The Matrix

"Follow the White Rabbit" redirects here. For the Gotham episode, see Mad City: Follow the White Rabbit.
This article is about the 1999 film. For the franchise it initiated, see The Matrix (franchise). For other uses, see Matrix (disambiguation).
The Matrix

Theatrical release poster
Directed by The Wachowski Brothers
Produced by Joel Silver
Written by The Wachowski Brothers
Starring
Music by Don Davis
Cinematography Bill Pope
Edited by Zach Staenberg
Production
companies
Distributed by
Release dates
  • March 31, 1999 (1999-03-31) (United States)
  • April 8, 1999 (1999-04-08) (Australia)
Running time
 136 minutes[2]
Country
  • Australia[3]
  • United States[3]
Language English
Budget $63 million[4]
Box office $463.5 million[4]

The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction film written and directed by The Wachowskis, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano. It depicts a dystopian future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality called "the Matrix", created by sentient machines to subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. Computer programmer "Neo" learns this truth and is drawn into a rebellion against the machines, which involves other people who have been freed from the "dream world".

The Matrix is known for popularizing a visual effect known as "bullet time", in which the heightened perception of certain characters is represented by allowing the action within a shot to progress in slow-motion while the camera's viewpoint appears to move through the scene at normal speed. The film is an example of the cyberpunk science fiction genre.[5] It contains numerous references to philosophical and religious ideas, and prominently pays homage to works such as Plato's Allegory of the Cave,[6] Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation[7] and Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.[8] The Wachowskis' approach to action scenes drew upon their admiration for Japanese animation[9] and martial arts films, and the film's use of fight choreographers and wire fu techniques from Hong Kong action cinema was influential upon subsequent Hollywood action film productions.

The Matrix was first released in the United States on March 31, 1999, and grossed over $460 million worldwide. It was generally well-received by critics,[10][11] and won four Academy Awards as well as other accolades including BAFTA Awards and Saturn Awards. Reviewers praised The Matrix for its innovative visual effects, cinematography and its entertainment. The film's premise was both criticized for being derivative of earlier science fiction works, and praised for being intriguing. The action also polarized critics, some describing it as impressive, but others dismissing it as a trite distraction from an interesting premise.

The film has since appeared in lists of the greatest science fiction films,[12][13][14] and in 2012, was added to the National Film Registry for preservation.[15] The success of the film led to the release of two feature film sequels, both written and directed by the Wachowskis: The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. The Matrix franchise was further expanded through the production of comic books, video games and animated short films in which the Wachowskis were heavily involved.

Plot

Trinity, an infamous hacker, is cornered by police in an abandoned hotel. She overpowers them with superhuman abilities and escapes, but a group of sinister and superhuman black-suited Agents lead the police in a rooftop pursuit. She answers a ringing public telephone and vanishes.

Thomas Anderson is a computer programmer living a double life under the hacker alias "Neo". He believes something is wrong with the world and is puzzled by repeated online encounters with the cryptic phrase "the Matrix". Trinity contacts him, saying that a man named Morpheus can explain its meaning; however, the Agents, led by Agent Smith, apprehend Neo at his office. Undeterred, Neo meets Morpheus, who offers him a choice between a red pill that will allow him to learn the truth about the Matrix, and a blue pill that will return him to his old life. Swallowing the red pill, Neo's reality disintegrates and he awakens, naked and weak, in a liquid-filled pod, finding himself one of countless people connected by cables to an elaborate electrical system. He is rescued and brought aboard Morpheus's hovercraft, the Nebuchadnezzar.

Morpheus explains that, in the 21st century, humans waged a war against intelligent machines that they had created. When humans blocked the machines' access to solar energy, the machines began to harvest the humans' bioelectricity for power. The Matrix is a shared simulation of the world as it was in 1999 in which the minds of the harvested humans are trapped and pacified; Neo has been living in it since birth. Morpheus and his crew belong to a group of rebels who hack into the Matrix and "unplug" enslaved humans, recruiting them as rebels. The rebels' understanding of the true nature of the simulated reality allows them to bend its physical laws, granting them superhuman abilities. Neo is warned that fatal injuries within the Matrix will also kill one's physical body, and that the Agents he encountered are powerful sentient programs that eliminate threats to the system. Neo's skill during virtual combat training lends credence to Morpheus's belief that Neo is "the One", a man prophesied to lead the insurrection of enslaved humans against the machines.

The group enters the Matrix to visit the Oracle, a prophet who predicted the emergence of the One. She implies that Neo is not the One, and warns Neo that he will soon have to choose between his life and the life of Morpheus. Before they can leave the Matrix, the group is ambushed by Agents and tactical police. Morpheus allows himself to be captured so that Neo and the crew can escape. However, their getaway is hindered by Cypher, a crew member who betrayed Morpheus to Agent Smith in exchange for a comfortable life within the Matrix. Cypher disconnects and murders several crew members as they lie defenseless in the real world. He then prepares to disconnect Neo and Trinity as well, but is confronted and killed by Tank, a crewman whom he had left for dead.

