 Ooh, that's a hot mug, guys. Hey guys, this is my review for The Matrix. This was chosen by my Patreon supporters. I had the choice of either The Jane's Bond, Daniel Craig movies that I haven't reviewed are The Matrix films, which I haven't reviewed any of them, Matrix one. And since this corresponds in with the really out of nowhere, but always speculated fourth film coming out in December, better late than never to finally talk about this trilogy. I 100% agree with everyone saying that The Matrix is one of the best movies made, if not of all time, definitely within the last quarter century. The film has such rooted elements that have been used by cinema, both in American and even international film culture for the last 30 years. And it doesn't go without saying that a ton of these reflect on the ideologies of the film, how the film was shot, or in particular how the fight scenes are choreographed. There are so many parodies of Trinity's spinning jump kick, but overall, does this film still hold up? Does it still have every element that was spoken of in such good favor back in 98? Yeah, it has fantastic storytelling, amazingly deep and rich culture into the film, and it has great fight scenes, it has great sound, visual effects, music, all around everything's great about this movie, even the dull acting from everyone works in this movie, because it completely flows into this film, and the Wachowskis developed something that supposedly they had been working on for quite some time. Does it borrow a little bit from Grant Morrison's Invisible Comics series? There's a lot of debate about that. Even Grant Morrison himself has said a few things. If you guys want to watch a video that goes into more depth about that, I would definitely suggest the Mr. Sunday movies guys, these two Australian dudes who talk about movies all the time, they recently reviewed the Matrix trilogy, and they talked about kind of the copyright kind of issues that they went through with the establishment of the Matrix and the similarities that has to Grant Morrison's comics, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about this movie. In this film, Neo awakens from what he feels is real life, it is actually a artificial construct created by machine artificial intelligence that has taken over the world and has enslaving humanity to use their bodies as a means of keeping their energy sources plentiful. Even though a lot of people have said that it's pretty easy to look up that humans do not actually generate that much electricity, but whatever. Under the tutelage of Morpheus, he realizes that he is in fact the one and the savior of the human race and fights against the agents, the AI constructs in the Matrix to help find a means of saving humanity from the turmoil that it put itself into. And then when you watch the Animatrix and you watch the Second Renaissance, oh God, if any of you haven't ever seen the Second Renaissance, it is probably some of the darkest shit I've seen in a while, but it definitely adds more to the whole hopeless world that the Matrix establishes. In this movie, when this film came out, I was like, oh wow, that really, really sucks. But then the Animatrix came out and like, holy shit, this world is horrible. What do I like about this movie? I like almost everything about this movie. I love how the story is paced. I love how the film is edited. I think that Keanu Reeves is a fantastic choice as Neo, not only because of the, whoa. But also because he is kind of an everyday man in this movie, he is us. He is a perfect representation of the audience being introduced to the Matrix. I love Morpheus as this kind of mystical Gandalf wizard motherfucker who's talking in riddles and metaphorical shit, but you like it. You love every bit of his dialogue in this movie. Trinity is a badass chick who's got some fantastic fight scenes in this movie and she has a connection with Neo and Morpheus that makes her more than just a side woman character kind of thing. And then you have Agent Smith played by Hugo Weaving. This was one of his first big movies in North American Hollywood culture. He had done a few before, but nothing put him on the map as much as this movie did. And then obviously, Lord of the Rings, which was only three years later, elevate him ever so more higher. He is a fantastic villain. I love Smith and he actually correlates into one of my favorite scenes in the movie, which speaking of which, to say that there is a favorite, a single favorite scene of mine in this movie is impossible. I love the introduction fight scene where Neo knows Kung Fu and he learns under Morpheus have had to just kick ass. I love the conversation between Cipher and Hugo Weaving talking about Cipher wanting to go back into the matrix, willing to portray everyone because he's just so fed up with how shitty the actual world is that he'd rather go back to a false reality. I love when the gang is cornered in the walls and Morpheus does this, what? I love the fight scene between Neo and Agent Smith in the subway station. In fact, it is probably one of my favorite fight scenes ever put on film. But realistically, probably my favorite scene in this entire movie is when Agent Smith goes off the wire and he just talks about how much he hates where he is. I hate this place. This zoo. He hates humanity. He hates them. He views them as a virus and he wants to get out and it actually does put a little bit of foundation into what Smith would become in the latter two movies even though it's so subtly put in there. This movie wasn't really intended to be any kind of sequel generator. Warner Brothers took a chance on something that should have normally failed. Every single high budget, independent, very unique kind of IP that has come after this movie as tried to siphon off of the success of the Matrix movie ever since was a success and then they turn it into two very quickly and oddly very closely released sequels. I knew that they came out really close to each other I thought within a year. I didn't realize it was within the same year. I don't think we've ever seen anything like that since. The