The Matrix is twenty years old.

Arghus

Released in the US on March 31st 1999.

Doesn't time fly?

Probably - no in fact definitely - my favourite film from my teenage years. I was just too young to get the chance to see it in the cinema when it was released, but I made up for that on video. I've easily seen it 60 to 70 times over the years. Most of those viewings were in the early days; I haven't watched it in full for many years at this stage. Nonetheless, a lot of it is still hardwired into my brain. No movie blew my mind as thoroughly at the time and had a bigger influence on my taste.

Watched it recently? How does it hold up for you?

Teddy Daniels

its much older than that.

DrumSteve

Blew my mind at the time.

Those awful sequels ruined it for me though.

gingernut79

I feel like its time for a rewatch myself. It was fairly different at the time both in terms of ideas and action sequences.

S.M.B.

sugarman wrote: »

Watched it over Christmas, it's horribly dated.

What's dated about it? I haven't watched it recently myself but have been listening to Podcasts and reading articles looking back at it and the consensus is that it's dated quite well. Off the top of my head I can't think of too much that would be too aggregious.

whiskeyman

The billboards around town were fab.
Everybody wondering what the hell the Matrix was...
Must watch it soon. One of the first 'wtf?' films I watched I think.

Arghus

DrumSteve wrote: »

Blew my mind at the time.

Those awful sequels ruined it for me though.

I kind of disregard the sequels to be honest. The original is still the original, no matter how much those following things were an overstuffed collective mess.

I liked certain things about both of the sequels. Some of the action in reloaded is pretty good and the scene with The Architect is pretty memorable still - I don't think it's a complete bust, even if it contains a lot of questionable elements - the awful Zion rave scene, the burly brawl with Playstation 2 level visual effects, pacing issues.

Revolutions is definitely the lesser of the two sequels, but I do enjoy the scene between the Deus Ex Machina and Neo and the way they resolved the Agent Smith problem felt okay to me. But by then diminishing returns definitely had set in. There were only so many times you could see Neo and Smith fight again and again and still make it feel interesting, no matter how huge the action was.

There was just too much in the sequels. Too much style, too much action and a lot of the elements that made the original so effective were allowed to just get out of control at the expense of anything worthwhile.

RocketRaccoon

Watched it in the cinema the day it was released and it blew my mind, in my top 10 all time movies.

Arghus

S.M.B. wrote: »

What's dated about it? I haven't watched it recently myself but have been listening to Podcasts and reading articles looking back at it and the consensus is that it's dated quite well. Off the top of my head I can't think of too much that would be too aggregious.

This article had a bit to say on the issue:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190319-the-matrixs-male-power-fantasy-has-dated-badly

I don't agree with everything the author has to say in this piece - it reads like a hit-piece. I think the argument is too one-sided. He comes down on the movie hard and I feel he could be a bit more charitable; there was a lot more going on in the movie than it just being a boiler-plate "male power fantasy". Definitely, he's not totally wrong - the trope of the white (male) saviour is pretty strong in the film, but equally the film and particularly the sequels give loads of space for diversity on screen - a notable amount for major action blockbusters of the time.

Oafley Jones

Arghus wrote: »

This article had a bit to say on the issue:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190319-the-matrixs-male-power-fantasy-has-dated-badly

I don't agree with everything the author has to say in this piece - it reads like a hit-piece. I think the argument is too one-sided. He comes down on the movie hard and I feel he could be a bit more charitable; there was a lot more going on in the movie than it just being a boiler-plate "male power fantasy". Definitely, he's not totally wrong - the trope of the white (male) saviour is pretty strong in the film, but equally the film and particularly the sequels give loads of space for diversity on screen - a notable amount for major action blockbusters of the time.

That’s a genuinely awful piece. It reads like some contrarian first year essay. There’s a complete absence of understanding of the text. Eg That they don’t understand the bored office worker is a function of the matrix’s control. Also, Will Smith. Dreadful.

Anteayer

It looks every day of it and more. That’s one film that aged very badly.

It doesn’t mean it’s a bad film, it’s just like all films that are based in tech they show their age very quickly.

S.M.B.