In the Matrix, the Agents interrogate Morpheus in an attempt to learn his access codes to the mainframe computer in Zion, the rebel humans' last refuge in the real world. Tank proposes killing Morpheus to prevent this, but Neo, who believes that he is not the One, instead resolves to return to the Matrix to rescue Morpheus, and Trinity insists on accompanying him. They succeed in rescuing Morpheus, and in doing so Neo gains the necessary confidence in his abilities, performing feats on par with those of the Agents. Morpheus and Trinity exit the Matrix, but Neo is forced to fight Smith after the latter intervenes and thwarts his escape. Outmatched, Neo attempts to find an exit while fleeing from the Agents; he eventually manages to locate an exit in an apartment, only to run into Smith and be fatally shot upon arriving there. In the real world, "sentinel" machines attack the Nebuchadnezzar, while Trinity stands over Neo and whispers to him that the Oracle told her that she would fall in love with the One. She kisses Neo, and he revives, this time with the power to perceive and control the Matrix. He effortlessly destroys Smith and then leaves the Matrix in time for the ship's electromagnetic pulse weapon to disable the attacking sentinels.

Some time later, Neo makes a telephone call in the Matrix, promising the machines that he will show their prisoners "a world where anything is possible". He hangs up and flies into the sky.

Cast

Production

Development

In 1994, the Wachowskis presented the script for the film Assassins to Warner Brothers. After Lorenzo di Bonaventura, the president of production of the company at the time, read the script, he decided to buy rights to it and included two more pictures, Bound and The Matrix, in the contract. The first movie the Wachowskis directed, Bound, then became a critical success. Using this momentum, the siblings later asked to direct The Matrix.[6]

Producer Joel Silver soon joined the project. Although the project had key supporters like Silver and Di Bonaventura to influence the company, The Matrix was still a huge investment for Warner Bros, which had to invest $60 million to create a movie with deep philosophical ideas and difficult special effects.[6] The Wachowskis therefore hired underground comic book artists Geof Darrow and Steve Skroce to draw a 600-page, shot-by-shot storyboard for the entire film.[31] The storyboard eventually earned the studio's approval, and it was decided to film in Australia to make the most of the budget.[6] Soon, The Matrix became a co-production of Warner Bros. and the Australian company Village Roadshow Pictures.[32]

Pre-production

The actors of the film were required to be able to understand and explain The Matrix.[6] Simulacra and Simulation was required reading for most of the principal cast and crew.[33] Reeves stated that the Wachowskis had him read Simulacra and Simulation, Out of Control, and Evolutionary Psychology even before they opened up the script,[16] and eventually he was able to explain all the philosophical nuances involved.[6] Moss commented that she had difficulty with this process.[16]

The directors had also been admirers of Hong Kong action cinema for a long time, so they decided to hire the Chinese martial arts choreographer and film director Yuen Woo-ping to work on fight scenes. To prepare for the wire fu, the actors had to train hard for several months.[6] The Wachowskis first scheduled four months for training. Woo-ping was optimistic but then began to worry when he realized how unfit the actors were.[24]

Woo-ping let their body style develop and then worked with each actor's strength. He built on Reeves' diligence, Fishburne's resilience, Weaving's precision, and Moss's feminine grace.[24] Woo-ping designed Moss' moves to suit her deftness and lightness.[34] Prior to the pre-production, Reeves suffered a two-level fusion of his cervical spine which had begun to cause paralysis in his legs, requiring him to undergo neck surgery. He was still recovering by the time of pre-production, but he insisted on training, so Woo-ping let him practice punches and lighter moves. Reeves trained hard and even requested training on days off. However, the surgery still made him unable to kick for two out of four months of training. As a result, Reeves did not kick much in the film.[24] Weaving had to undergo a hip surgery after he sustained an injury during the training process.[6]

Production design

In the film, the code that composes the Matrix itself is frequently represented as downward-flowing green characters. This code uses a custom typeface designed by Simon Whiteley,[32] which includes mirror images of half-width kana characters and Western Latin letters and numerals.[35] The color green reflects the green tint commonly used on early monochrome computer monitors.[36] Lynne Cartwright, the Visual Effects Supervisor at Animal Logic, supervised the creation of the film's opening title sequence, as well as the general look of the Matrix code throughout the film, in collaboration with Lindsay Fleay and Justen Marshall.[32] The portrayal resembles the opening credits of the 1995 Japanese cyberpunk film, Ghost in the Shell, which had a strong influence on the Matrix series (see below).[35] It was also used in the subsequent films, on the related website, and in the game The Matrix: Path of Neo, and its drop-down effect is reflected in the design of some posters for the Matrix series. The code received the Runner-up Award in the 1999 Jesse Garson Award for In-film typography or opening credit sequence.[32]

