THE MATRIX (1999)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

As I write this review I've just watched MATRIX through for the first time since my 1999 screening, and am starting to re-watch the two sequels from 2003.

I liked the first MATRIX in the Day, but I didn't burn to see the saga continue, as I did with STAR WARS. I liked the sequels as well, and didn't experience the same disappointment expressed by the hardcore fans who'd become more invested in the cosmos supplied by the writer/director team of the Wachowskis. When I've finished the two sequels, I may revise this opinion, but I think the drop-off for some viewers was that the first movie had one Big Reveal, and that thereafter, there could only be various Little Reveals. 

Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) believes himself to be a computer programmer living and working in 1999, the same era as his non-diegetic audience. A series of cryptic encounters with both the government and with a counter-insurgency group lead to the Big Reveal that Anderson's 1999 existence is a vast computer simulation. The simulation is the creation of A.I. machines that have taken over Earth in or around 2019. These machines have consigned most of humanity to serve as power-sources, more or less reversing the way machines provided power-sources to human beings. Members of the insurgency are mortals in the real world who can access the simulation and create avatars with such exotic names as Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss). Superior programming allows these avatars to manifest incredible athleticism and virtual super-powers, and Anderson has the potential to become a "savior" whom they name "Neo." If Anderson/Neo cannot counteract the simulated reality of the A.I., the real-world human civilization of Zion will fall to humankind's rebellious creations.

I won't chart any of MATRIX's plot-developments, because plot is not the movie's strength. Rather, the Wachowskis produced a script layered with constant references to the symbolic/cultural realities in which humans exist in addition to their physical presences. The aforementioned name for the real-world human conclave is the same as that of a Jewish name for a paradisical city. Morpheus is the Greek god of sleep, while Trinity is the Christian term for the interlinked religious concepts of heavenly father, earthly Son and a spirit that in various ways mediates between those realms. Most famously, Morpheus offers Anderson a choice between two pills, one that will allow him to forget everything and return to the Matrix simulation, and the other which will enhance his understanding of his existence in both real and simulated worlds. And he glosses the pills with references to Lewis Carroll's ALICE IN WONDERLAND.

In the original MATRIX, the Wachowskis tapped into much of the paranoia of Philip K. Dick, whose delusory tropes Hollywood had already adapted and crossbred with the traditions of the hyperkinetic action-thrillers of the nineties. But the Wachowskis also filled their fictive universe with all sorts of oracular pronouncements that were largely foreign to Dick's modernism. Almost everything everyone says appears to have two meanings. Even a minor seeming comment by the support-figure Cypher when he tells Neo, "So you are here to save the world; what do you say to something like that"-- is both a song-quote and a foreshadowing of Cypher's status as a Judas.

Closely allied to what I like to call the movie's "Zen hyperviolence" is the broad idea, expressed in Asian martial arts, of training one's body to perform feats unthinkable to ordinary existence. The fact that the Matrix is an unreal simulation provides a different context for feats like "bullet-dodging," and yet the script constantly treats Neo's mental efforts as if they were physical achievements. Not for nothing did the Wachowskis enlist Hong Kong fight choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping to train the actors so that they could appear to become marvels of fluidity and prowess. 

To repeat my one reservation, I suspect that once the Wachowskis completed exploring their Big Reveal, they didn't really have any more tricks up their sleeves. But I am impressed with the creators' initial melding of martial arts, Zen enlightenment, and A.I. simulations within a story devoted to humans regaining control of their own illusion-- necessary though the illusions may be.