What The Matrix Means to Us
I’d honestly never seen a movie as cool as The Matrix when it came out. I mean there was some cool stuff – Blade Runner comes to mind – but nothing with that heady mix of philosophy, cyberpunk, cutting-edge special effects and “kung-fu.” It seemed to come out of nowhere, and blasted all our brains with cool idea after cool idea and awesome image afte awesome image. None of that was going to work worth a damn without great characters, though, and we got those in spades as well – Morphius, Trinity, Agent Smith. And of course, there’s Neo.
Hard to believe now that Reeves was the sixth choice for the Wachowskis after people like Will Smith and Leonardo DiCaprio, but it was a different time. I can’t imagine the character as anyone but Reeves, though. From simple Thomas Anderson who spends his nights as hacker “Neo” to reluctant action hero and savior to, finally, an almost godlike superman, Reeves’ flat affect and simple charisma work some undefinable magic to win us over and get us to root for him, even when he’s getting his ass kicked by Agent Smith. At its heart it’s a simple story, despite all the glitzy distractions, and that’s why I still love it and this character so much. I wanted to see him survive, I wanted to see him win, and I wanted him to be The One.
And I still kinda want to be able to download stuff to my mind, so I can know kung-fu.
–Bob Cram
If I were to make a list of things I love to see in movies, two things would definitely be high on the list: 1) Keanu Reeves and 2) a woman kicking ass. I’ve been a fan of Keanu since he stepped into a phone booth with George Carlin and time traveled for a history report. I’ve been a fan of ass-kicking women on screen since She-Ra. So you can imagine my delight that at the peak of my teen years, these two loves were combined into this mind-blowing piece of cinema history. I distinctly remember the world losing its mind over the acrobatic, slow-mo infused fight scenes and philosophically dense plot, but for me it has always been the people that made the movie. Keanu may not be the most nuanced of actors, but he does what he does most excellently. He’s also an amazing human being, which makes him that much more enjoyable to watch. Carrie-Anne Moss is beautiful, earnest and absolutely badass as Trinity, both inside the Matrix and out of it. There are very few people who can pull of the level of cool that Laurence Fishburne exudes as Morpheus. And of course, Hugo Weaving’s eyebrows are on point as Agent Smith, one of my favorite villains.
–R. J. Mathews
Follow the White Rabbit
Later this year A24’s Y2K, a horror comedy flick directed by Kyle Mooney, will release in theaters across the country. 25 years after the fact, moviegoers will happily laugh alongside the notion that our fears of technological doom completely gripped us to the point where we thought we’d all perish at the hands of our computers.
However, in 1999, that fear was very real. The Y2K panic, as silly as it may be at face value, was indicative of our larger (and very real) anxieties about the increasingly prevalent, and borderline dominant, role that technology had in our lives and the potential control that it could have over them.
All of which is to say that the contextual cultural backdrop was primed for a film like The Matrix to come along and sweep audiences off their feet.
The concept seems quite bizarre, almost silly, at first – a software engineer who moonlights as a hacker named Neo searches for a mysterious figure called Morpheus in order to find out the truth about something called “The Matrix.” However, as we go deeper into the story, its world is revealed, and the mythos continues to unravel in ways awe and inspire.
It becomes clear along the way that the film is both conceptually rich and emotionally raw. And once you are fully down the rabbit hole that is The Matrix, the experience becomes every bit as enjoyable as the magical one that Alice took into her Wonderland.
Trinity and the One
Neo’s journey of figuring out that he is indeed “The One” who will liberate the captive human race from the oppression of the robotic overlords is in many ways a classic hero’s tale. An unsuspecting loner is guided by a wise old sage to defeat a force of unimaginable evil and falls in love along the way. It’s a tried-and-true form of storytelling, but one that every author can make their own.
Lilly and Lana Wachowski do just that here. They make their hero’s journey unique and fresh. Narrative conventions are paired with over-the-top cyberpunk world building and metaphysical philosophical wonder. Neo’s arc from nobody to badass is played masterfully by Keanu Reeves, who perfectly captures the bewilderment of learning he’s a prophesied figure, and has the swagger to pull off being a fully realized version of the story’s messiah.
The Christ figure might be the most played out literary tool in Western media, but sometimes it has a way of hitting if done correctly. In The Matrix, beyond Neo’s obvious stand in as a Christ-like figure are the references to the entire Holy Trinity, with Morpheus standing in as the “Father” and Trinity as the “Holy Spirit.”
