The Matrix
I seem to be going through a little phase of rewatching seminal sci-fi movies from my youth. First up was Cloverfield and now this.
It's been so long since I actually sat down and truly watched The Matrix. I remember when this came out in 1999, me and my buddy Ric Murrian had just bought these new fangled things called unlimited cinema passes - an 8 week pass to watch as many movies as we wanted for one fixed fee. The summer was ours and we intended to get our money's worth. Galaxy Quest, Cruel Intentions, Star Wars Episode I, Fight Club, The Mummy, American Pie - we watched dozens of movies. But The Matrix? We watched that the most of all. We must have watched it about 6 times in the cinema, and when it came out on DVD at the end of the year, we watched it over and over again.
The trouble with such groundbreaking and genre defining movies like this is that they get copied and homaged and parodied to the point of exhaustion, until you can't even remember what it was like to see it for the first time. Not to mention everything from the lingo to the fashion was co-opted by incels and chronically online nutjobs, tainting the whole thing. The sequels haven't helped either. I liked Reloaded, Revolutions was a disappointing conclusion, and while I owe Resurrections a rewatch, it in itself is dealing with the burden of a franchise that's been picked apart by studio executives, 'red-pilled' extremists, and the weight of time itself.
But to sit down and give yourself over to that original movie is to take a step back in time. Everything that has come since is stripped away as soon as you see Trinity leaping over rooftops and crashing through windows. Action movies have come such a long way in the last 25 years, but I forgot just how thrilling this movie actually is. It's superbly paced, brilliantly original and deftly choreographed. It's so timeless and yet so of its time. Rage Against the Machine, Rob Zombie, and Marilyn Manson on the soundtrack, Carrie-Ann Moss dressed in PVC and leather, this movie had everything 15 year old me could have ever wanted!
Everything from the bullet time to the catchphrases have been used up by all the movies, TV shows, games, and even music videos that have come since, but when you take a step back into The Matrix, the grim future of the real world melts away like a perfectly cooked steak.