Loved it, didn’t expect it to be as good as it was. The sequels had the potential, they just never lived up to it. Animatrix had some good episodes as well, I love second renaissance parts 1 and 2.
I was blown away. Someone I know had seen a screening and had said “you want to go see this Friday afternoon, before anybody has a chance to tell you anything about it.”
That’s all he would say. So I talked my wife into knocking off early on that Friday and we went to a matinee with almost no information about it. I don’t even really remember seeing any commercials for it. The hook for talking her into it was it being done by the same people who did Bound, which she loved.
Some serious flaws in the universe created but as entertaining spectacle it was a amazing and many of the effects really were groundbreaking (even if they’d been beaten to the punch by faster-to-the-finish-line GAP commercials for the bullet time effect).
I didn’t have huge problems with the sequels (though it is funny to think now that) but as with many movies I really like as spectacle I’ve generally avoided seeing it again (I think I watched it once on DVD) as the thrill is never really the same.
I went and saw it with my ex-wife and my buddy. Me and buddy were fried on mushrooms, and had no idea what the film was about, beyond being science fiction.
We were absolutely floored. Riveted. It was a revelatory experience.
I still love that movie.
Speaking of not holding up, one can notice the lack of land lines and old fashion phones that we see nowadays…
…unless that was the plan, what we see now are the patches made by the machines to the matrix after the Neo anomaly. They figured out a plausible explanation to the humans as to why the land lines are disappearing. By making the cell phones the more convenient technology so there are less illegal entries.
Whoa! 
That was forced on the director by the studio ( much like the Harrison Ford narration was added for Blade Runner ). The original opening is the main character waking in the bathtub, with no opening narration. The 2008 Director’s Cut restores it to how it should be.
As for The Matrix, I’m afraid I’m with GuanoLad, only I probably liked it a little better at first glance. But it really doesn’t hold up that well for me. I think it was and is a successful, well-done film ( unlike the sequels ). But it doesn’t spin my beany these days.
I thought I read somewhere that since the first one made so much money that the studio wanted more so the brothers made a sequel but the studio made them split it into two movies. If that’s right then the bros probably had to make up a lot of stuff really fast so I can fogive a lot of dumb stuff in the sequels. There are still some good stuff in them.
If the first one is on tv I’ll watch it but not the sequels.
To me, the dated-ness isn’t just being set in a particular time. It’s not the flip phones that are causing issues.
For example, all kinds of fuss was made over the bullet time sequence. While that was apparently a first for special effects, it just doesn’t hold up. The more I see it, the more it just looks like a cheesy over-use of special effects. It takes me out of the story and says “Hey look at what our FX guy can do” but what the FX guy did has been done and re-done to death and all I’m left with is the feeling that they broke the fourth wall just to pat themselves on the back.
Yeah, but that’s like saying The Godfather is one cliché after another.
I see what you’re saying, but I just don’t think that’s a good comparison. It’s not like the Godfather stopped the action to say “Watch this - the next line is going to be a real classic. You’ll be quoting it to your grandkids”
Super cool fight scenes, music, and atmosphere, but I was always confused when people were talking it up as some sort of philosophical tour de force. That definitely died down after the sequels. On the plus side it gave us “getting red pilled.”
Carrie-Anne Moss in her skintight PVC outfit was like Leia’s slave girl bikini for a new generation of adolescents.
I don’t see that it isn’t a philosophical tour de force. The sequels left a lot to be pondered. Is there a legitimate need for humans when the computers take over? Does a robot, who’s very existence was purposed to serve humans, have purpose when humans don’t exist? Are the robots assisting humans in the best way they know?
I also disagree that the special effects took away from the action, or took you out of the setting. The action was slowing down to show how imperceptibly FAST things were happening. Neo isn’t just super-human fast, he is fast in a way that defies physics.
I knew almost nothing about it when I went in, and I walked out of the theater with my head spinning. I thought it was amazing, and it’s still one of my all-time favorite films.
Not a bit surprised to see other posters saying that it’s dated, doesn’t hold up, was retroactively ruined by the sequels, etc. This is the SDMB, after all.
Indeed, and people forget: the famous bullet time shot is essential to the plot and to Neo’s character development. It’s not just some random cool effect they threw in there. In a medium that frequently uses camera effects to show the audience how a character is perceiving their environment, it was essential for them to show us how Neo feels the very first time he was able to control the very laws of physics in the matrix.
One little philosophical tidbit I enjoyed was during Smith’s “why humans suck” speech he said the original Matrix was a paradise but humans rebelled against it as obviously false. We only became domesticated when they gave us the filthy, sinful world we so enjoy.
Things it did really well:
-kicked action movies into overdrive. To me, action movies are pretty clearly pre- and postmatrix. Before, having a car, boat or building blow up was OK enough. The typical Schwarzenegger gig. The Matrix showed that those newfangled computer thingies were pretty neat for SFX while half the world was still on dialup.
-Not really sure about the first movie, but the sequels had a decent representation of mains and extras that weren’t white. 15 years on and most hollywood productions STILL can’t get that right.
I felt the same way, and the concept of “holding up” is ridiculous in the first place.
When 1999 Carrie-Anne Moss is dressed in black vinyl, mine definitely holds up.
I was really surprised she didn’t become a bigger star. She’s definitely worked steadily and has had a career that most actors would envy, but I expected her to become a major star. She was a lead in a huge hit of a movie, she’s an exceptionally talented actor, and she is ridiculously beautiful.
Another thing The Matrix should get credit for is that the Action Film Hot Chick Supporting Character was over 30.
If your Hot Chick Supporting Character is a college student, fine, cast a 23 year old. But Hot Chick Supporting Character Nuclear Physicist? Hot Chick Supporting Character Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist? Hot Chick Supporting Character U.S. Ambassador? Please cast someone a little older.
What I meant by not holding up is that I didn’t think it was all that great in the first place, but parts of it made up for it making it a decent entertainment experience. But then later, as time has passed, and after a few re-watches, those other things* have started to niggle at me a bit, and now I don’t like them anymore either.
*Bullet time, slow motion, guns used as weapons against computer generated entities that can’t die, wire-fu, way too much black leather and mirrored sunglasses, the sickly green cast to the whole movie.
If you watch the original release, there’s no “sickly green cast” to the movie. Unfortunately, they added it in the re-releases following the sequels, unfortunately.
It’s on my DVD, and I am pretty sure I bought that in 1999 or 2000.