The Matrix

The Matrix stunned audiences on its release in 1999, thanks to awe-inspiring special effects and a challenging storyline that took in aspects of religion, philosophy and technology. Andy and Larry Wachowski’s end of the century nightmare created a whole new world where people thought they were going about their daily lives when, in fact, they were living a parallel cyber-existence. They were plugged into a massive ‘matrix’ as nothing more than living energy sources for the giant computers that rule the world. This idea of parallel realities had not previously been explored by Hollywood, although science fiction lovers would have been familiar with it from cyberpunk authors such as Philip K. Dick and William Gibson. As is typical for the genre, it is a lonely hacker, Neo (Keanu Reeves), who is chosen as ‘the One’ and joins a band of rebels to try and bring down the system.

The film’s most memorable sequences are filmed in ‘bullet time’: an effect that highlights Neo’s incredible reflexes as he dodges bullets. It also combines feats of seemingly impossible acrobatics inspired by martial arts movies. At the time the movie was filmed, this special effect was yet to be perfected, but the directors had the confidence to assume that the effect would be ready to be added at the post-production phase. Fortunately, it was.

As anticipated, The Matrix won the Oscar for special effects in 2000, and several television ads and films (among them Shrek in 2001) have since parodied the bullet time scenes. The Matrix, with an original budget of US $65 million, more than doubled its investment. Two sequels followed, Matrix Reloaded (2003) and Matrix Revolutions (2003), completing the story that the directors had originally conceived as a trilogy.