As the fatherly leader of the story’s resistance group, Morpheus is the only one with the knowledge to guide Neo through his journey. And when Neo sacrifices himself for the people (a staple of any good Christ allegory), it is only through Trinity’s “Holy Spirit” love that he’s able to be resurrected. The story remains Neo’s at its core, but the three leads are inextricably linked in their battle for salvation.
I Know Kung Fu
The influence for The Matrix runs far and wide. Beyond being a deeply heady philosophical sci-fi movie, it’s also an incredibly great action movie. The Wachowskis admiration for kung fu cinema is evident in every fight sequence.
In order to choreograph and shoot the fight scenes in ways that highlight that the film’s stars are performing the stunts themselves, Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne, and Hugo Weaving all took a four-month trip to Hong Kong to work and train with legendary kung fu filmmaker, Yuen Woo-ping for four months before filming began.
That hard work and dedication paid off in the final product. Seeing the stars actually complete the moves that their characters are acting out goes a long way. In addition to the actor’s physical commitment was the preparation and coordination done by The Wachowskis.
Alongside their stunt coordination teams, the directors meticulously shot “blocking tapes” which are essentially moving storyboards to help visualize the way a fight scene will flow before actually shooting for the film – a practice that has become an essentially lost art form due to the advanced technology available to filmmaker these days (the irony is staggering).
The visual language of The Matrix is as juicy as it gets in 20th Century cinema. The story was initially conceptualized as a comic book series before eventually finding itself as a major motion picture.
With inventive new ways of capturing images, like the brilliant “bullet time”, The Wachowski sisters and their incredible visual effects coordinator, John Gaeta, created a fairly revolutionary visual potential for live action cinema.
Another obvious influence on the movie is Japanese animation, which was almost impossible to replicate for a live action movie until the CGI technology of the late 1990s developed to a point where it finally became conceivable.
In a film full of singularly breathtaking shots, one in particular that stands out as both a testament to the film’s groundbreaking technical achievement and magnificent visual density comes towards the end of the movie:
Once Neo has resurrected himself within The Matrix, he visualizes that world in it’s truest form – computer code. As he takes a deep breath and flexes his newfound cyber-muscles, the code mimics his inhale and exhale and flexes with him. In order to defeat the evil technology, he must fully master it and become one with it.
It is in this moment that we understand that his transformation has become complete.
Wake Up
The angst of The Matrix is hilariously summed up in what is in many ways a ridiculously on the nose needle drop. The decision to end the film with Rage Against the Machine’s “Wake Up” fits a little ~too~ well with the overall message of the movie. But for some reason it’s hard to do anything but chuckle and enjoy the lack of subtly. Perhaps the obvious choice is sometimes the right choice.
The Matrix’s ending is a call to action. A righteous plea to the noble warriors out there to fight the system in the same way that our brave protagonist does. In 1999 as fans poured out of the theaters after witnessing The Matrix they engaged in spirited debates about what systems exactly they needed to fight and what the film was actually all about.
Are we really living in a simulation? What if the robots and computers actually do control us? Is there any meaning in our existence? Is there no spoon? Where can I buy those sunglasses and black duster jacket?
The best film’s spark conversation. They ignite curiosities. The Matrix has stimulated deep debates about life and meaning since its release and up to and through this day.
Legacy
Few movies, if any, perfectly encapsulate the changing tides of a transitional period’s sensibilities (both within the film industry and the culture at large) in the ways that The Matrix is able to.
1999 is rightfully marked as one of the most significant years in movie history. Not only were there countless great movies released that year, but it helped usher in a new age for the industry at large. Sitting right within the middle of all of that is The Matrix. It’s not only an incredibly impressive film but it serves as the perfect poster child for what Americans were thinking about in 1999.
It was as much a warning of what could come as much as it was a reflection of what had happened. The tech anxieties of 2024 feel like an eerily similar reality to what The Matrix’s tech anxieties were warning us could happen in 1999.
The Matrix continues to entertain us, inform us, and inspire us all of these years later. And there’s no doubt that it will continue do so going forward.
That’s gotta be the ultimate indicator of a film worthy of The Canon.
Share your The Matrix trivia or memories down in the comments below!
