
The Matrix
Directed by The Wachowskis
1999
Action filmmaking divides neatly into before and after this one: the Wachowskis fused Hong Kong wire work with a philosophy seminar's premise and everyone spent five years copying it.
★ 8.9

Action filmmaking divides neatly into before and after this one: the Wachowskis fused Hong Kong wire work with a philosophy seminar's premise and everyone spent five years copying it.

It flopped, then quietly redesigned the future: every rainy neon city of the last forty years is borrowing from Ridley Scott, and the mood still outlasts the plot.

Kubrick took the audience from the first bone tool to the far side of Jupiter, explained almost nothing, and made every science fiction film since look domestic by comparison.