The Matrix (1999)

A computer hacker (Keanu Reeves) learns that reality is not quite what it seems and that he might just be the key to saving humanity. Whoa!

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So I decided to watch The Matrix for the first time in a million years. Guess what? It really holds up! I know the sequels were awful, but try and put them out of your mind. Viewed in a vacuum, the first film is pretty close to perfect. It’s kind of hard not to be when you take from so many disparate yet fertile sources. Some might even argue that this film is without merit since there isn't a single original idea in the whole film. To them I say: So what? Watching this film feels like The Wachowskis are downloading their brains directly into your own. Film Noir, Anime, David Cronenberg, H.R. Geiger, Plato, Joseph Campbell, Industrial Music, Comic Books, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Fetish Culture, Cyber Punk, Philip K. Dick, John Woo/Hong Kong Cinema, Kung Fu Films, Submarine Films, Cold War Paranoia, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, Liberation Politics, Video Games, Westerns, Computer Culture and Multiculturalism all feature prominently at some point in this film’s narrative. Like David Bowie before them and Kanye West after them, The Siblings were able to take extremely out-there or niche ideas/aesthetics and make them palatable to a mass audience. What Pulp Fiction was to the early-90’s, this film was to the new millennium, a survey course in cool. It's entirely up to you what course you take next.