Arghus wrote: »

This article had a bit to say on the issue:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190319-the-matrixs-male-power-fantasy-has-dated-badly

I don't agree with everything the author has to say in this piece - it reads like a hit-piece. I think the argument is too one-sided. He comes down on the movie hard and I feel he could be a bit more charitable; there was a lot more going on in the movie than it just being a boiler-plate "male power fantasy". Definitely, he's not totally wrong - the trope of the white (male) saviour is pretty strong in the film, but equally the film and particularly the sequels give loads of space for diversity on screen - a notable amount for major action blockbusters of the time.

The author of that piece had to remove "white" from "white male savior" as Reeves has a mixed race lineage.

There may be an element of Gen X to it and the level of fetishism towards guns is something that wouldn't happen today. I think it's massively exaggerated though and contrasting it with the likes of Arrival and Children of Men is a little unfair. These films are still the exception and not the rule.

Arghus

Oafley Jones wrote: »

That’s a genuinely awful piece. It reads like some contrarian first year essay. There’s a complete absence of understanding of the text. Eg That they don’t understand the bored office worker is a function of the matrix’s control. Also, Will Smith. Dreadful.

I actually thought his points about Neo being a bored office worker and how that was emblematic of the zeitgeist of the time were some of the more thought provoking parts of the piece! I would have preferred if he had looked at the film through that lens rather than taken the somewhat easier - and lazier - surface level reading of the film from a modern day "woke" perspective.

I know that the bored office worker is in the world of the film meant to be seen as indicative of the control of the matrix, but there was a thing in American movies of that time - mid to late 90's up until the early 00's - of corporate drudgery being presented as short hand for the emptiness of modern life etc,etc: Fight Club, American Beauty, Office Space.

That's just off the top of my head, there's loads more. The Matrix was part of that moment in time too. I think his argument about that form of malaise, when you look back at it today - with everyone supposedly a bit wiser to how economies can tank and how well paid steady employment is actually fairly tenuous, not to mention all the stuff we're supposed to worry about on top of that...terrorism,culture wars, ecological disaster - it can feel a bit quaint and distinctly of its time.

Ipso

Arghus wrote: »

This article had a bit to say on the issue:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190319-the-matrixs-male-power-fantasy-has-dated-badly

I don't agree with everything the author has to say in this piece - it reads like a hit-piece. I think the argument is too one-sided. He comes down on the movie hard and I feel he could be a bit more charitable; there was a lot more going on in the movie than it just being a boiler-plate "male power fantasy". Definitely, he's not totally wrong - the trope of the white (male) saviour is pretty strong in the film, but equally the film and particularly the sequels give loads of space for diversity on screen - a notable amount for major action blockbusters of the time.

Christ, imagine being stuck in an elevator with him.

MaceFace

When it was first released, I had an unlimited pass to Cineworld and ended up seeing it 7 times in the cinema. The first watch caught me by surprise - while I knew it was meant to be good, it was really something different.

I've watched the movie many times since, even recently and I really do believe it holds up excellently. Sure there are plot holes all over the place, but without the sequels, many of them could be explained as part of what we don't know about that universe. If the movie was released for the first time today I do believe that it would be a roaring success.

As for that terrible BBC article - sounds as if the author is some low paid or out of work journo suggesting that working at a computer all day is some dream job where no one should ever complain.

valoren

It completely stole a march on The Phantom Menace which was being hyped into the stratosphere with The Matrix coming in under the radar. My brother was in the US when it was released there and raved about it. This set the expectation levels quite high and it very much exceeded them. It's quite cerebral for an action movie and caught the tech zeitgeist brilliantly. It was just a cool movie and it holds up well, the bullet time technique was ripped on endlessly but at the time it was a spectacular effect. Hugo Weaving's performance as Agent Smith was and remains the standout.

I have a fondness for the sequels but feel that the Wachowski's were pressed to make two instead of one diluting the subjective quality with too much happening and too many characters. Had both sequels been compressed into a single movie it would have been a worthy sequel. The whole thing hinged on the Oracle character who is the central character of the whole story. That program was the machines 'intuitive' expert in human emotions.

The straight forward plot for the sequel would have been a rogue "Smith" as a virus infecting the latest version of the Matrix which leads to the machines resolving to destroy the matrix itself (and everyone connected to it) and starting again by enslaving the population of Zion for the next version of the Matrix. Morpheous and Trinity's roles would have been to defend Zion from the sentinel invasion with them both acting as Generals and their sub plot being them trying and failing to convince the Zion council and just taking matters into their own hands. The Architect would give the background to how the war came about with machines treated like slaves by humanity and revolting which started the war.