fight choreography in this movie is nuts. They got a legendary Chinese kung fu choreographer who gave them absolutely insane demands in terms of trying to get him into this movie. First he asked for an impossible amount of money. They gave it to him. Then he asked for pretty much 100% creative control of all the fight scenes. They gave it to him. Now unlike other fight scenes from other movies the reason why these ones stand out so much is because we see everything that happens. There's not a lot of quick editing. If there is, it's more so to change the perspective of the fight and for some Kamehameha kind of thrown in the wall chip shit sort of attacks. But in the actual choreography sequences they're all on the actors. They're showing what's happening. It's very akin to Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen kind of kung fu and it really makes you invested in this fight scene because you're seeing them do it. We're not seeing it be edited together. We're seeing these guys fight. And that works into the visual effects of the movie. The scene where Neo and Smith jump at each other and spin in the air is still so fantastic to watch. Obviously the bullet dodge, which again was parodied to all death. The visual effects in this movie set boundaries but funnily enough we're more hearken to than that of the Phantom Menace which had outstanding visual effects in 1999 but no one gave a shit because the movie was bad. This film sets so many standards. You could talk about it all day. It's a central idea. It has the potential for a lot of openings but you keep it very centralized on the crew in the ship. And while you don't really get to know much about them you still have enough to be caring about them when they all get betrayed by Cipher who just such a nasty ass bastard character. Now speaking of the crew, actually I wanna talk about Switch for a minute. Switch is actually quite important to the Wachowskis in terms of their representation of what this movie means. A lot of people have gone back and forth on what it means sort of a virtual version of Christianity in terms of a savior coming to save the less fortunate. Obviously a lot of the symbolism and revolutions is very kind of akin to that but actually in fact it's about more so the Wachowskis inner turmoil, inner kind of struggles that they had before they were transitioned and that reflects on Switch. This is from the trivia of it. When the actress auditioned for the role of Switch she was originally only going for half the role. The character was originally planned to be played by androgynous actors in the real world it would be played by a male actor and in the matrix be represented by a female form hence the Switch name. Warner Brothers refined the idea and the actress ended up playing a single female role in both environments. Morpheus is talking about throughout the entire movie about the idea of what is an established setting and what is actually walking your own path. It's underlying there but when you really look at it you can totally tell that the Wachowskis are like, hey, we wanna transition and good for them, you know, doing what they wanna do. If there was one kind of tiny complaint I would have with this movie it's the relationship between Trinity and Neo. They're supposed to be in love with each other but it's so very lightly talked about it doesn't have enough foundation that it should but it's kind of a given for this kind of movie we only kind of have this view of it now because it would become such a common place lazy story tactic used in films further on. The whole use of destiny does a little bit kind of clarify and forgive the whole element of this story and I do like how she saves him through true love because, hey, it happened in Harry Potter guys, you know, we all accepted it there. The part where she's standing in front of him at the phone and like, yeah, you guys gotta get out of here. Like you've got sentinels on your ass but no, I'm gonna have a monologue in front of the phone. Pick up the goddamn phone and talk about it when you're on the ship damn it. Overall though, the Matrix is one of the most stand-down movies of my generation. I remember seeing so many kids in high school dressing up in trench coats, the fashion ideology, the whole view of everyone in the Matrix. People still talk about the idea of whether we are actually in a Matrix or not to this day because of this movie. It was talked about before it was even more amplified after this movie. There's a lot of really cool philosophical ideologies in this movie, not just really badass action. It's great to see an action movie still have some smarts to it and have some ingenuity and some creative outlet for the creators of the film. In the end though, I'm gonna give the Matrix a seven out of seven. It's a standout movie. It's been watched a billion times for everyone. I don't remember how many times I've watched it. I remember watching it several, several times when I had the cool glossy VHS that would shine when you turn it in different directions. I remember thinking that was, whoa. But what do you guys think of the Matrix? Do you think it's the be all end all? Do you think it's one of the best of all time? Let me know in the comments below. And if you guys would like to have more of a personal say in what I review, maybe consider joining my Patreon, the link for it in the description below. And a personal thank you to my gold Patreon supporters, Amber, Emilio, Mark, Shannon, and Joe, as well as my silver supporter, Andra. Thank you guys for supporting me. I hope I keep making great content for you guys. And like I said, if you guys are interested in getting in on the Patreon side, check out the link below and see what I've got to offer for you guys. I will be starting to watch Matrix reloaded very soon, but there are a lot of movies that are coming out quite soon that I'm wanting to get to. And considering I have a lot more time to finish the Matrix trilogy before Matrix Resurrections come out, it might come a little bit, but don't worry, I'm working on them. Until then, I'll see you guys next time.