The Matrix: Pills, Y2K, and Wonky Sunglasses.

"The Matrix" is one of those few movies that you can casually mention to any group of people and odds are: most of them have seen it and love it. Occasionally, there is the one person who shyly says "I've never watched it" and everyone has to re-evaluate their friendship with this person. Personally, I think that finding out you have a friend who hasn't seen this classic is an excellent excuse to sit on the couch for hours and introduce that friend to the mind boggling sci-fy that is "The Matrix."

Besides, this movie leaves the biggest "what the hell did I just watch" on people's faces. Which in my opinion is almost as entertaining as the movie itself.

The basic plot of this movie goes as follows: We get introduced to the protagonist Thomas Anderson (a.k.a. Neo, the chosen one, or "can you please take off those sunglasses." Whichever you prefer) a computer programmer and hacker who finds a strange message on his computer telling him to "follow the white rabbit."
Upon a semi-random decision to go to a nightclub (following a punk rock female with a rabbit tattoo), Neo finds himself talking to infamous hacker Trinity, who informs him that a man named Morpheous will show him the meaning of "the Matrix" and that there are forces at power that are out to stop him from finding out the truth.
Backtracking before this moment, it's important to point out that the world Neo lives is in seemingly normal. He has a normal room, a normal job, leads a normal life and is surrounded by "normal" people.

The reason this is important is it proves that the film follows the cinematic pattern where films begin in a normal world, and then gradually become weirder, so that the audience can adjust to seeing things they would not see in real life.

After a brief running and capture by men in black suits, Neo finally meets the elusive Morpheous, who gives him an ultimatum which is symbolically represented by a red and blue pill. Depending on which one he takes he will either learn the truth about the Matrix or forget everything.
Of course, Neo chooses the red pill which will show him the truth. He wakes up in a terrifying reality (where the weird, out-of-this-world kicks in): naked, bald, and attached to tubes that keep him submerged in a strange pod filled with a jelly-like substance. Of all the places to wake up in after a rough night, this is probably the worst I can think of.
Upon his waking, he is rescued by Morpheous and his crew and is told the truth. The reality that he once knew is basically a computer program created by Artificial Intelligence in order to breed humans for a fuel source. If that wasn't hard enough to believe already, Neo learns that this crew, lead by Morpheous, believes that he is the chosen one who is meant to bring down the robots and save humanity from the Matrix.

Good thing he chose the red pill or else that would've been a very anti-climactic movie.

Now before we go any further into any type of plot line, we need to take into consideration the time period in which this movie is from. "The Matrix" came out in 1999, which I would say is a very strange time for the human race and their logic. Technology in the 90's had been advancing at a staggering and awesome pace. The World Wide Web was invented, and e-mail became a popular form of communication. Businesses began to use e-commerce as a performance tool. The use of CDs became increasingly popular and video cameras became far more used and affordable. The basic summary of this decade is that the world was moving quickly into a technological craze. And because of this increase in the use and power of technology spawned the Y2K scare, which was believed to be the end of the world because of our computers wouldn't be able to handle the shift of going into a new millenium.

This is a phone very similar to Neo's. Wow, much cool very technology.

That being said, this movie is obviously inspired by both our fascination and fear of technology and artificial intelligence. One could even say that this movie is a possible scenario of Y2K where technology overtakes the human race. The directors Andy and Lana Wachowski (The Wachowski Brothers) depicted this in a variety of ways. Their use of CGI to portray impossible spaceships and computer technology is frightening, especially for how advanced it was in 1999. The use of lighting in the movie creates an ominous effect, most scenes have a very green tone to them. Green can be associated with the color of computer hard drives as well as the color of the coding in the matrix. This makes the viewer feel truly like they are in a computer program. The use of slow motion was also very prominent in this film, especially in the fight scenes. Characters jumped to impossible heights and dodge bullets, all being shown with both fast and slow motion action shots to create a dramatic and surreal effect.

Neo fighting Agent Smith, notice the lighting?

Getting back to the plot, Neo gets downloaded with a bunch of badass fighting skills into his brain hole connector, but due to the prediction of an Oracle, doubts his abilities and destiny. This sassy cookie-baking oracle basically told Neo that he wasn't the chosen one. But Neo seems to keep pretty quiet so that he doesn't disappoint the rest of the crew, especially Morpheous, who the oracle says will die to save him. There are multiple battles where he attempts to fight the agents (projections created by the Matrix in order to dispose of resistors and keep humans under control). Cypher, one of the crew members, also makes a deal with the agents which leads to Morpheous' carpture and the death of many crew members.

This scene is important because it shows the cinematic technique of invisible editing. Cypher exits the Matrix before the rest of his crew members and reveals to them that he's a rat. While talking to Trinity on the phone, the audience sees Cypher looking at his plugged-in crew mates. We never actually see Cypher pulling the plug, because the editing always switches to Trinity as she watches her teammates fall down dead.

This is where things start getting intense. Neo and Trinity go into the Matrix to save Morpheous (with Neo realizing that if Morpheous doesn't die, he will). During this time, Neo gains more confidence in his abilities, and by the end of the movie begins to control the Matrix. This comes at a pretty good time considering Neo has to single-handedly battle an agent (which has never been done before without the human dying), and ends up killing him!

The fight scene uses another important type of editing, cutting on action. While Neo and Agent Smith fight, we see from the other's perspective, but the clips still flow in a way that it seems to be a very fluid fight scene. Of course the scene was filmed multiple times from multiple angles, but the audience doesn't think about that because of the way the clips are edited.

But of course, you kill one agent and out comes many more ambushing and shooting Neo multiple times. I am pretty lenient with my criticism towards sci-fy films, since their logic doesn't normally make sense. But the very ending of the movie makes me think that the writers had a little bit of trouble figuring out how to end such an epic and long film. For example, despite being shot multiple times with almost certainty of both death in the real world and Matrix, Neo doesn't die. I guess that being the chosen one gives you some sort of immortality. Then comes the kissing scene where Trinity says that it was her destiny to fall in love with the chosen one, which honestly kind of comes out of nowhere. There wasn't any real type of flirting or even romance between them the entire movie and out of nowhere she admits her love to him.. but I guess if you have a movie over two hours long, you have to include some romance to compensate for the action, right?

"We've only known each other for a few days but I love you okay it's my destiny whatever"

In sum, "The Matrix" is an awesome movie. It went where no movie had ever gone before and leaves you questioning reality when it is finished. This movie is still very relevant because with the invention of new modern technology and our creation of REAL artificial intelligence makes us still fear this scenario and think it possible. The action scenes are captivating, the concept is well thought out, and it keeps you on the edge of your seat trying to figure out if Neo being the chosen one will actually work out. Will he be the chosen one? Will he fail? Will he ever realize how ridiculous he looks in those sun glasses?

Oh, 90's fashion.