The Matrix's production designer, Owen Paterson, used methods to distinguish the "real world" and the Matrix in a pervasive way. The production design team generally placed a bias towards the Matrix code's distinctive green color in scenes set within the simulation, whereas there is an emphasis on the color blue during scenes set in the "real world". In addition, the Matrix scenes' sets were slightly more decayed, monolithic, and grid-like, to convey the cold, logical and artificial nature of that environment. For the "real world", the actors' hair was less styled, their clothing had more textile content, and the cinematographers used longer lenses to soften the backgrounds and emphasize the actors.[35]

The Nebuchadnezzar was designed to have a patched-up look, instead of clean, cold and sterile space ship interior sets as used on films like Star Trek. The wires were made visible to show the ship's working internals, and each composition was carefully designed to convey the ship as "a marriage between Man and Machine".[37] For the scene when Neo wakes up in the pod connected to the Matrix, the pod was constructed to look dirty, used, and sinister. During the testing of a breathing mechanism in the pod, the tester suffered hypothermia in under eight minutes, so the pod had to be heated.[38]

Kym Barrett, costume designer, said that she defined the characters and their environment by their costume.[39] For example, Reeves' office costume was designed for Thomas Anderson to look uncomfortable, disheveled, and out of place.[40] Barrett sometimes used three types of fabric for each costume, and also had to consider the practicality of the acting. The actors needed to perform martial art actions in their costume, hang upside-down without people seeing up their clothing, and be able to work the wires while strapped into the harnesses.[39] For Trinity, Barrett experimented with how each fabric absorbed and reflected different types of light, and was eventually able to make Trinity's costume mercury-like and oil-slick to suit the character.[34] For the Agents, their costume was designed to create a secret service, undercover look, resembling the film JFK.[29]

The sunglasses, a staple to the film's aesthetics, were commissioned for the film to designer Richard Walker from sunglass maker Blinde Design.[41]

Filming

All but a few scenes were filmed at Fox Studios in Sydney, and in the city itself, although recognizable landmarks were not included in order to maintain the impression of a generic American city. The filming helped establish New South Wales as a major film production center.[42] Filming commenced on March 1998 and wrapped on August 1998, the principal photography took 118 days.[38]

Due to Reeves' neck injury, some of the action scenes had to be rescheduled to wait for his full recovery. As a result, the filming began with scenes that did not require much physical exertion,[40] such as the scene in Thomas Anderson's office, the interrogation room,[29] or the car ride in which Neo is taken to see the Oracle.[43] Locations for these scenes included Martin Place's fountain in Sydney, half-way between it and the adjacent Colonial Building, and the Colonial Building itself.[44] During the scene set on a government building rooftop, the team filmed extra footage of Neo dodging bullets in case the bullet time process did not work.[45]

Moss performed the shots featuring Trinity at the beginning of the film and all the wire stunts herself.[34] The rooftop set that Trinity uses to escape from Agent Brown early in the film was left over from the production of Dark City, which has prompted comments due to the thematic similarities of the films.[46] During the rehearsal of the lobby scene, in which Trinity runs on a wall, Moss injured her leg and was ultimately unable to film the shot in one take. She stated that she was under a lot of pressure at the time and was devastated when she realized that she would be unable to do it.[47]

The dojo set was built well before the actual filming. During the filming of these action sequences, there was significant physical contact between the actors, earning them bruises. Because of Reeves's injury and his insufficient training with wires prior to the filming, he was unable to perform the triple kicks satisfactorily and became frustrated with himself, causing the scene to be postponed. The scene was shot successfully a few days later, with Reeves using only three takes. Woo-ping altered the choreography and made the actors pull their punches in the last sequence of the scene, creating a training feel.[48]

For the subway scene, the set was first planned to be shot in a real subway station, but due to the amount of the actions and the wire works, the decision was made to shoot on set. The set was built around an existing train storage facility, which had real train tracks. Filming the scene when Neo slammed Smith into the ceiling, Chad Stahelski, Reeves' stunt double, sustained several injuries, including broken ribs, knees, and a dislocated shoulder. Another stuntman was injured by a hydraulic puller during a shot where Neo was slammed into a booth.[49] The office building in which Smith interrogated Morpheus was a large set, and the outside view of the building was a large, several-story high sheet of background. The helicopter was a full-scale light-weight mock-up, and its blades were added post-production by the visual effects team.[50]

To prepare for the scene in which Neo wakes up in a pod, Reeves lost 15 pounds and shaved his whole body to give Neo an emaciated look. The scene in which Neo fell into the sewer system concluded the principal photography.[38] According to The Art of the Matrix, at least one filmed scene and a variety of short pieces of action were omitted from the final cut of the film.[51]

