The Matrix (1999)
The seeds for The Matrix were planted in 1992. Sibling writing team Andy and Larry Wachowski were offered their first ongoing comic book series, beginning with issue #3 of “Ectokid” for Clive Barker’s Marvel Comics imprint, Razorline. “Ectokid” features a teenage protagonist, the son of a living human woman and a ghost father, who, upon hitting puberty, sees the world as it exists with one eye and a supernatural dimension full of ghosts and demons with his other. Ectokid wears an eye patch to keep his sanity, flipping it from one eye to another to traverse the supernatural realm while his body lies dormant in the mortal world.
An industry associate asked if they had other ideas to develop into a comic series. Nothing offhand, but after brainstorming, they created an idea to bring cyberpunk science fiction to American comics audiences akin to their favorite Japanese manga, “Ghost in the Shell”, or “Akira”.
Exploring worlds within worlds in”Ectokid”, they naturally gravitated toward a virtual reality concept. They observed that reality is perceived when our sensory organs send electric impulses to our brains. If humans are jacked into virtual reality while our bodies are hooked into a machine that simulates these sensory impulses, we might confuse the virtual and the real. They turned this idea inside out, wondering, what if the world we all live in were the virtual world? What if it were an ultra-sophisticated computer-generated simulation we’re jacked into, and everything we perceive is a digital artifact with sensory properties stimulating responses in our remote bodies? What if a skillful cyberpunk hacker awakened to this and altered the program’s coding to become a superhero?
The internet flourished during the 1990s, with people in cyberspace assuming new identities with cool nicknames resembling their idealized selves. While 1990s computers were too primitive to create a realistic virtual world, computers in the far future would. Artificial intelligence might also become sentient enough to dominate humanity into subservience., placing us into an artificial simulation so intricate that we’d easily confuse it for reality.
The Wachowskis cranked music by Ministry and Rage Against the Machine for energy and inspiration, putting their ideas into notepads, devising new intricacies to their rationale on why AI would keep humanity alive while jacked into a VR existence. Computers might use human bodies stored in massive power grids for like batteries for energy to sustain themselves when other sources of energy became impossible to obtain after human rebels destroyed them. However, human bodies don’t last long without mental stimulation, so the computers created a virtual simulation of life before the AI revolt that humans could live blissfully ignorant of their enslavement.
A few humans know the truth, some living in a hidden underground city, and some “freed” rebels who jacking in to the virtual reality to recruit more. Transitioning to the ‘real world’ presents a challenge. Leaving behind the comfortable simulated world to live in a dangerous, dour, and horrifying real world is not something many want to do. Those selected to become rebels have cultivated advanced technical abilities to do things thought impossible in the virtual world. The AI overlords create powerful super-agents to traverse the VR environments to snuff out these rebels.
The Wachowskis dubbed this virtual world, “The Matrix”, after a phrase coined in cyberpunk legend William Gibson’s “Sprawl trilogy” representing data paths within virtual reality. They borrowed Gibson’s notion that humans could have skills uploaded into their minds, such as how to fly a helicopter. They loved the idea because they could inject every cultural obsession they could imagine into this comic-book story.
The Wachowskis didn’t view The Matrix as a commentary on technology so much as a metaphor for systems that tell you what to think and can’t be questioned – governments, religion, corporations, or other powerful institutions. Humans habitually hand over their consciousness to these predetermined systems. The Matrix‘s theme is awakening humanity to evolve beyond systems to find power within ourselves.
In reality, the Wachowskis were evolving as writers. Comic books alone weren’t paying their bills. They hustled side jobs like housepainting and carpentry around Chicago to stay afloat. After reading Roger Corman’s 1990 book, “How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime”, they began pouring their efforts into screenplays. Their first was a Corman-esque horror premise about “eating the rich” called, Carnivore. The idea was too expensive to make themselves, so they reached out to ten talent agencies from an agent handbook that accepted unsolicited scripts. Their query letter earned them interest from two, including their eventual agent Lawrence Mattis. After reading the script, Mattis encouraged them to write something more commercially appealing. Studios were currently shelling out millions for broad-appeal, action-based screenplays.
