Set in the 22nd century, The Matrix tells the story of a computer hacker who joins a group of underground insurgents fighting the vast and powerful computers who now rule the earth.
A must-see among genre fans, especially guys in their teens and 20s, for whom the script's pretentious mumbo-jumbo of undergraduate mythology, religious mysticism and technobabble could even be a plus rather than a dramatic liability.
– Todd McCarthy,
Variety,
5 Jun 2007
fresh:
Where other films are done in by the freedom offered by computer effects, The Matrix integrates them beautifully.
– Keith Phipps,
AV Club,
21 Oct 2013
fresh:
The Wachowskis and cinematographer Bill Pope take advantage of currently available technical trickery to create visually distinct levels of reality while setting high-speed cameras in motion to make the action sequences particularly dynamic and fluid.
– Mark Caro,
Chicago Tribune,
21 Oct 2013
fresh:
The movie is nonsense, but it does achieve a brazenly chic high style -- black-on-black, airborne, spasmodic.
– David Denby,
New Yorker,
21 Oct 2013
fresh:
Extremely violent, extremely preposterous, extremely entertaining, The Matrix succeeds at two extremely difficult tasks: as a vast, exciting virtual-reality movie and as a defibrillator for Keanu Reeves' big screen career.