Visual effects

Video sample of the film
The "bullet time" effect was created for the film. A scene would be computer modeled to decide the positioning of the physical cameras. The actor then provided their performance in a chroma key setup, while the cameras were fired in rapid succession, with fractions of a second delay between each shot. The result was combined with CGI backgrounds to create the final effect at (0:33).
As for artistic inspiration for bullet time, I would credit Otomo Katsuhiro, who co-wrote and directed Akira, which definitely blew me away, along with director Michel Gondry. His music videos experimented with a different type of technique called view-morphing and it was just part of the beginning of uncovering the creative approaches toward using still cameras for special effects. Our technique was significantly different because we built it to move around objects that were themselves in motion, and we were also able to create slow-motion events that 'virtual cameras' could move around – rather than the static action in Gondry's music videos with limited camera moves.
— John Gaeta[52]

The film is known for popularizing a visual effect[53] known as "bullet time", which allows a shot to progress in slow-motion while the camera appears to move through the scene at normal speed.[54] Bullet time has been described as "a visual analogy for privileged moments of consciousness within the Matrix",[55] and throughout the film, the effect is used to illustrate characters' exertion of control over time and space.[56] The Wachowskis first imagined an action sequence that slowed time while the camera pivoted rapidly around the subjects, and proposed the effect in their screenplay for the film. When John Gaeta read the script, he pleaded with an effects producer at Manex Visual Effects to let him work on the project, and created a prototype that led to him becoming the film's visual effects supervisor.[57]

The method used for creating these effects involved a technically expanded version of an old art photography technique known as time-slice photography, in which an array of cameras are placed around an object and triggered simultaneously. Each camera is a still-picture camera not a motion picture camera, and it contributes just one frame to the video sequence. When those pictures are shown in sequence, they create the effect of "virtual camera movement"; the illusion of a viewpoint moving around an object that appears frozen in time.[54]

The bullet time effect is similar but slightly more complicated, incorporating temporal motion so that rather than appearing totally frozen, the scene progresses in slow and variable motion.[52][57] The cameras' positions and exposures were previsualized using a 3D simulation. Instead of firing the cameras simultaneously, the visual effect team fired the cameras fractions of a second after each other, so that each camera could capture the action as it progressed, creating a super slow-motion effect.[54] When the frames were put together, the resulting slow-motion effects reached a frame frequency of 12,000 per second, as opposed to the normal 24 frames per second of film.[6] Standard movie cameras were placed at the ends of the array to pick up the normal speed action before and after. Because the cameras circle the subject almost completely in most of the sequences, computer technology was used to edit out the cameras that appeared in the background on the other side.[54] To create backgrounds, Gaeta hired George Borshukov, who created 3D models based on the geometry of buildings and used the photographs of the buildings themselves as texture.

The photo-realistic surroundings generated by this method were incorporated into the bullet time scene,[57] and linear interpolation filled in any gaps of the still images to produce a fluent dynamic motion;[58] the computer-generated "lead in" and "lead out" slides were filled in between frames in sequence to get an illusion of orbiting the scene.[59] Manex Visual Effects used a cluster farm running the Unix-like operating system FreeBSD to render many of the film's visual effects.[60][61]

Manex also handled creature effects, such as Sentinels and machines in real world scenes; Animal Logic created the code hallway and the exploding Agent at the end of the film. DFilm managed scenes that required heavy use of digital compositing, such as Neo's jump off a skyscraper and the helicopter crash into a building. The ripple effect in the latter scene was created digitally, but the shot also included practical elements, and months of extensive research were needed to find the correct kind of glass and explosives to use. The scene was shot by colliding a quarter-scale helicopter mock-up into a glass wall wired to concentric rings of explosives; the explosives were then triggered in sequence from the center outward, to create a wave of exploding glass.[62]

The photogrametric and image-based computer-generated background approaches in The Matrix's bullet time evolved into innovations unveiled in the sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. The method of using real photographs of buildings as texture for 3D models eventually led the visual effect team to digitize all data, such as scenes, characters' motions and expressions. It also led to the development of "Universal Capture", a process which samples and stores facial details and expressions at high resolution. With these highly detailed collected data, the team were able to create virtual cinematography in which characters, locations, and events can all be created digitally and viewed through virtual cameras, eliminating the restrictions of real cameras.[57]

Sound effects and music

Dane A. Davis was responsible for creating the sound effects for the film. The fight scenes sound effects, such as the whipping sounds of punches were created using thin metal rods and recording them, then editing the sounds. The sound of the pod containing a human baby closing required almost fifty sounds put together.[63]