The core philosophy being between Neo (who is a programme too) and the Oracle determining how best to stop Smith with the resolution being the Oracle (and thus the machines doing a 'T2' and learning the value of life) particularly after Neo, the Christ like martyr, chose to sacrifice himself for the greater good of both humans and the machines to defeat Smith. This choice to sacrifice being a completely new concept to the machines. Neo, being the 7th One, was, like Smith, an agent for the machines, but he fell in love with Trinity, a human. After he sacrifices himself to save Trinity, the machines, who were previously incapable of love before, incorporate Neo's programming into their sub-routine's and then into their simulations and there is finally hope for a lasting peace between machines and humanity.

No frivolous subplots, just a straight forward race against time movie.

.......

Love it, think it has aged fine (generally sci fi movies age better than things based in "todays" world overall).

They basically hit upon a massive audience draw - Keanu Reeves isnt a very good actor but he LOOKS great, especially in motion. And he has massive likeability. The John Wick franchise has expanded upon this elusive quality of his, and by giving him even less dialogue has probably improved upon it.

Probably the only big movie franchise out there that they could reboot and cast the same lead actor and it would work.

Gwynplaine

I've seen the first one I'd say 80 - 100 times. Most of those were in the first few years. The sequels, twice.
Absolutely loved it, haven't seen it for a while. Might put it on at the weekend.
Morpheus speech in the second one is hide behind the sofa material, I could feel myself blushing when I saw it.

PS - There is no spoon.

sabat

I saw it at the Thursday preview before the weekend release -a full house at 11AM. It was probably one of the last times I can remember cinema being a collective experience of people being genuinely thrilled together.

tedpan

Gwynplaine wrote:

PS - There is no spoon.

How am I supposed to eat my cereal then?

Anyway, I watched the trilogy last month and have to say, the first movie is still class..

El Duda

I see you've played knifey spoony before

S.M.B.

S.M.B. wrote: »

What's dated about it? I haven't watched it recently myself but have been listening to Podcasts and reading articles looking back at it and the consensus is that it's dated quite well. Off the top of my head I can't think of too much that would be too aggregious.

They used phone booths. Horrrrrribly dated

pixelburp

The trilogy is a great example of that classic contrast between a tight, efficient original film and sequels that engorge themselves on the budget and increased pressure - only to drop the ball & lose the almost intangible qualities that made the first film such a hit in the first place. Where The Matrix was a lean, visceral beast fantastically paced, the sequels got lost up the colon of their own mythology, leaving baggy, padded chores to get through. (IMO Keanu also found himself in the same problem with the John Wick films; great first film, a sequel that got lost among its own woods)

I don't know whether the Wachowski sisters received more, or less creative control with those sequels, but you definitely saw the first signs of the kind of narrative, navel gazing rot that infested their later work.

Some of the technological aspects haven't aged well (flip phones!), nor have the fashions and that late 90s industrial-goth look you saw in every IT class or college campus, but the other points of view can be taken or left. It's rare though you'll find a piece of media championed & loved by both white nationalists and the LGBTQ community, given you can read both viewpoints just as easily in the narrative.

The Crowman

Arghus wrote: »

This article had a bit to say on the issue:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190319-the-matrixs-male-power-fantasy-has-dated-badly

I don't agree with everything the author has to say in this piece - it reads like a hit-piece. I think the argument is too one-sided. He comes down on the movie hard and I feel he could be a bit more charitable; there was a lot more going on in the movie than it just being a boiler-plate "male power fantasy". Definitely, he's not totally wrong - the trope of the white (male) saviour is pretty strong in the film, but equally the film and particularly the sequels give loads of space for diversity on screen - a notable amount for major action blockbusters of the time.

"The white male saviour". Keanu Reeves is Eurasian, not white for a start.

TinCool

Saw it in the flicks, UCI Tallaght, when it was originally released. I would have been 20. I was blown away, especially the scene where he wakes up in the pod. I was like wtf? Great stuff. I've watched it a lot since and quite recently too. I think it's aged very well and still looks very stylish. Special FX still great. No major ropey moments that take you out of the experience that I can think of. Sequels were mostly crap, some good sequences in them but overall pretty underwhelming. First one is still great though.

