Timing can make or break a movie’s legacy, and had it not hit right at the turn of the millennium, The Matrix might have been too prescient, or behind the curve to really have made much of an impact. Instead, it managed to make Platonic philosophy, hard sci-fi, hackers, and leather fetishism into a blistering, sexy and exciting experience that would prove to be hugely influential in the nascent years of 21st century blockbuster filmmaking.
The franchise that launched a thousand action scenes based around slowing down shootouts instead of speeding them up, The Matrix is the first sci-fi action epic for the digital age. Thanks to having an actual narrative reason for letting realistic physics take a hike, the Wachowskis were free to choreograph the kinds of shootouts and martial arts throwdowns you couldn’t have ever fathomed in a time before computer generated trickery was the standard.
Even if stripped of all its techno-paranoia and stylized philosophizing, the film is classic of the fisticuff and firearm genre based solely on the setpieces, big and small. Trinity’s ad nauseatingly parodied freeze-frame flying crane kick, Neo and Morpheus going toe-to-toe in the dojo, the white collar fantasy come to life that was the lobby shootout –the list of unforgettable moments and sequences goes on, and will, as The Matrix will continue to thrill and inspire lovers of the genre looking to make their mark in the future.
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