Don't you just love the language of post-modernism? Nowadays, what Tom Lehrer referred to as "research" and universities used to call "plagiarism", is now more correctly designated as "homage". Of all the movies you're likely to see this year, The Matrix is the most homageful movie you'll find. Every scene was researched from somewhere else ...
Yet The Matrix is the first genuine hit of the year and is a marvellous looking movie. It even has some vague pretensions to thought-provocation. So was it the borrowings that spoiled it for me or something else? I know I came out of the theatre more than somewhat dissatisfied and I'd like to think I know why.
So let's start with the good bits. This movie looks great. It is a genuine special effects wonder. The editing, the camera work, the look-and-feel, they're all first class. This is an achievement, especially considering how much of the movie is, in fact, the effects and the look. There might be a case, one day, where the sfx are enough, where the "wow" factor is able to outbalance the other concerns, but The Matrix is not that case.
The movie is strongly plot-driven, so the story is important. The first 'McGuffin' is strangely reminiscent of another sfx-based movie made in Australia last year. (What is it about modern movies that they seem to travel in pairs: two asteroid movies; two Elizabethan movies; and now two it's-all-a-virtual-reality-to-lull-us-into-serving-the-aliens/computers movies.) Dark City is a largely original concept where the lullers are aliens from a dying race, seeking to use humanity to rediscover the ability to breed and to continue. It is as the name suggests a 'dark' movie, with little redeeming light. In The Matrix, the lullers are AI who, for reasons too difficult to explain, although the movie-makers had a go at so doing, keep humanity in a state of virtual reality in order to use us as a power source. It's one of those ideas which doesn't bear close scrutiny, yet it is the basic tenet of the movie. The main difference between The Matrix and Dark City is that this film is much lighter in tone (and in the more literal sense as well).
A second plot device is that there are a band of humans who can escape the virtual world and be reborn into the 'real' world and then, through computers, be reinserted into the virtual world, with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. There they have to confront the watchdog programs of the computer masters, manifested as even more powerful and abilitied mortals. This idea has merit but, on the whole, I preferred the way in which William Gibson played with a similar idea in Neuromancer and other stories set in the same continuum.
The third leg of the plot triad is that the guardian programs meet the inserted human's meta-selves in a series of well-choreographed martial ballets, that are derived from the modern series of computer combat games and from the eastern school of well choreographed martial films. The stunt people used for these scenes are, in fact, the same ones who are largely responsible for the Hong Kong martial arts films.
So, three plots bases and each is derived from other sources. Not a way to win me over.
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The acting is pretty good - with a notable, and very important, exception. Laurence Fishburne gives gravitas to the role of Morpheus, the rebel leader, and, with some accent problems aside, Hugo Weaving makes a good chief baddie. Carrie-Anne Fisher is the female romantic lead, Trinity. It is unfortunate that she is given a strong action-based opening five minutes and then reduced largely to window-dressing for the rest of the movie. Her character might have made a more compelling protagonist than Keanu Reeves'. Keanu is the problem. It's not just that Neo is under-written and uninteresting, it is that Reeves gives one of the more narcoleptic performances I've ever witnessed. In some action movies, the passivity of his approach to the part might work - it has for Nicolas Cage and Harrison Ford, among others. But here, given the centrality of his character, it's a major spoiler.
And then there is the Peter Pan/ET scene. The ending is compromised because the writers cannot work out a way of resolving their scenario without the resurrection scene. In this case, Tinker Bell does her magic on the remnant corpse of the hero, no-one has to clap hands or anything. "This isn't Kansas, Neo; it's Never-Never Land". And, even allowing for the resurrection, what is the ending supposed to mean. If Neo can fiddle with the virtual reality, can he change the 'real' reality and bring back all the battery humans when the AI shuts down? Or is there a sequel waiting to happen?
A further cause for my unease was that the writers fell back on a series of climatic fights to resolve the situation. Throughout the movie, Fishburne's character had been establishing the moral and intellectual rationale for the human victory. Thus it ever was for those unable logically to resolve their plots and thus it remains. Shame really because the Wachowski Brothers, who wrote and directed this, made an extremely well-written and tightly plotted caper movie, Bound, earlier. Perhaps another case where, given the size of the budget, their reach so far exceeded their grasp that they over-stepped themselves.
As a visual feast, I really enjoyed The Matrix up to a point. But the collective idiocies mounted up and wore down that goodwill. I left the theatre less than happy when I should have been transported far more effectively. The Truman Show and Gattaca show that well-written movie sf is possible. But it has to start with the writing. The Matrix is just not well enough written to carry it off.
[Note: Information about the movies mentioned, including cast and crew lists and all sorts of trivia, is available at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).]