Hey folks, Harry here, and this movie can't get here quick enough for my blood. MATRIX looks sooooo good, but it does have the curse involved.... The Curse of Keanu... a strange rotting disease known to melt one's brain into a puddle. Let's hope this is one of those lucky films immune to the curse.... I've got my fingers crossed.

I'm a somewhat regular poster at your site and I thought you might be interested in reading a review of Matrix, which is having its press screenings this weekend. (Feel free to use this and edit at will.) I have a friend, etc, etc, who got my girlfriend and I in to see it. Here's the spoiler-free part: It was loud, fun, at times silly at other times (and fewer times) positively mind-bending in a good way. I'd recommend it as a Saturday afternoon matinee deal where you don't pay full price. It was visually stunning and best seen on the best screen in the best theater you can get to. However, it was very long (pushing 2 hours 30 minutes) and although some of the visuals were VERY impressive, some could have been cut. The plot is complex and interesting until its complexities begin to weigh down the pace. About halfway through I had figured out how things were going to go and started getting really bored waiting for them to happen. Overall, see it - it was visually stunning and has some fairly kick ass fight sequences, just don't pay full price.

FROM HERE ON THERE ARE TONS OF SPOILERS DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW... WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING!!!!

Here's the part with the spoilers: (Mind you, I am giving away all SORTS of things, so when I say "spoilers" I mean it!)

This movie was TRON, DARK CITY, AKIRA, GHOST IN THE SHELL, X-FILES, MEN IN BLACK (minus the comedy), PI, TRUMAN SHOW, RED DWARF (also minus the comedy) and probably a few others that I can't remember, all rolled into one. There was an awful lot of over-acting by the Men In Black and the expected under-acting by Keanu. The first half of the film was just fine. It did a really nice job of setting the story up without falling into the typical Hollywood formula of "too much, too soon". It left me guessing until everything was revealed, about halfway through the film. It setup up some really interesting elements. First, there are the good guys, the folks that Morpheous (Fishburne) pulled out of the "Matrix" (a kind of giant computer where humans are plugged in and entertained a la VR while sinister machines suck the energy off of them to fuel the machines), the machines that were originally created by man but eventually turned on them, and these virus-guys who are basically an interpretation of the Men In Black (they function as the bad guys).

It's at this point where things start to get fuzzy plot-wise. It seems that Morpheus thinks Keanu is "the One" - the reincarnated soul of the first guy to break out of the Matrix. Now this is where it's like AKIRA, the hi-techy future with the messiah figure who's returned to save the world. (There's a lot of other AKIRA stuff like exploding walls of glass and people flying through the air very unlike Superman.) However, we're not sure if Keanu is "the One" so they must go see "the Oracle" who ends up being a black woman that smokes too much. There is never any justification for why this "Oracle" person is represented as a black woman who sounds like Darth Vader with laryngitis. Nor is there an explanation given as to how or why she can see into the future. She claims Keanu is NOT "the One" and that Morpheus will give his life to protect Keanu's. Which Morpheus tries to do after one of his own people plays Judas in a sequence of scenes pulled quite obviously from the BIBLE (oh yeah and the city where other people freed from the Matrix live is called Zion - we never see the city, but we're assured it exists and is worth protecting.) Morpheus gets captured by the MiB's although this has nothing to do with the Oracle's prediction seeing as the MiB's don't want Keanu at all, they just want the access codes to the mainframe at Zion so they can break in and take the place over. So, rather than see Morpheus give up the codes or die, Keanu and the cute brunette (Trinity) go into the Matrix where the MiB's have him trapped and start killing everyone in sight. (Which doesn't make much sense since they're killing innocent people whom, when they are killed in the Matrix, die in their little chambers in the supposed "real" world.) In a scene WAY too reminiscent of TERMINATOR 2, they go into the building where Morpheus is being held (for some reason they can only enter the Matrix at inconvenient locales) kill loads of people and hide behind these poor innocent pillars that get blown to pieces. They can't seem to get in to where Morpheus is being held, so they get a helicopter (which neither know how to fly, but are quickly programmed with the knowledge by Tank their man in the "real" world) and rise up to the window of the office Morpheus is being held in. (Apparently, the machines that run the MiB guys didn't bother coming up with some cool underground hideout, opting for the easier to computer generate, empty office.) And, in a scene WILDLY reminiscent of TRUE LIES (with a pinch of T2), Keanu fires this massive gattling gun through the window and after firing off a rain shower of rounds, kills everyone BUT Morpheus. There's a ridiculously silly scene where Morpheus leaps out the window and hangs from Keanu who hangs from a rope tied to the helicopter. During which, the helicopter is damaged, crashes into a building while at the last minute allowing all to escape. Somehow their survival is confirmation that Keanu IS the One. I don't know why this is. The film continues on as Keanu and Trinity get Morpheus to a phone (the only way in or out of the Matrix for some unmentioned reason), Morpheus and Trinity escape, only to leave Keanu behind. He then must face the MiB guys that eventually he beats in some reasonably cool action scenes. It ends with him some how able to take over the entire Matrix (although he goes from what looks like him using the force - a la Star Wars - to suddenly being able to control the ENTIRE Matrix). He now runs the entire thing himself.

If my description was at all difficult to follow, it's because the film really tries to do a lot. Unfortunately it fails in many ways aside from providing spectacle. The film had SO much going on, so many elements lifted from other places, that no sooner would I note one strong similarity to a film when I would notice another strong similarity to another film.

