Classics Review- The Matrix

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                                                          *photo from msu.edu*

  With this movie, I am not sure it falls too much into the classics genre. I suppose though, if you look at it in terms of science fiction, I guess, it could be looked at as a classic. So here we go, a dive into the 1999 film, "The Matrix".
   Neo ( Keanu Reeves), lives the double life, one as a computer programer for a big company. The other being a computer hacker for the criminal underworld. What drove Neo was that he always thought there was more out there for him than the life that he had. His life would begin to change the night he goes to a club and meets Trinity (Carrie- Ann Moss), and she tells him there is more than the life he has. She takes him to meet Morpheus ( Lawerence Fishburne), who gives him the choice choice as to be "reborn" or to stay in the life that he currently has. He obviously, choses to reborn. He is trained by the crew of the ship he ends up on, the Nebuchadnezzar. They are the resistance against the machines and in the matrix, lead by the agents (Hugo Weaving, Paul Goddard, and Robert Taylor). In the real world it is lead by machines, known as sentinels. So can Neo and company save what is left of the real world? Spoiler alert: you will have to wait till the third film to find out.
    First I want to start out with, what I love the most about this film. Even more than all of the special effects, my favorite thing about it is Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving). His performance is so menacing. Weaving finds a way to keep it within range, and not go over the top. When re watching this film, all I could think was, this was my favorite villain.
   A lot of times, when people look at this movie, it has to do with how great the effects are for it.  For the 2000 Oscars, it won four total, all in the effects department. The way I look at it though, is not through 1999 eyes, it is through 2018 eyes. Watching this today, there are effects that work, and than ones that do not. One that works would be the helicopter, explosion towards the end of the film. One that did not work for me was the robot that freed him from the tubes when he was "reborn". Not all things are created equal when it comes to visual effects in movies.
    The final thing to discuss for this film is the story. Even in 1999, robots taking over was not a new thing. Taking on the robots in two separate realities, did help it, for me at least for me. For me, my biggest issues out of the whole thing was the story line that Cypher was given. For those who do not know Cypher was recruited by the agents to help crush the resistance. How could you have gotten in and out of the matrix without the help of anyone on the ship, or even anyone noticing? Chalk it up to movie magic, I guess.
    In the end, the movie is pretty well made visually, in terms of 1999, even if the story is a tad silly.
GRADE:B+           



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