The film's score was composed by Don Davis.[64][65] He noted that mirrors appear frequently in the film: reflections of the blue and red pills are seen in Morpheus's glasses; Neo's capture by Agents is viewed through the rear-view mirror of Trinity's Triumph Speed Triple motorcycle; Neo observes a broken mirror mending itself; reflections warp as a spoon is bent; the reflection of a helicopter is visible as it approaches a skyscraper. Davis focused on this theme of reflections when creating his score, alternating between sections of the orchestra and attempting to incorporate contrapuntal ideas. Davis' score combines orchestral, choral and synthesizer elements; the balance between these elements varies depending on whether humans or machines are the dominant subject of a given scene.[66] In addition to Davis' score, The Matrix soundtrack also features music from acts such as Rammstein, Rob Dougan, Rage Against the Machine, Propellerheads, Ministry, Deftones, Monster Magnet, The Prodigy, Rob Zombie, Meat Beat Manifesto, and Marilyn Manson.[67][68][69]

Influences

"The Matrix is arguably the ultimate cyberpunk artifact."

—William Gibson[5]

The Matrix draws from and makes reference to numerous cinematic and literary works, and concepts from mythology, religion and philosophy.The Matrix also makes reference to the ideas of Buddhism, Christianity, Gnosticism, Hinduism, and Judaism.[70] The Matrix's premise resembles the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.[71] Andrew Godoski from Screened.com observed Neo's "virgin birth", his doubt in himself, the prophecy of his coming, along with many Christianity references.[6] In The Matrix, a copy of Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation is visible on-screen as the book used to conceal disks,[33] and Morpheus quotes its phrase "desert of the real".[72] The book was required reading for the actors prior to filming.[33][73] Baudrillard himself said that The Matrix misunderstands and distorts his work.[72][74]

Interpretations of The Matrix often reference Baudrillard's philosophy to demonstrate that the film is an allegory for contemporary experience in a heavily commercialized, media-driven society, especially in developed countries. The influence of the matrixial theory of Bracha Ettinger articulated in a series of books and essays from the end of the 1980s onwards was brought to the public's attention through the writings of art historians such as Griselda Pollock[75][76] and film theorists such as Heinz-Peter Schwerfel.[77] Bracha Ettinger's matrixial theory is referred to explicitly quite late in the film through the expression "primal matrix" but it is visualized from the beginning via the alliance between Neo, Trinity and Morpheus, their "co-birthing" in a womb-like "shareable time-space", their co-existence in different dimension at the same time, their relation to the maternal oracle and more. Her "archaic" matrix is always in the now and the future, it depends on human affects and desires and proposes a different relations between the symbolic and the real. This Matrix is fragile yet it is resistant to the dominating Matrix of the mechanical coded simulated and manipulated consciousness that forecloses and rejects it. In the Ettingerian matrixial sphere freedom goes together with responsibility. The links between Neo, Morpheus, Trinity and the Oracle, right from the very beginning and all along the film, manifest the possibility of "transconnectedness" in proximity and in distance, which is not global and can't form a "web of webs". Its webs are always specific, invested by an "Eros of borderlinking" and related to different processes that Ettinger has named "metramorphosis" (feminine-maternal-material morpheus).[78][79][80][81] This is then another kind of Matrix hidden behind the Baudrillard kind.

The Matrix belongs to the cyberpunk genre of science fiction,[5] and draws from earlier works in the genre such as Neuromancer by William Gibson; for example, the film's use of the term "Matrix" is adopted from Gibson's novel.[82] After watching The Matrix, Gibson commented that the way that the film's creators had drawn from existing cyberpunk works was "exactly the kind of creative cultural osmosis" he had relied upon in his own writing;[5] however, he noted that the film's Gnostic themes distinguished it from Neuromancer, and believed that The Matrix was thematically closer to the work of science fiction author Philip K. Dick.[5] Other writers have also commented on the similarities between The Matrix and Dick's work;[83][84][85] one example of such influence is a Philip K. Dick's 1977 conference, in which he stated:

We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in our reality occurs.[86][87][88][89]

The Wachowskis' approach to action scenes drew upon their admiration for Japanese animation such as Ninja Scroll and Akira.[9] Director Mamoru Oshii's 1995 animated film Ghost in the Shell was a particularly strong influence;[9] producer Joel Silver has stated that the Wachowskis first described their intentions for The Matrix by showing him that anime and saying, "We wanna do that for real".[90][91] Mitsuhisa Ishikawa of Production I.G, which produced Ghost in the Shell, noted that the anime's high-quality visuals were a strong source of inspiration for the Wachowskis. He also commented, "... cyberpunk films are very difficult to describe to a third person. I'd imagine that The Matrix is the kind of film that was very difficult to draw up a written proposal for to take to film studios". He stated that since Ghost in the Shell had gained recognition in America, the Wachowskis used it as a "promotional tool".[92] The action scenes of The Matrix were also strongly influenced by live-action films such as those of director John Woo.[83] The martial arts sequences were inspired by Fist of Legend, a critically acclaimed 1995 martial arts film starring Jet Li. The fight scenes in Fist of Legend led to the hiring of Woo-ping as fight choreographer.[93][94]