The Wachowskis next script sold, Assassins, about a veteran hitman stalked by a younger hitman, for a million dollars. However, the Wachowskis hated how Assassins turned out due to changes by screenwriter Brian Helgeland commissioned against their wishes by director Richard Donner and the studio to broaden its appeal by removing subtext, nuance, and dark-edged bleakness. They wanted their names taken off the credits, calling it an abortion of their original story.
While performing a rewrite of Unforgettable for De Laurentiis, the Wachowskis began transforming their Matrix comic concept into a screenplay idea. It had action genre possibilities, but one that was intelligent and socially relevant, not just assembly-line shootouts and car chases. They felt Hong Kong action films bested Hollywood’s for excitement and blending its action into the narrative. They thought it would blow people away to see Hollywood actors doing the acrobatic fighting Jet Li does in movies, so they injected a kung fu underpinning. They borrowed from all of their favorite cinematic Influences: John Woo and other Hong Kong filmmakers, Stanley Kubrick (especially 2001: A Space Odyssey and its use of monoliths as symbols), John Huston, Billy Wilder, Ridley Scott, George Lucas, and Fritz Lang, and Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville.
Their early draft features an action-packed epilogue where we meet Eddy, a new rebel recruit who gets captured in the Matrix after trying to visit his girlfriend Christie one last time. A teenage hacker nicknamed Neo becomes the next rebel recruit from leader Morpheus because he doesn’t have the vulnerability of being in love. After swallowing a pill that allows him to distinguish between the Matrix and reality, Neo is kidnapped and interrogated by Agent Smith. When Neo refuses to cooperate, Morpheus reveals it’s just a simulation. Neo has passed the initiation and can begin training.
Uploads into Neo’s mind give him immense fighting skills and knowledge. Neo learns that the mission is to help the human resistance bring down the CyberMarines, RoboCop-like soldiers that went rogue, took over the world, and eradicated most of humanity, save for ones hiding in a subterranean base called Zion. When the CyberMarines began running out of energy, they farm-bred humans, hooking them up to their energy grid, engaging their minds by jacking them into a virtual reality simulation of the world as it existed between the years 1989 to 2009.
The climax finds Morpheus captured by Agent Smith, revealed as a CyberMarine in disguise, while in the Matrix. Smith uses a truth serum to get Morpheus to reveal Zion’s location. Morpheus’s top warrior Trinity intends to save humanity by launching electronics-destroying Electromagnetic Impulse missiles, at the cost of Morpheus’s life. Neo determines to rescue Morpheus before the missiles hit. After a major action sequence culminating in the missiles destroying the CyberMarines, Neo and Trinity kiss, and Morpheus realizes love isn’t so bad after all.
They shopped the script around, but few understood the concept. Producer Joel Silver’s team at Silver Pictures deemed it a Terminator knock-off but enjoyed the first act before it settles into the bizarre and confusing virtual reality realm that read more like an artsy, philosophical sci-fi novel (a la “Dune”) than a movie. Silver, who produced Assassins, took it up, knowing they were talented enough to fix what wasn’t working. The Wachowskis forgave Silver for what happened with Âssassins, because he tried to advocate for them. They didn’t want to see the same thing happen to The Matrix, selling to him only on condition that they direct it themselves.
In February of 1994, Warner outbid Universal Pictures for The Matrix. Wachowskis received another million dollars for the script and additional rewrites. Warner production president Lorenzo di Bonaventura understood The Matrix‘s concepts, but felt it needed major changes. Each revision by the Wachowskis built layers to the mythology. For allusions, they re-read Homer’s “The Odyssey”, their favorite book, and works by Marx, Kafka, Schopenhauer, Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland”, Plato’s “The Cave” (choosing to live in blissful ignorance than uncertain reality), Rene Descartes “Evil Demon” (from “Meditation on First Philosophy”, that everything is an illusion or deception designed to enslave), Buddhism, quantum physics, and the Bible, especially in its Christ allegory.