Overall, the film reminded me of two movies more than any others. First, I thought of THE FIFTH ELEMENT because I felt like that film was just scotch taped together elements from a dozen other films, just like THE MATRIX. Second, I thought of DARK CITY. Structurally, this film WAS DARK CITY. THE MATRIX just had better fight choreography and SOME better FX sequences. Honestly, I preferred DARK CITY more because it was less complex. There were fewer plot elements to trip over in DARK CITY. See, in THE MATRIX, a plot element would pop up (like the Sentinels, CG machines that would attack the ship that was Morpheus' HQ in the "real" world) and it would invariably come back to haunt the characters later on. Now, if you're a good writer, you can introduce elements that aren't OBVIOUSLY things that are future thorns-in-our-hero's-side. The Whosiwhatsis Brothers (who wrote and directed the film) couldn't manage this. They kept adding more and more elements until the plot was literally like walking through a swamp. This allowed the plot to be wickedly predictable and really boring. It was always obvious what would come back and haunt these guys and it was very annoying having to wait for it. After the first half of the film, nothing was a surprise.

I think the filmmakers decided to throw everything they could at us (which they did) in hopes that we'd be distracted from the really derivative plot (which I was). THE MATRIX is eye candy - interesting to look at, but in the end, as fulfilling as a Snickers bar with no peanuts in it. Sure, it still has chocolate and caramel, but why not go with a Milky Way bar then? In the same sense, sure it's got great action sequences and hot chicks in tight, shiny leather, but why not go with DARK CITY, which has Jennifer Connelly and decent acting (not from her)? Like I said, see it on the best screen you can find and spend as little as you can get away with to get in

And here's The Legend of FireFly Marsh's review of the film...

Hey, please call me The Legend of Firefly Marsh. I have a little review of the Matrix, which I saw last Thursday, but I thought, what the hell, I'll drop a line on it.

This film is not, in my opinion, anything near golden, but it does have some very fascinating qualities that I think the average moviegoer would enjoy. They said it was the final print and no more changes were going to be made, but I somehow wish I could suggest a few, like cutting out 20 minutes of worthless jabber about the mysterious Matrix and what it is all about.

You see, to me, great sci-fi is shrouded in certain unexplainable mystery, kinda like Bladerunner or even Star Wars, where the cool comes from the fact you as the viewer are just "thrown in" to the action and not led gradually into the fun. Bladerunner makes you want to watch it again and again, just to go figure out what it seems it is all about. The Wachowski brothers are trying to emulate some of these great characteristics of awesome sci-fi, especially in the beginning when a nice dose of action and "What the hell is going on?!" is served up. But, the failing towards the middle of the piece is thatof the feeling like I'm watching lame sci-fi like Star Trek, where you have the "mysterious" Morpheus, who has been spending his entire existence since he became free of the matrix looking for his hero (not trying to spoil too much for you), jumping through a billion hoops of details to explain the matrix, the fate of the future world, and what is up with Neo's (Keanu Reeves) reality and such, when it would have been so much cooler if they'd done more show and less tell. But, that is just me, so I'm sure some will like it, like those guys who really wanna know how the positronic hyper conducter super engine drive thingymabopper functions on Trek tv shows. Freakin' physics students.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that if you're gonna sweat the details, don't do it in action sci-fi pics. Leave that on the soap operas. Take Total Recall, for instance, where you still sorta don't get who is who and what is what at the end... I remember that flick played for months, probably because it has awesome action but it manages to pique your interest in the plot, which you have to fully piece together.

As for some of the more important details that people will be frettin' about when it hits the googooplexes, I actually found semi-tolerable...i.e., Keanu Reeves. People hate him, and he can't act his way out of a paper bag, but I thought his character was so well written that he was able to play confused-to-why me?-to-I'll be a kick butt hero in just the right fashion. He does really seem like the perfect computer boy nerd who stumbles upon more than meets the eye who is drawn into a big fun mess. Ann-Moss, the leading lady, is very fun to watch, too. Acting is not a problem here, and if it makes you feel any better, Keanu is simply the worst of the bunch. Whoever it was who was playing Agent Smith, leader of the agent gang out to stop those out to stop the matrix, Morpheus, Neo, and all of them, is very, very very cool. The "agents" make the Men in Black look like pussyfootin' boy scouts. In movies like these the bad guys have always got to be way cooler to watch, and the bros deliver on that note.

Then, lastly, I suppose I should mention the action and special effects, the only real reason to pay money to watch this. The Matrix is almost like your perfect post-modernist compilation of pastiche filled action flicks of the nineties, coming right in at the end of the decade to make the perfect final note before George Lucas maybe raises the bar. You at many times are watching T2, True Lies, and just about any John Woo you can think of. But, the thing is, the Wachowskis will rank up there in the moviegeekdom's hall of fame some day, after a few more movies, for ripping stuff off like the Coen Brothers because they make it all look so much cooler then those who did it the first time.

All in all a high-class popcorn flick, but I have this feeling people will turn away from it because of Keanu and it's release date (April is not a great month for movies) and it will tank like Alien Ressurrection. I guess it ranks somewhere between ID4 and Godzilla at the low-end of popcorn to wait-for-video or not at all flicks and real deal Aliens/Batman(first one!)/Indiana Jones good time at the movies popcorn pictures. However, my more knowledged of filmic construction friend that I saw it with said it is total garbage, so I suppose I side more with you fan boys who just like movies that make there pupils go big.

Final note: I like some of the techno/rock sorta music, but I am VERY sick and tired of Dragula. Rob Zombie is a toad. Ugh, if they didn't play it so close to the beginning of the film, or not at all, I might have liked it better. Goddamned pop culture.