The film makes several references to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.[8] The pods in which the machines keep humans have been compared to images in Metropolis, and the work of M. C. Escher.[95] The Wachowskis have described Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey as a formative cinematic influence, and as a major inspiration on the visual style they aimed for when making The Matrix.[96][97][98]

Reviewers have commented on similarities between The Matrix and other late-1990s films such as Strange Days, Dark City, and The Truman Show.[99][100][101][102][103] Comparisons have also been made to Grant Morrison's comic series The Invisibles; Morrison believes that the Wachowskis essentially plagiarized his work to create the film.[104] Comparisons have also been made between The Matrix and the books of Carlos Castaneda.[105] The similarity of the film's central concept to a device in the long-running series Doctor Who has also been noted. As in the film, the Matrix of that series (introduced in the 1976 serial The Deadly Assassin) is a massive computer system which one enters using a device connecting to the head, allowing users to see representations of the real world and change its laws of physics; but if killed there, they will die in reality.[106]

Philosophical influences

Once one accepts The Matrix as a generated reality of malicious machines invention then this is Descartes' First Meditation, or evil demon, a hypothesis that the perceived world might be a comprehensive illusion created to deceive us. The same premise can be found in Hilary Putnam's brain in a vat scenario proposed in the 1980s.[7] One can make a connection between the premise of The Matrix and Plato's Allegory of the Cave; once one accepts that The Matrix is an illusion, then the allegory of the cave becomes clear. The allegory is related to Plato's theory of Forms, which holds that the true essence of an object is not what we perceive with our senses, but rather its quality, and that most people perceive only the shadow of the object and are thus limited to false perception.[6]

Immanuel Kant also has an influence on how the individuals within The Matrix interact with one another and with the system. Kant states in his Critique of Pure Reason that people come to know and explore our world through synthetic means (language, etc.), and thus this makes it rather difficult to discern truth from falsely perceived views. This means we ourselves are our own agents of deceit, and so in order for one to know truth, one must choose to openly pursue truth. One may examine this explicitly in the scene that contains Agent Smith's monologue about the first version of the Matrix, which was to be a Human Utopia, a perfect world without suffering and with total happiness. Agent Smith exclaims, "it was a disaster. No one accepted the program. Entire crops [of people] were lost." The machines had to amend their choice of programming in order to make people subservient to them, and so they conceived The Matrix in the image of the 1999's world. The 1999's world was far from a utopia, but still humans accepted this over the suffering-less utopia. This is Kantian, because the machines wished to impose a perfect world on humans in an attempt to keep people content to remain completely submissive to the machines, both consciously and subconsciously, but humans are not easy to make content.[107]

Release

The Matrix was released on March 31, 1999.[4] After its DVD release, it was the first DVD to sell more than one million copies in the US,[108] and went on to be the first to sell more than three million copies in the US.[6] By November 10, 2003, one month after The Matrix Reloaded DVD was released, the sales of The Matrix DVD had exceeded 30 million copies.[109] The Ultimate Matrix Collection was released on HD DVD on May 22, 2007[108] and on Blu-ray on October 14, 2008.[110] The film was also released standalone in a 10th anniversary edition Blu-ray in the Digibook format on March 31, 2009, 10 years to the day after the film was released theatrically.[111]

Box office

The film earned $171,479,930 (37.0%) in the USA & Canada and $292,037,453 (63.0%) in other countries, for a worldwide total of $463,517,383.[4] In North America, it became the fifth highest grossing film of 1999 and the highest grossing R-rated film of 1999. Worldwide it was the fourth highest grossing film of the year.[4] As of 2012 it is placed 122nd on the list of highest grossing films of all time, and the second highest grossing film in the Matrix franchise after The Matrix Reloaded ($742.1 million).[4]

Critical reception

The Matrix received acclaim from most critics,[11] and is widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction films of all time.[12][13] Entertainment Weekly called The Matrix "the most influential action movie of the generation".[25] Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes described it as a "smartly crafted combination of spectacular action and groundbreaking special effects...Thanks to the Wachowskis' imaginative vision". The site reported an 87% of positive reviews, with a weighted average score of 7.6/10 based upon a sample of 141 critics.[10] At Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received a score of 73 based on 35 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews."[11]

Philip Strick commented in Sight & Sound, "if the Wachowskis claim no originality of message, they are startling innovators of method," praising the film's details and its "broadside of astonishing images".[112] Roger Ebert praised the film's visuals and premise, but disliked the third act's focus on action.[99] Similarly, Time Out praised the "entertainingly ingenious" switches between different realities, Hugo Weaving's "engagingly odd" performance, and the film's cinematography and production design, but concluded, "the promising premise is steadily wasted as the film turns into a fairly routine action pic ... yet another slice of overlong, high concept hokum."[113]

Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader reviewed the film negatively, criticizing it as "simpleminded fun for roughly the first hour, until the movie becomes overwhelmed by its many sources ... There's not much humor to keep it all life-size, and by the final stretch it's become bloated, mechanical, and tiresome."[114] Film critic Nick Davis strongly disliked The Matrix, criticizing aspects such as its unoriginality and its attitudes toward race and gender, concluding that the Wachowskis had raised the bar of filmmaking and special effects, only to waste it on hackneyed, impersonal and political tripe.[115]

Ian Nathan of Empire described Carrie-Anne Moss as "a major find", praised the "surreal visual highs" enabled by the bullet time (or "flo-mo") effect, and described the film as "technically mind-blowing, style merged perfectly with content and just so damn cool". Nathan remarked that although the film's "looney plot" would not stand up to scrutiny, that was not a big flaw because "The Matrix is about pure experience".[116] Maitland McDonagh said in her review for TV Guide, "The Wachowskis' through-the-looking-glass plot... manages to work surprisingly well on a number of levels: as a dystopian sci-fi thriller, as a brilliant excuse for the film's lavish and hyperkinetic fight scenes, and as a pretty compelling call to the dead-above-the-eyeballs masses to unite and cast off their chains. ... This dazzling pop allegory is steeped in a dark, pulpy sensibility that transcends nostalgic pastiche and stands firmly on its own merits."[117]

Salon's reviewer Andrew O'Hehir acknowledged that The Matrix is a fundamentally immature and unoriginal film ("It lacks anything like adult emotion... all this pseudo-spiritual hokum, along with the overamped onslaught of special effects—some of them quite amazing—will hold 14-year-old boys in rapture, not to mention those of us of all ages and genders who still harbor a 14-year-old boy somewhere inside"), but concluded, "as in Bound, there's an appealing scope and daring to the Wachowskis' work, and their eagerness for more plot twists and more crazy images becomes increasingly infectious. In a limited and profoundly geeky sense, this might be an important and generous film. The Wachowskis have little feeling for character or human interaction, but their passion for movies—for making them, watching them, inhabiting their world—is pure and deep."[8]

Several science fiction creators commented on the film. Author William Gibson, a key figure in cyberpunk fiction, called the film "an innocent delight I hadn't felt in a long time," and stated, "Neo is my favourite-ever science fiction hero, absolutely."[118] Joss Whedon called the film "my number one" and praised its storytelling, structure and depth, concluding, "It works on whatever level you want to bring to it."[119] Filmmaker Darren Aronofsky commented, "I walked out of The Matrix ... and I was thinking, 'What kind of science fiction movie can people make now?' The Wachowskis basically took all the great sci-fi ideas of the 20th century and rolled them into a delicious pop culture sandwich that everyone on the planet devoured."[120] Director M. Night Shyamalan expressed admiration for the Wachowskis, stating, "Whatever you think of The Matrix, every shot is there because of the passion they have! You can see they argued it out!".[121] Actor and screenwriter Simon Pegg said that The Matrix provided "the excitement and satisfaction that The Phantom Menace failed to inspire. The Matrix seemed fresh and cool and visually breathtaking; making wonderful, intelligent use of CGI to augment the on-screen action, striking a perfect balance of the real and the hyperreal. It was possibly the coolest film I had ever seen."[122] Director Quentin Tarantino counted The Matrix as one of his twenty favourite movies from 1992 to 2009.[123]

Awards

The Matrix received Academy Awards for film editing, sound effects editing, visual effects, and sound. The filmmakers were competing against other films with established franchises, like Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, yet they won all four of their nominations.[124][125] The Matrix also received BAFTA awards for Best Sound and Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects, in addition to nominations in the cinematography, production design and editing categories.[126] In 1999, it won Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film and Best Direction.[127]

Award Category Name Outcome
Academy Awards Best Film Editing Zach Staenberg Won
Best Sound John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff, David Campbell, David Lee Won
Best Sound Effects Editing Dane A. Davis Won
Best Visual Effects John Gaeta, Janek Sirrs, Steve Courtley, Jon Thum Won
British Academy Film Awards Best Cinematography Bill Pope Nominated
Best Editing Zach Staenberg Nominated
Best Production Design Owen Paterson Nominated
Best Sound David Lee, John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff, David Campbell, Dane A. Davis Won
Best Special Visual Effects John Gaeta, Steve Courtley, Janek Sirrs, Jon Thum Won
Saturn Awards Best Science Fiction Film — Won
Best Director The Wachowskis Won
Best Writer Nominated
Best Actor Keanu Reeves Nominated
Best Actress Carrie-Anne Moss Nominated
Best Supporting Actor Laurence Fishburne Nominated
Best Costumes Kym Barrett Nominated
Best Make-Up Nikki Gooley, Bob McCarron, Wendy Sainsbury Nominated
Best Special Effects John Gaeta, Janek Sirrs, Steve Courtley, Jon Thum Nominated