Unfortunately, each layer only sank it further with Warner executives. The Wachowskis may have had a crystal clear vision of everything they intended to do but it wasn’t clear to someone reading just the script and its barebones descriptions. Even in-person meetings at Warner, verbally explaining what’s happening page by page while mouthing out sound effects wasn’t getting the concepts across. When the DVD of “Ghost in the Shell” was released, the Wachowskis showed it to Silver and said, “We wanna do that for real.” When Silver understood better after watching the anime, the Wachowskis had an epiphany. The only way Warner executives could understand what The Matrix was about was to see it for themselves (a line they used in the movie).
Recognizing that films are a visual medium, the Wachowskis felt that Warner execs might understand if the script contained illustrations. They contacted comic book industry friends, including fellow Chicagoan Geoff Darrow to hand draw the script into storyboards, enlisting assistance from “Ectokid” illustrator Steve Skroce and conceptual design artist Tani Kunitake. Together, they produced over 700 color and monochromatic storyboards, equating to a 400-page graphic novel, made into two 11×17 book glyphs.
Visualizing what they couldn’t before, the studio executives expressed renewed interest in making The Matrix. They requested for an introduction attached to the script explaining the plot so they could attract talented leading actors. Warner was still skeptical about letting the Wachowskis direct, so they allowed them to direct another screenplay they’d sold to Dino De Laurentiis, a $3 million kinky lesbian thriller named Bound. When the stylish and suspenseful Bound proved critically and commercially successful, Warner conceded the Wachowskis had the talent to direct The Matrix.
Unfortunately, Warner experienced a prolonged run of expensive flops and would only greenlight The Matrix for well under what the Wachowskis felt it needed, leaving it in limbo again. To offset costs for future productions, Warner began entering into rights-splitting deals with other studios, including a 20-picture deal with Australia’s Village Roadshow Pictures. Warner finally consented to let the Wachowskis direct The Matrix if they agreed to make it in Australia and perform another pass on the script to reduce the budget. With the Australian exchange rate 62 cents to the American dollar, they shaved an estimated 30% off the production price, and they garnered an additional $12 million in tax incentive returns.
Producer Barrie Osborne, experienced with Australian productions, was contacted by Silver to help get it off the ground. Osborne located Hong Kong kung-fu film choreographer extraordinaire Yuen Wo Ping and got him in contact with the Wachowskis, who wanted him for The Matrix. Although he liked the script, Wo Ping initially didn’t want to commit so much time to one movie and asked for an exorbitant fee in order to discourage future discussions. Surprisingly, they accepted his price. Wo Ping further demanded complete control and months of conditioning, wire-harness training and choreography with the actors so they could appear to leap, fly, and run on walls in ways that defy known physics. The main actors would have to undergo six months of exercise regimen and four months of martial arts training within a room with padded walls and floors until fully comfortable with the process.
For Neo, Johnny Depp was the Wachowskis top choice, but his schedule wouldn’t allow it. Warner sought Brad Pitt, but he was too exhausted after making Seven Years in Tibet. Leonardo DiCaprio had several discussions before opting out because he loathed doing another effects-heavy film after Titanic. Will Smith was initially intrigued but found the Wachowskis pitch off-putting and the wire-fu explanations nonsensical. He wanted more humor and another love interest; when the Wachowskis refused, he left to do Wild Wild West instead. Nicolas Cage didn’t want to be away from his family so long, Lou Diamond Phillip’s’s agent advised turning down a guaranteed flop. Tom Cruise, Kevin Costner, Ewan McGregor were a few other names reportedly considered. They had such a hard time casting a male lead that the producers suggested changing to a female lead if Sandra Bullock, who’d done Demolition Man for Silver and Warner, and was an early contender for Trinity, was interested. She wasn’t.
