yet, and some are too dependent on the Matrix to do so, and therefore can be overtaken by Agents, which are a trio of Sentient programs that move in and out of any software still hardwired to their system.
Days later, Morpheus and the crew leads Neo into the Matrix, where Neo is taken to the Oracle, played by Gloria Foster, who tells him that, in spite of what Morpheus thinks, Neo is not the One (an individual who has tremendous power within the Matrix and will save humanity from the Machines), and that Morpheus will sacrifice himself for Neo due to his belief. Upon returning to the house that they came from, the crew is attacked by SWAT teams and the Agents, upon which crew member Mouse is killed, and Morpheus sacrifices himself to get Neo out. Crew member Cypher gets out first, and having made a deal with the Agents to be re-inserted into the Matrix with no memory of what he learned, he kills both Tank and Tank's brother Dozer, and pulls the plugs of both Apoc and Switch, killing them. But just before pulling Neo's plug, Tank miraculously wakes up and kills Cypher. Tank then puts out the call, and both Trinity and Neo are brought back. Realizing what the Agents want with Morpheus, Tank decides that the best thing to do is pull the plug on Morpheus. However, Neo decides to go in and get Morpheus back. With Trinity at his side, the two re-enter the Matrix, armed to the teeth with a lot of weapons, where they shoot up the lobby of the building where the Agents are holding Morpheus. After making their way to the roof, and fighting more SWAT's and an Agent, Trinity and Neo fly the helicopter, shoot out the window, and rescue Morpheus.
After Morpheus and Trinity both get out, Neo engages in a fight with Agent Smith, and holds his own pretty well. After a pretty lengthy fight, Neo goes on the run, and calls fro Tank to get him an exit. Upon arriving, Neo is shot to death by Agent Smith. However, Trinity revives him with, and as cliché as it sounds, the power of love. Neo gets up, and merely sticks out his hand, stopping the Agents' bullets in midair. After another fistfight with Smith, Neo destroys him for good, and gets out. After Neo's escape, Morpheus activates an EMP to destroy a group of Sentinels (killing machines) that are invading the ship. Neo, now the One, has a fourth wall breaking conversation on a pay phone, and flies up into the sky, ending the movie.
The Matrix is an amazing movie. The effects still hold up even today, and the use of bullet time, which was a technique of slowing things down and getting a panning shot of a certain scene, was absolutely incredible. Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, and the rest of the cast was terrific, and I feel that this movie is still worth watching today as it was twenty years ago. Now, admittedly, there are some who were swept up by the hype of this movie and are starting to realize that it might not be as good as we all thought it was, but I'm not one of those people. While I may agree with that sentiment regarding the sequels, and I'll get to those another day, I still think the first film is a masterpiece of 90's cinema. By incorporating elements of cyber punk, anime, and martial arts films, the Wachowski's created a film that changed the look of action films for the next several years. Therefore, I give The Matrix a rating of 5/5. This is Chuck signing off. See you guys next time as 90's Throwback Month continues.
Released in the year 1999, the film focuses on a faction of humans who are able to perform incredible feats, and are on the run from green-suited Agents, who are able to perform similar feats, but are limited by the world they inhabit. It turns out that both parties are looking for a man named Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, who is met by one of the human Resistance fighters, Trinity, played by Carrie-Anne Moss. Trinity tell him that she knows that he's looking for the answer to a question that's been itching at the back of his mind: what is the Matrix?
The next morning, we see Neo working at a white collar job, where he is sent a cell phone, from which he is contacted by the mysterious Morpheus, played by Laurence Fishburne, who guides him away from the Agents. However, when Neo finds the escape route to be suicide, he goes away in the Agents custody willingly. The Agents, led by Agent Smith, played by Hugo Weaving, offer him a clean slate in return for leading them to Morpheus. Neo refuses, and is bugged by the Agents. Neo wakes up that evening, assuming that he just experienced a nightmare. Morpheus calls him, and instructs him to allocation, where he is picked up by Trinity and a few others. Trinity removed the bug and tosses it out the window. After leading him to Morpheus, Neo and Morpheus sit and have a chat regarding the nature of the Matrix: The Matrix is the world that is used to bling humanity from the truth, and humanity is trapped in a prison for the human mind. Morpheus then offers Neo a choice: take the blue pill and return to his normal life, or take the red pill and see the real truth. Neo chooses the red pill, and is taken to the next room, where he is drawn to an unusual mirror, and upon touching the mirror, Neo is covered by a shimmering substance that begins to cover him completely.