Legacy

The Matrix had a strong effect on action film-making in Hollywood. The film's incorporation of wire fu techniques, including the involvement of fight choreographer Yuen Woo-ping and other personnel with a background in Hong Kong action cinema, affected the approaches to fight scenes taken by subsequent Hollywood action films,[128] moving them towards more Eastern approaches.[6] The success of The Matrix created high demand for those choreographers and their techniques from other filmmakers, who wanted fights of similar sophistication: for example, wire work was employed in X-Men (2000)[128] and Charlie's Angels (2000),[129] and Yuen Woo-ping's brother Yuen Cheung-Yan was choreographer on Daredevil (2003).[130] The Matrix's Asian approach to action scenes also created an audience for Asian action films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) that they might not otherwise have had.[131]

Following The Matrix, films made abundant use of slow-motion, spinning cameras, and, often, the bullet time effect of a character freezing or slowing down and the camera dollying around them.[53] The ability to slow down time enough to distinguish the motion of bullets was used as a central gameplay mechanic of several video games, including Max Payne, in which the feature was explicitly referred to as "bullet time".[131][132] The Matrix's signature special effect, and other aspects of the film, have been parodied numerous times,[25] in comedy films such as Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999),[133] Scary Movie (2000),[134] Shrek (2001),[131] Kung Pow! Enter the Fist (2002);[135] Marx Reloaded in which the relationship between Neo and Morpheus is represented as an imaginary encounter between Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky;[136] and in video games such as Conker's Bad Fur Day.[137] It also inspired films featuring a black-clad hero, a sexy yet deadly heroine, and bullets ripping slowly through the air;[25] these included Charlie's Angels (2000) featuring Cameron Diaz floating through the air while the cameras flo-mo around her; Equilibrium (2003), starring Christian Bale, whose character wore long black leather coats like Reeves' Neo;[131] Night Watch (2004), a Russian megahit heavily influenced by The Matrix and directed by Timur Bekmambetov, who later made Wanted (2008), which also features bullets ripping through air; and Inception (2010), which centers on a team of sharply dressed rogues who enter a wildly malleable alternate reality by "wiring in". The original Tron (1982) paved the way for The Matrix, and The Matrix, in turn, inspired Disney to make its own Matrix with a Tron sequel, Tron: Legacy (2010).[129]

Carrie-Anne Moss asserted that prior to being cast in The Matrix, she had "no career". The film also created one of the most devoted movie fan-followings since Star Wars, and was even briefly blamed for the shootings at Columbine High School.[25] The combined success of the Matrix trilogy, the Lord of the Rings films and the Star Wars prequels made Hollywood interested in creating trilogies.[6] Stephen Dowling from the BBC noted that The Matrix's success in taking complex philosophical ideas and presenting them in ways palatable for impressionable minds might be its most influential aspect.[131]

In 2001, The Matrix placed 66th in the American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Thrills" list.[138] In 2007, Entertainment Weekly called The Matrix the best science-fiction piece of media for the past 25 years.[14] In 2009, the film was ranked 39th on Empire's reader-, actor- and critic-voted list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time".[139] The Matrix was voted as the fourth best sci-fi film in the 2011 list Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time, based on a poll conducted by ABC and People. In 2012, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant."[15]

Franchise

The film's mainstream success led to the making of two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, both directed by the Wachowskis. These were filmed back-to-back in one shoot and released on separate dates in 2003.[140] The first film's introductory tale is succeeded by the story of the impending attack on the human enclave of Zion by a vast machine army.[141][142] The sequels also incorporate longer and more ambitious action scenes, as well as improvements in bullet time and other visual effects.[142][143]

Also released was The Animatrix, a collection of nine animated short films, many of which were created in the same Japanese animation style[144] that was a strong influence on the live action trilogy. The Animatrix was overseen and approved by the Wachowskis, who only wrote four of the segments themselves but did not direct any of them; much of the project was developed by notable figures from the world of anime.[144]

The franchise also contains three video games: Enter the Matrix (2003), which contains footage shot specifically for the game and chronicles events taking place before and during The Matrix Reloaded;[145] The Matrix Online (2004), an MMORPG which continued the story beyond The Matrix Revolutions;[146][147] and The Matrix: Path of Neo (2005), which focuses on Neo's journey through the trilogy of films.[148]

The franchise also includes The Matrix Comics, a series of comics and short stories set in the world of The Matrix, written and illustrated by figures from the comics industry. Most of the comics were originally presented for free on the official Matrix website;[149] they were later republished, along with some new material, in two printed trade paperback volumes, called The Matrix Comics, Vol 1 and Vol 2.[150][151]

See also

References

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  3. 1 2 "The Matrix (1999)". British Film Institute. Retrieved December 16, 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "The Matrix (1999)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved June 24, 2009.
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