When Keanu Reeves was suggested, The Wachowskis were hesitant. They knew him mostly for his comedic and romantic roles. His action films seemed were borderline absurd. Reeves also had qualms because his prior cyberpunk effort, Johnny Mnemonic, bombed. However, as a comic book fan, he loved the Matrix conceptual storyboards. He also enjoyed reading philosophy and watching kung fu movies, so the content was favorable. He identified with Neo’s feeling things were off in his life, didn’t trust this world, and his monastic search for truth. After meeting Keanu, the Wachowskis’ hesitation disippated, feeling his external boyish innocence and internal grounded maturity provided the key to Neo’s character. Reeved signed for nearly $10 million.
Twenty actresses were under consideration for Trinity. The desired qualities were beauty, athleticism, commitment, and toughness to endure months of laborous training sessions, while also expressing emotional vulnerability. She must seem enigmatic, so audiences wouldn’t have preconcieved notions as to whether Trinity was a threat or ally. Among those who auditioned was Janet Jackson, but she had committed to her “Velvet Rope” tour. On the same day, Gabrielle Union came in Janet Jackson wardrobe, a weave, and make-up. Salma Hayek lost out due to the physicality required, claiming she was too lazy to hit the gym. Rosie Perez bombed her audition. Jada Pinkett was seriously considered but lacked chemistry with Reeves.
Canadian actress Carrie-Anne Moss wasn’t on their early radar. One of the TV show titles on her resume caught the Wachowskis eyes: “Matrix”. She came in for three hour-long auditions with kung fu trainers and a screen test with Reeves, with whom she exuded a natural chemistry with Reeves. She was a relative unknown, but the Wachowskis concluded this enhanced Trinity’s enigmatic requirements. Despite no prior fight training, Moss exuded intensity and presence enough to look like she could deliver a punch. Moss initially didn’t understand the film’s concept, but viewed Trinity as representing ‘faith’ and ‘belief’ to find the motivation for her character. She patterned Trinity after Clint Eastwood’s film performances where he exhibited inner strength and a quiet intensity.
For Morpheus, Warner pursued Arnold Schwarzenegger, who coincidentally played John Matrix in Commando for Joel Silver, as well as Michael Douglas, but both declined. Russell Crowe declined because he lost interest with the premise partway through the script. Gary Oldman didn’t like the concept and, to this day, doesn’t recall being asked. Chow Yun-Fat declined to do The Collector. Samuel L. Jackson also couldn’t commit the time.
The Wachowskis met Laurence Fishburne in Las Vegas in 1997, attending the boxing rematch between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield. Hearing his deep and commanding voice in person, they knew would give Morpheus the gravitas and presence required. The studio felt Fishburne lacked name recognition outside of the US and pushed for Sean Connery or Val Kilmer. Connery declined because he couldn’t make sense of the script while Kilmer lost out after insisting that Morpheus should become the lead character.
As a lover of sci-fi, Fishburne eagerly accepted, feeling that the script was incredibly well-thought-out with a fascinating premise. He understood it on the first read and didn’t understand why others were confused. He was skeptical such a smart film would get made. The Wachowskis encouraged Fishburne to read Neal Gaiman’s comic series, “Sandman” for how to play Morpheus, also the main character’s name in the comic, from the Greek god of sleep and dreams. Fishburne had a set of the comics to read given to him by DC Comics head Jenette Kahn while on a flight.
The Wachowskis choice of Jean Reno for Agent Smith didn’t pan out because he didn’t want to be away from France for so long. Australian actor Hugo Weaving, who the Wachowskis enjoyed in Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Proof, took the role. Weaving developed Agent Smith’s menacing manner of speaking by mimicking the Wachowskis, jokingly. He was surprised when they loved it. Weaving wasn’t sure how to play an AI character, but the Wachowskis said that his programming was to maintain control, so his emotional state could be displayed depending on how well he achieved this.
