25 Years Later, The Matrix Miserably Fails the Test of Time

Summary:

• The Matrix movie, despite its iconic status, now can be regarded as outdated.
• Among its acclaimed imperfections are usually named CGI, excessive violence and some empty holes in the plot and villains’ motivation.
• Since 1999, it has become an inspiration for many sci-fi movie creators.

Back in 1999, The first Matrix movie, directed by the filmmakers Wachowskis, made a revolution in sci-fi and action films and set new standards in cinematography as a whole. Everyone was blown away by a new type of characters, spectacular action and inventive visual effects, which were considered the ones of the new generation.

However, there is a popular opinion that, despite its cult status, it seems outdated and not progressive at all now, having drowned in the success of the movies inspired by it, for instance, Inception (2010), Ex Machina (2014), Upgrade (2018), etc.

The first point of today’s critics of The Matrix is that its effects haven’t aged well. It’s clear that 25 years ago such a CGI was very convincing and left many viewers shocked, but now the visual effects industry has developed further away from its form back then.

The iconic bullet scene, where Neo, brilliantly portrayed by Keanu Reeves, bends back as bullets are passing by him? Not even as close to being as impressive as it was back then.

Besides, there is a lot of speculation regarding the reasonability of such an amount of gun violence in the whole Matrix franchise, as it glorifies gunfight and features massive body count, including the police and authorities, killed on screen. It’s not like modern cinema has abandoned violence altogether, but The Matrix clearly took it way too far sometimes.

Among the biggest problems of the plot, which also seem unconvincing for today’s viewers, we can point out the lack of the motivation of Matrix’s villains, the machines, which continued to fake an artificial human reality after they had already won over people. It starts feeling unexplained and even ridiculous if you dive into thinking beyond the given movie context, and the creators don’t give you any reasonable answers.

It is also claimed that the movie soundtrack, consisting mostly of trance and new metal music, and specific black leather costumes with sunglasses also add to its outdatedness, but these aspects of the movie can be perceived as its unique timeless style.

Nevertheless, the above-mentioned hot takes don’t get in the way of The Matrix being the modern classics of sci-fi action, they only show that no movie can be perfect.

Stream The Matrix on your preferable platform, including Netflix and Prime Video.