CrankyHaus

Arghus wrote: »

I actually thought his points about Neo being a bored office worker and how that was emblematic of the zeitgeist of the time were some of the more thought provoking parts of the piece! I would have preferred if he had looked at the film through that lens rather than taken the somewhat easier - and lazier - surface level reading of the film from a modern day "woke" perspective.

I know that the bored office worker is in the world of the film meant to be seen as indicative of the control of the matrix, but there was a thing in American movies of that time - mid to late 90's up until the early 00's - of corporate drudgery being presented as short hand for the emptiness of modern life etc,etc: Fight Club, American Beauty, Office Space.

That's just off the top of my head, there's loads more. The Matrix was part of that moment in time too. I think his argument about that form of malaise, when you look back at it today - with everyone supposedly a bit wiser to how economies can tank and how well paid steady employment is actually fairly tenuous, not to mention all the stuff we're supposed to worry about on top of that...terrorism,culture wars, ecological disaster - it can feel a bit quaint and distinctly of its time.

Yeah I thought the article hit on something interesting there. However instead of viewing movies that griped about corporate culture as Gen-Xers moaning the writer could have recognised that they were somewhat prescient.


Those movies expressed an instinctive but not clearly articulated unease with the way the world was going in the late 1990s. In material terms things were getting better but for many it felt a bit off. With the benefit of hindsight they were proven right by the Great Recession, which had many of its roots in the 1990s, and the ongoing disasters started by the Global War on Terror which was just about to kick off.



I haven't seen the film in a few years but I'd say it stands up well even if it can't disguise its late 90's trappings, kind of like how Alien actually benefits from the dated appearance of the Nostromo with its clunky green screen UIs.

Lorelli!

Was around 16 when it came out and I loved it. Haven't watched it recently though. Wasn't too gone on the sequels.

Anyone else find you can't say Mr Anderson without saying it in Agent Smith's voice??!!!

Dades

Arghus wrote: »

This article had a bit to say on the issue:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190319-the-matrixs-male-power-fantasy-has-dated-badly

That article could only be written in 2019. Trying to apply todays precious, over-sensitive values to a 20 year old sci-fi masterpiece is a nonsense.

The only thing dated about the Matrix is the fashion and the phones. It's always a bad idea to put sunglasses on your characters as it'll date posters and scenes quickly.



If you can get past that, The Matrix is a milestone movie... a mindbending concept that reinvented action. Whatever about the sequels, you can't take that away from the original.

sbsquarepants

First one was amazing - the sequels are a pile of shíte.

Anteayer

RocketRaccoon wrote: »

Watched it in the cinema the day it was released and it blew my mind, in my top 10 all time movies.

I remember coming out of the cinema into a bright, cheery suburban Irish landscape, birds singing, sun shining. It was a very dark and engrossing movie to see in a cinema context.

The original movie is fantastic but the attempts to extend the franchise weren't great.

I wish cinemas would re-run some of these modern classics. I would definitely go to see the Matrix shown properly in a cinema in 2019.

I went to see Back to the Future in a cinema a few years ago and it was just amazing to see it on a proper big cinema screen as it was originally shown.

I don't understand why cinemas can't run older movies like that - there's definitely an audience for it both from people who remember them from the first run and people who were too young to have seen the first run and would love to see a particular film shown in that context. They're great pieces of art and shouldn't be consigned to only ever being rewatched at home on Netflix.

baron von something

Greatest movie ever made....ever...without exception. Sheer perfection. Great premise, great acting, great fx, great choreography, great soundtrack. Escapism at its finest.

It a makes one think too. Statistically there's more chance that we are already in a virtual simulation than the only existence in the universe. We're just The Sims but with better graphics

Anteayer

Some of us don't even have that great graphics, particularly without contact lenses in!

demanufactured

I found it to be .....meh.

More of a terminator man myself.

Roar

Saw it the day it came out. Was utterly blown away - 16 year old me leaving the cinema wasn't quite sure what he'd seen.

And it introduced me to Rage Against The Machine, for which I will always be grateful.

In fact, I ran out of that first screening with "Wake Up" stuck in my head and ran out and bought the soundtrack. Which is to this day, epic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTL4qIIxg8A

Got chills watching that scene again just now.

thomas anderson.