Village Roadshow’s Queensland studio proved too small, so they opted for Fox’s new studios in Sydney. They could also perform location shoots around Sydney, because it looked like many cities in America, with dense and diverse architecture. The City Council of Sydney, New South Wales’ government, and other local authorities offered to let the film production use streets and buildings normally off-limits because the production would bring approximately $20 million (Australian) dollars to the city and businesses of Sydney. Rushes were sent via ISDN for the Hollywood execs to make comments on the digital footage using a form of electronic Post-it notes, then it’s sent back to Sydney to be reviewed before the next day of shooting.
The Wachowskis added the role of Cypher in later drafts for Joe Pantoliano after his character performance in Bound. Pantoliano found the script incomprehensible but rationalized that he only needed to rehearse the scenes he was in. The largest hurdle was his character had to look scrawny, which meant he needed to stop drinking, eat steamed veggies, and work out constantly. Even with a personal trainer urging him through thousands of crunches daily, Pantoliano couldn’t lose his gut. He decided he’d skip the agony and undergo liposuction. When he sent the $7800 medical bill to Warner, Bonaventura said he was crazy to think they’d pay for an unauthorized cosmetic procedure that Pantoliano benefitted from to snag future roles. Pantoliano glibly says Warner would only pay if he injected fat back into his belly.
INXS’s Michael Hutchence was cast in an unspecified major role as Neo’s ally but committed suicide days later and the role was removed. Madonna also turned down an unspecified role, something deeply regretted after feeling it is one of the best films ever made. The role of Switch was meant to be portrayed by a man in real-life and a woman in the Matrix, but Warner felt this change was too confusing so she remained a female character.
The main actors were required to read philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s 1981 book “Simulacra & Simulation”, relating how reality is shaped by symbols. It appears in the movie as a hollowed-out book where Neo stashed his illegal wares. Baudrillard panned The Matrix as a distortion of his philosophies that is more by-product than antidote. The “desert of the real” is a quote taken from it, describing the true Earth in which a genuine landscape withers and becomes desert-like as the inhabitants obsess over a giant map instead. The Wachowskis had a lot of backhistory in their minds that went into the Morpheus’s presentation to Neo in the “desert of the real scene”. They hoped to make an anime prequel relating an adventure of the first One and a Matrix video game to coincide with the sequel’s release.
The main cast also read Kevin Kelly’s “Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Electronic World” and Dylan Evans and Oscar Zarate’s “Evolutionary Psychology” so the Wachowskis could explain the philosophical aspects of the plot.
Before training began, Reeves underwent neck surgery to correct a degenerative spinal injury from an old motorcycle accident that resulted in fused vertebrae sparking frequent tingling and intermittent motor loss to his legs that caused him to lose his balance and fall down. Reeves hadn’t mentioned the injury during auditions because he feared losing the role. His doctor diagnosed him with spinal stenosis and recommended surgery. The damaged discs were removed and a plate placed in his neck that allowed him to resume training with a neck brace.
The cast trained three months in Los Angeles, then Australia for one. Wo Ping’s team blessed the set with a Buddhist ceremony, including roasting a pig. Wo Ping refused to be bound by the storyboards, choreographing what happens based on the actors’ individual physical talents.
Each day began with 90 minutes of stretching, kicking/punching for another 90, then hours of wire work choreography. Wear and tear on the actors was substantial. An insurance person was on site to monitor Reeves to make sure he didn’t do anything he shouldn’t. Risky moments required calling Keanu’s doctor to sign off clearance before he could proceed. Keanu feared a wrong move could cause permanent damage so he couldn’t perform kicks until fully recovered. They postponed his action scenes until further in the shoot, using stunt double for action requiring bodily impact.
