The verdict
A blockbuster that changed how films were made, and it still holds up. Watch it for the idea first and the fights second.
Quick facts
- Written by
- Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski
- Released
- 1999
- Runtime
- 2 hours 16 minutes
- Starring
- Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving
- Series
- The Matrix (first film)
- Awards
- Four Academy Awards, including visual effects and film editing
- Where to watch
- Amazon Prime Video
- Genre
- Science fiction, cyberpunk
Directors Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski
The Matrix is the 1999 film in which a programmer discovers that the world he lives in is a simulation, that his body is in a pod, and that the machines running it have been farming humans for energy. It also has kung fu, leather and a phone booth. It is one of the very few films that is both a genuinely great action movie and a genuinely interesting piece of science fiction.
The idea behind it
The premise is a piece of philosophy with a fight scene attached. If your entire experience is generated, what would count as evidence that it is not? The film takes that question seriously for its first half and then uses it as the floor for everything else, which is why the sequels have a harder time: once the question is answered, the tension has to come from somewhere else.
What makes the film work is that it treats the answer as a choice rather than a revelation. Neo is offered a way out and has to decide whether he wants it, and the film is clear that knowing the truth is not the same as being able to live with it.
The story, spoiler-light
Thomas Anderson works at a software company by day and breaks into systems at night. A message arrives, a man called Morpheus wants to meet him, and a woman with a white rabbit tattoo leads him to a room where his choices stop being reversible. After that he is on the run from agents who can overwrite the rules of the world he is trying to escape.
Two things are worth knowing. The film’s first act is a mystery, and it is better if you do not know the answer going in, which has become almost impossible over twenty-five years. And the second half is a training sequence followed by a rescue, so the pleasure is in the choreography rather than the plot.
What makes it science fiction
The simulation is the science fiction, and the film is unusually disciplined about its own rules. What happens inside the Matrix is software, so it can be rewritten, and the film uses that consistently rather than as a get-out clause. The famous effect work exists to serve the rule, not the other way round.
It also belongs to a specific moment. The dread of a networked world, the suspicion that the systems people depend on have their own interests, and the idea that a hacker is a kind of revolutionary all date from the late 1990s, and the film caught that mood exactly. It borrowed heavily from cyberpunk novels and from Hong Kong action cinema and turned the combination into something that had not been seen in a mainstream film before.
Who should watch it, and who should skip it
Watch it if you somehow have not, and watch it for the action as much as the idea. The lobby shootout and the dojo fight hold up better than most of what has been made since, and the film has a confidence that is genuinely enjoyable.
Skip it if you want the philosophy developed rather than used as a premise, or if the leather-and-sunglasses aesthetic strikes you as silly. It is a 1999 film with a 1999 sense of cool, and it knows it.
Where to watch it
It is available on Amazon Prime Video, and on the usual digital stores to buy or rent. The sequels are also streaming if you want to continue, though the first film stands alone perfectly well.
The verdict
A great action film with a real idea inside it, and the rare blockbuster that changed how films were made. Watch it for the idea the first time and the fights the second.
Frequently asked questions
How long is The Matrix, and where can I watch it?
Two hours and sixteen minutes. It is streaming on Amazon Prime Video and available to buy or rent on the usual digital stores.
Do I need to watch the sequels?
No. The first film is a complete story and was made to stand alone. The sequels were shot together and are far more interested in explaining the world, which suits some viewers and not others.
Did it win any awards?
It won four Academy Awards, including visual effects and film editing. Its technical influence is hard to overstate: the effect used to freeze the action while the camera moves became shorthand for an entire decade of films.
Is the simulation idea original to this film?
No. It draws on a long line of science fiction about generated realities, and on earlier cyberpunk novels about hacking and uploaded minds. What the film did was put it in front of a mainstream audience with the budget to make it convincing.
Is it suitable for younger viewers?
It is rated for older teenagers and up. There is a lot of stylised gun violence, and the premise about bodies being harvested is genuinely unpleasant once you think about it.