Mr Reagan was the real hero

Will I Am Not

First time I watched it I was on acid. Definitely not recommended.

Dades

Roar wrote: »

In fact, I ran out of that first screening with "Wake Up" stuck in my head and ran out and bought the soundtrack. Which is to this day, epic.

Yep, a great soundtrack can make a great movie. They nailed it with The Matrix soundtrack.

Skerries

Great movie, definitely one of the groundbreaking films that inspired other films that followed
I remember being on The Matrix chatboard for a couple of years before the next films came out
This was also the first film I bought on DVD and I'd say pushed the sale of DVD players at the time

Hurrache

Skerries wrote: »

This was also the first film I bought on DVD and I'd say pushed the sale of DVD players at the time

Home cinema systems. You couldn't go into a store that didn't have their demo room set up to show and demo the sound from the movie.

Cordell

baron von something wrote: »

We're just The Sims but with better graphics

But gameplay kind of sucks, difficulty is a bit unbalanced and there's no way to get the good ending.

sabat

Skerries wrote: »

Great movie, definitely one of the groundbreaking films that inspired other films that followed
I remember being on The Matrix chatboard for a couple of years before the next films came out
This was also the first film I bought on DVD and I'd say pushed the sale of DVD players at the time

I believe it goes further than that and that it almost single-handedly saved the format.

From 1999: https://www.zdnet.com/article/matrix-dvd-breaks-extras-barrier/

Sad Professor

pixelburp wrote: »

It's rare though you'll find a piece of media championed & loved by both white nationalists and the LGBTQ community, given you can read both viewpoints just as easily in the narrative.

Interesting how both sides of the culture war seem to stake claim to the film. I guess it's because it's transgressive and countercultural as both sides claim to be. And like the characters in the film, neither cares much for the material world or winning the mass of people in it to their cause. The main battle is between various rag-tag groups for control of the Matrix rather than the world outside, which remains a post-apocalyptic wasteland controlled by machines even at the end of the third film, which is strangely called "Revolutions" despite no revolution taking place.

Ri_Nollaig

Arghus wrote: »

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20190319-the-matrixs-male-power-fantasy-has-dated-badly

With the exception of it being dated (is that even a bad thing?) that article is comically wrong.

I wonder do writers like this actually believe their own bull or is it just a race to the bottom to be more controversial and get noticed?

accensi0n

I've probably watched it at least once a year for past 20 years. Great film.

neirbloom

The sequel's themselves are pretty forgettable with the exception of some great action set pieces. The animated series on the other hand is very enjoyable and goes into much more backstory about the whole universe and some stand alone episode which really hold their own.

AidoEirE

Where has the time gone, 1999 seems a forever ago yet the film doesnt seem like it.
I'd rather rewatch some 'old' films now than hit the cinema these days, I just dont see the calibur recently.
I used to go to the cinema 4/5/6 times a year for a big film, now its a stretch at 2.

The matrix (99
Gladiator (00
Lord of the Rings (01

Those 3 films stand up to me big time, and there was some brilliant films beside them in their appearing year.

(99) Fighr Club, The Green Mile, Wild Wild West*
(00) Memento, Reqiuem for a Dream, Snatch
(01)Training Day, Harry Potter, Black Hawk Down

For me there was some seriously great films being made within those years. Hard to imagine it's that long ago.
I still watch LoTR The Fellowship of the Ring at least once a year.
Watched The Matrix again only this christmas gone and still enjoyed it a lot, flashbacks to when i seen it in the cinema.















*Wild Wild West* we must never forget that ****e

KaiserGunner

It’s one of my all time favourite films, can’t believe that it’s 20 years old already. It was also the first film that I had seen on DVD back in the day.
I lived in Sydney, Australia a couple of years ago and my mind was blown when I realised where the famous woman in the red dress scene was filmed, Martin Place in the Sydney CBD, where I spent most days of the week and never realised until it was pointed out to me by my Aussie friends.

starvin

My friends and I actually went to New York to go and see Star Wars Ep1 a few months before it opened here. While we were there The Matrix had just opened so we decided to go see that as well. It completely blew our minds. We saw Star Wars the following day and it was a complete disappointment in comparison.