That's the reality which Neo, corporate computer programmer by day, hacker by
night, has to face up to, during his search to discover, "What is The Matrix ?",
when he is pulled out of the dream by Morpheus a previous escapee and leader of
the resistance.Morpheus believes Neo is The One, he who can save humanity by going back
into The Matrix, the all encompassing computer reality which enslaves the lives
of humanity, and destroy it.
And he does, well almost, he's off to a flying start anyway.
A racy Science Fiction / Action movie, following closely in the wake of
eXistenZ, with a fairly similar alternative
reality plot.
Not quite so atmospheric as Dark City and not
as dynamic as Blade but it held its own well. Some of
the action scenes were a little contrived, the A-Team spirit lives on, and,
it must be asked, if The Agents had already mastered the nuances of a reality
where physics and matter could be bent by will, why waste time kicking and
punching citizens back into line when there were much better, and more
spectacular, solutions to hand ?
But the point of the film wasn't the kick-boxer fighting, and it obviously
wasn't the less than perfect screenplay; the concept was however brilliant.
There have been many, "We're living a dream", films but few have pulled off
the ability to assault and confuse the viewer with so many possibilities as
to which reality is real so well. Indeed, the realisation that Neo had indeed
been rescued took time to sink in, eased along so well that it was
hard to even consider that what we finally took for reality may well have
been Neo's dream. Neat plot handling to say the least.
The kernel of the tale, that having created Artificial Intelligence, humanity's
attempts to destroy it turns us into nothing more than batteries to sustain
its continued existence, was quickly and compactly handled leaving the
audience to do the moralising on our own future ventures.
Judgement on Cypher, the traitor who wants to hand Neo over before he has a
chance to destroy The Matrix, was also left in our hands; the religious
overtones of the film were kept quietly hidden in the background but were
unavoidable.
Cypher's arguments that humanity would be better off, kept in ignorance in
the artificial world created around them, than having to face up to a world
where the earth had been ravished and destroyed by marauding robotic
intelligence was never covered in any depth. Socrates himself considered
similar questions of ignorance and supposed bliss. As with
Pleasantville, the Prime Directive, was
ridden over, roughshod.
For a film that draws so much from others, it is remarkable that it held up
so well. In truth, it never stole nor plagiarised, it simply covered much
of the same ground.
And it covered that ground remarkable well. Fears that it could turn into the
world's longest Smirnov advert were soon dispelled, after the latest
visual trickery was over and done with, and, what was primarily an action
film, left enough food for thought to make it thoroughly enjoyable.