Neo wakes up in a strange, terrifying place, where he sees humans sleeping in large pods as part of what looks like a massive power station. After being inspected by some kind of machine, the plugs in Neo's body are unplugged, and Neo is sent down to another area, where he is picked up by Morpheus and his crew on board a ship called the Nebuchadnezzar. After a night of rebuilding muscles, Neo wakes up, now with some hair and clothes, and is greeted by Morpheus, who tells him that he's now in an undetermined year in the future. Neo is shown the truth, that sometime in the early 21st century, humanity created a new form of intelligence: A.I, which then led to an entire race of machines, upon which humanity went to war with the machines, and cloaked the sky with an eternal storm in a last ditch effort to stop the machines for good. However, the machines managed to find a new form of energy, and now humans are artificially grown and used as an energy source for the machines. The Matrix itself is a computer generated dream world built to keep human minds in a perpetual dream state in order to use their bodies for energy, like an organic battery of sorts. Neo is at first unable to accept this, and is left in a daze of confusion. The next morning, Neo is greeted by crewmember Tank, played by Marcus Chong, who hooks him up to the machine from which the crew enters the Matrix, and begins to download martial arts training programs into Neo's mind. Ten hours later, after learning a series of martial arts styles, Morpheus challenges Neo inside of a sparring program. Morpheus and Neo engage in a martial arts battle, which is among the more memorable moments of the movie, and Neo then continues his training with another series of programs, including jumping from rooftop to rooftop, and learning that most humans aren't ready to be unplugged yet, and some are too dependent on the Matrix to do so, and therefore can be overtaken by Agents, which are a trio of Sentient programs that move in and out of any software still hardwired to their system.
Days later, Morpheus and the crew leads Neo into the Matrix, where Neo is taken to the Oracle, played by Gloria Foster, who tells him that, in spite of what Morpheus thinks, Neo is not the One (an individual who has tremendous power within the Matrix and will save humanity from the Machines), and that Morpheus will sacrifice himself for Neo due to his belief. Upon returning to the house that they came from, the crew is attacked by SWAT teams and the Agents, upon which crew member Mouse is killed, and Morpheus sacrifices himself to get Neo out. Crew member Cypher gets out first, and having made a deal with the Agents to be re-inserted into the Matrix with no memory of what he learned, he kills both Tank and Tank's brother Dozer, and pulls the plugs of both Apoc and Switch, killing them. But just before pulling Neo's plug, Tank miraculously wakes up and kills Cypher. Tank then puts out the call, and both Trinity and Neo are brought back. Realizing what the Agents want with Morpheus, Tank decides that the best thing to do is pull the plug on Morpheus. However, Neo decides to go in and get Morpheus back. With Trinity at his side, the two re-enter the Matrix, armed to the teeth with a lot of weapons, where they shoot up the lobby of the building where the Agents are holding Morpheus. After making their way to the roof, and fighting more SWAT's and an Agent, Trinity and Neo fly the helicopter, shoot out the window, and rescue Morpheus.
After Morpheus and Trinity both get out, Neo engages in a fight with Agent Smith, and holds his own pretty well. After a pretty lengthy fight, Neo goes on the run, and calls fro Tank to get him an exit. Upon arriving, Neo is shot to death by Agent Smith. However, Trinity revives him with, and as cliché as it sounds, the power of love. Neo gets up, and merely sticks out his hand, stopping the Agents' bullets in midair. After another fistfight with Smith, Neo destroys him for good, and gets out. After Neo's escape, Morpheus activates an EMP to destroy a group of Sentinels (killing machines) that are invading the ship. Neo, now the One, has a fourth wall breaking conversation on a pay phone, and flies up into the sky, ending the movie.
The Matrix is an amazing movie. The effects still hold up even today, and the use of bullet time, which was a technique of slowing things down and getting a panning shot of a certain scene, was absolutely incredible. Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, and the rest of the cast was terrific, and I feel that this movie is still worth watching today as it was twenty years ago. Now, admittedly, there are some who were swept up by the hype of this movie and are starting to realize that it might not be as good as we all thought it was, but I'm not one of those people. While I may agree with that sentiment regarding the sequels, and I'll get to those another day, I still think the first film is a masterpiece of 90's cinema. By incorporating elements of cyber punk, anime, and martial arts films, the Wachowski's created a film that changed the look of action films for the next several years. Therefore, I give The Matrix a rating of 5/5. This is Chuck signing off. See you guys next time as 90's Throwback Month continues.
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