Two days into training, Weaving suffered a femur injury and a polyp in his hip was discovered that needed surgical removal, six weeks of recuperation, and moving his fight scenes toward the end of production. Moss injured her ankle rehearsing cartwheeling into a wall during the Government Lobby scene; the set nurse advised stopping but Moss persevered, fearing her role would get recast. After nailing the somersault in further rehearsals, she screamed out a loud F-bomb to cope through the pain.
For the film’s aesthetic, the Wachowskis wanted to contrast the two distinct worlds. The virtual world looks bright but commonplace, with white skies and unappealing textures, plus a pervasive green tint to resemble the phosphorous look of CRT monitor screens. The real world, where humans haven’t manufactured things in many years, looks grimy, cold, rusty, and delapidated. A blue tint was emphasized because it was a real-world color not found in the Matrix. Scenes taking place in training simulations have a yellow tint.
Costume designer Kym Barrett envisioned the Matrix as a shadowy, illusionary realm with stealthy people disappearing and reappearing, so the wardrobe emphasized slickness, contrast, and the reflectiveness. Costumes were designed for maximum movement and space for harnesses and safety padding for wire and stunt work. The costume budget was tight so Trinity’s costume is inexpensive PVC and Neo’s coat made from a cheap synthetic wool blend that billowed and floated in a way leather wouldn’t. Because of the religious connotations from various cultures about the search for “The One”, Neo’s wardrobe incorporated “cassocks”, with accents from Japanese samurai and ancient Chinese warriors. The Agents are modeled after the Secret Service from the Kennedy era, protecting the Matrix at all costs.
Barrett contrasted the virtual world with its sterile look and the with its handmade, organic fabrics made by mothers and grandmothers in a knitting circle. Thomas Anderson’s shabby, ill-fitting clothes suggest he doesn’t belong in that world. is just waking up. Long trenchcoats were to cover the weaponry. Neo originally was originally meant to don army fatigues but they changed to all-black when the Wachowskis decided to emulate Frank Miller’s comic, “Dark City” and its bleak, monochromatic black/white contrasts.
The custom-made cyberpunk-inspired sunglasses from Blinde Design Project provided the actors extra protection during action sequences from flying debris. The producers initially shop at Sunglass Hut but Barrett felt the rebels would make their own sunglasses and each pair would only fit them.
Early on, Warner accused the Wachowskis of proceeding too slowly, threatening to cut certain scenes to keep the film on time. The Wachoskis said the movie wouldn’t work without those scenes and they’d need to find someone else to finish the film if removed. The Wachowskis had Matrix editor Zach Staenberg put together one of those scene, the opening actioner featuring Trinity, with temp sound effects and sent it to Warner. Warner liked it so much they left them alone henceforth and even approved double the effect sshows and increasing the shoot length from 90 days to 118 to get every scene they needed in.
The Government Lobby was originally going to be a hotel building full of people, but changed this when the original concept of superguns shooting tranquilizer needles was too costly and they decided to go regular M16s that would kill innocent bystanders. Trinity was also supposed to use more martial arts, knives, and a bolo but the setups took too long and slowed the action so they kept it to mostly guns.
Moss was immediately smitten by Keanu, telling friends she was in love because not only was Reeves gorgeous, but also brainy, romantic, and sensitive. Despite mutual flirtation, Reeved never asked Moss out until Fishburne took charge and arranged a dinner date for them. They soon took a five-day trip to India for a music convention with Dogstar. However, their relationship never manifested beyond mutual attraction, as Keanu was involved with Jennifer Syme, pregnant with his child that would later be stillborn.
The Australian press was also taken with Keanu. A newspaper column called “Keanu Watch” published whatever he ate in restaurants or purchased in stores. Things turned sour when Keanu’s attempts at maintaining privacy, including declining autograph seekers resulted in negative stories painting him as standoffish and obnoxious. Reeves needed respite, flying to the US whenever possible to play in his band, Dogstar or to visit his ailing sister, Kim.
