The Matrix 10th Anniversary Blu-ray review

The Matrix finally gets the high-def solo treatment it desperately deserves.

“I know why you’re here, Neo. I know what you’ve been doing… why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer. You’re looking for him. I know because I was once looking for the same thing. And when he found me, he told me I wasn’t really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It’s the question that drives us, Neo. It’s the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did.” “What is the Matrix?”

STORYTELLING:  

The original Matrix film is classic sci-fi storytelling for the ages. A rare marriage of action thrills, brilliant visual effects, menacing set pieces, and a nearly flawless story at its core. From the moment Trinity eludes police in the opening chase scene to the final frame of Neo going all Superman, the visuals consistently support the story instead of alienating it. Countless imitators have tried to reproduce The Matrix formula only to end up with visual-heavy thrills that vastly outweigh the plot. “What is real? How do you define, real? You’ve been living in a dream world Neo.” (00:40:16)

Neo is ‘The One’, a man charged with freeing humanity from their machine-induced dream state known as ‘The Matrix’. In a brilliant piece of storytelling, Neo is able to bend and even break some rules of The Matrix, allowing for brilliant special effects in a context that is fantastic yet believable. This is at the core of what makes the flick so good, and reason enough to add this disc to your collection.

The story of Neo versus the machines ends on one of the most hopeful moments in sci-fi history (02:08:20) “I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see.” And it is exactly that moment that makes the follow-up films unwatchable for me. Gone is the character development, gone is the hope of saving humanity, gone is Neo’s wise leadership — replaced in Reloaded by horny schoolboy antics in an elevator in the rave city of Zion. Sins of the sequels aside, The Matrix remains thought provoking, unforgettable, and powerful.

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