My Favourite Movies: The Matrix

If I had to pick my all time favourite movie at gun point The Matrix would probably be it. I remember seeing it in a small(ish) city centre cinema, virtually on my own, one Saturday afternoon. Pretty much from the moment the music started – which still gives me goose-bumps every time I hear it – I was totally hooked. The opening scene where Trinity (played by the coldly beautiful Carrie-Anne Moss) escaped from a group of police and Agents of the System (headed up by the marvellous Hugo Weaving) made my jaw repeatedly hit the floor. I was, literally, stunned by the whole thing.

I did have some issues with the casting of Keanu Reeves as Thomas Anderson/Neo. There were times that his acting bordered on the very wooden indeed but, fortunately, he did improve as the movie progressed. By far the best actors in the movie were Hugo Weaving as the now iconic Agent Smith and Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus ‘considered by some to be the most dangerous man alive’. Anderson, whose hacker alias is Neo (The One), is, unknown to himself, being searched for the very man he is looking for. Morpheus considers him to be central to the war against the machines that enslaved humanity a century or more ago by placing them in an electronic dream-world known as The Matrix. Once out of the simulation and in the ‘desert of the real’ Neo begins to discover he can do things that none of the rest of the team are capable of including ‘dodging bullets’ – in yet another iconic scene.

There is just *so* much in this movie that can be discussed at great length – because the whole film is, in itself, iconic. The movie broke *so* many rules that it became a benchmark for all that followed it and that’s before we get into the philosophical aspects! The Matrix not only wowed audiences across the world it also made them think – and how many Hollywood blockbusters do that these days? People began wondering if we do indeed live inside a giant computer simulation, began wondering about Artificial Intelligence, about personal identity and much else besides. A whole publishing industry sprang up overnight to feed the voracious demand for books on these subjects, University courses began to discuss these issues and more besides. I’m sure many people discovered philosophy (and maybe Buddhism too) for the first time after seeing The Matrix. It was, not to exaggerate too much, a life changing experience.

A movie that is definitely in my Top 10 best movies ever (even without a gun pointing at my head), a piece of cinematic history and a 20^th Century cultural icon. The Matrix has it all.