The human farm power plant scene was the last to be shot because it required Keanu to lose fifteen pounds and shave his entire body bald. Unfortunately, Keanu’s avoidance of the food tent where the cast typically ate in favor of dining with the stunt crew and Hong Kong team increased his standoffish reputation. Reeves spent four hours in make-up every morning to put the jacks on his body, then the rest of the day laying in a freezing vat of goo. The silver lining to his new look was no longer getting recognized in public, but the down side came when Keanu next appeared publicly with Dogstar in Los Angeles, celebrity gossip ran rampant about him being sick or on drugs.
John Gaeta, visual effects director for Mass Illusions (aka Manex), developed a system titled “Flo-Mo”, which the Wachowskis later dubbed “bullet time photography”, inspired by Japanese animation style of freezing a character in action then dolly or zoom around them, which the Wachowskis enjoyed in the intro titles to the animated show “Speed Racer” showing Speed exiting his car, freezing mid-stride as the camera pans around him. They were originally looking at building a ‘rocket camera’ that moved about 100 mph while shooting in slow motion to produce the desired effect. Gaeta felt this was unsafe, but remembered a similar technique used in Michel Gondry’s music videos. The technology employed nearly a hundred still cameras along the path of pre-filmed and pre-scanned action. Single-frame shots are taken of the actors and moving objects along the path. The photos are scanned into a computer that virtually fills in missing moments between the shots to give a seamless flow. The footage can be displayed at any speed, from super-slo-motion to hyperfast. It took sixteen days to render the 30-second shot.
Warner brass loved the film after a test screening, only requesting a ten-minute run time reduction. The Wachowskis took out 5.5 minutes and Warner didn’t bother to look at what was removed. Sensing a hit, Warner paid $4 million to the Wachowskis to complete the film to hit theaters in the spring, months ahead of The Phantom Menace. The soundtrack includes music the Wachowskis listened to as they contructed their script: Marilyn Manson, Prodigy, and Rage Against the Machine.
The reclusive Wachowskis contract with Warner included a no-press clause. They granted very few limited interviews after heading back to Chicago. The whatisthematrix.com website generated excellent buzz, with comics written by the Wachowskis and drawn by Geoff Darrow that supplemented the film, with Matrix comics continuing the story if the film proved unsuccessful. .However, the film proved a massive success, debuting at #1 at the US boxoffice for Easter weekend (appropriate, given its Christ allusions), and its long legs, sticking around the top ten for three months. It amassed $171 million in its initial run and over $463 million worldwide.
The influence of The Matrix can’t be overstated. Christopher Nolan cites its inspiration for mix action films with philosophy. Undoubtedly, The Matrix is a brilliantly-conceived and extremely memorable sci-fi action powerhouse. The Wachowskis avoided going for safe and secure action, crafting what would become a national phenomenon once it was all through. Although there aren’t many wholly original concepts within the story, it’s the unique blend of multitudinous genres that the Wachowskis find their calling. However, cinematically, the look and tempo of the action is where they break new ground, with an arresting style that achieves exhilarating results. Deservedly, won four Oscars for Sound, Film Editing, Sound Editing, and Visual Effects.
For most of the film, it has impeccable timing, terrific storytelling elements, and an endlessly fascinating concept richly fleshed out as the tale unfolds. The Matrix is a superb sci-fi actioner with marvelous special effects and conceptual mastery that shows concentrating more on your screenplay than special effects can achieve great results.. It’s as ambitous an action flick as there has been in cinema, but credit the Wachowskis for achieving their vision so masterfully.
Qwipster’s rating: A+
MPAA Rated: R for violence and brief language
Running Time: 136 min.
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano
Director: Andy and Larry Wachowski
Screenplay: Andy and Larry Wachowski