Exhibition

The Matrix made a huge $171 million in the United States but it made a massive $460 MIllion world wide
This is just an extract from part of the review of The Matrix from the famous Empire magazine:
Get this: what if all we know as reality was, in fact, virtual reality? Reality itself is a ravaged dystopia run by technocrat Artificial Intelligence where humankind vegetates in billions of gloop-filled tanks - mere battery packs for the machineworld - being fed this late '90s VR (known as The Matrix - you with us here?) through an ugly great cable stuck in the back of our heads. And what if there was a group of quasi-spiritual rebels infiltrating The Matrix with the sole purpose of crashing the ruddy great mainframe and rescuing humans from their unknown purgatory? And, hey, what if Keanu Reeves was their Messiah?
What sounds like some web freak's wet dream is, in fact, a dazzlingly nifty slice of sci-fi cool. The Wachowski Brothers (Andy and Larry - last seen dabbling in kinky lesbian noir with the excellent Bound) pulling off something like a million masterstrokes all at once. Taking the imprimatur of the video game, they meld the grungy noir of Blade Runner, the hyperkinetic energies of chopsocky, John Woo hardware and grandiose spiritual overtones into William Gibson's cyberpunk ethos to produce a new aesthetic for the millennium powered to the thudding beat of techno. And it is just incredible fun. The key is the technique of "flo-mo", a process born from Japanese animation, whereby an object in motion is seemingly frozen while the camera miraculously spins around it as if time and gravity are on hold. It grants the action (including some killer kung fu which Reeves and crew spent months perfecting) liberty to take on surreal visual highs. Superhuman feats permissible, of course, in the context of VR as the rebels download Herculean "talents" to fuel their subterfuge. Meanwhile, the audience can only gawp longingly, with its jaws thunking to the cinema floor in unison, as the heroes wrapped in skintight leather, sleek shades and designer cheekbones, spin up walls, leap from high rises and slip through streams of bullets in silken slo-mo. Tron this ain't.


This is a review of The Matrix from a local film magazine from the United States:
At first viewing, the action sequences stun, but there's more to this than the groundbreaking "bullet time" photography, or the adolescent allure of flash, black clothes and big, black guns.
Sure, "The Matrix" is almost untenably cool, but beneath the sheen there's substance. The story's a potent mix of buddhism, Greek mythology, and - predominantly - the Christian gospel.
The image of a superficial existence, where ignorant people thrive by blocking out a troublesome reality, is potent for a Western society drowning in wealth while the rest of the world suffers.
The performances, too, wow. Admittedly Reeves is gifted the perfect role - he has to look good while hitting things - but Moss is charismatic, clever and sexy, while Fishburne is monumental.
Nestling next to "The Terminator" and "Metropolis", this is one the finest sci-fi flicks ever made.
What is "The Matrix"? It's genius. And yes, we admit, you do have to see it for yourself.


The matrix was the first ever film to sell over 1 million copies in the United States