Though The Matrix ultimately overdoses on gloom-and-doom grunge, over-elaborate cool and especially running time, it's just clever enough to enable [the Wachowskis] to nix the sophomore jinx following 1996's Bound.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 13, 2023

I know almost nothing of the intricate techniques that make The Matrix as eye-filling as it is brain-numbing, but I can tell you that... [its visuals] are wondrous to behold.

| Jul 13, 2023

There's more form than content in The Matrix, but Bill Pope's swooping, noir-inflected cinematography is wonderfully complemented by Owen Paterson's inventive production design, a great soundtrack and the best fight choreography this side of Hong Kong.

| Jul 13, 2023

Give [the Wachowskis] an A for effort and three A's for those effects. The Matrix is a dazzlingly original visual adventure.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 13, 2023

Casting the robotic Reeves as the hope of humanity may be this oppressively long, self-satisfied movie's funniest gag, but it doesn't really make the game any fun. It means we get stuck with the least interesting player.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jul 13, 2023

A futuristic paranoia extravaganza, it would seem to have far more appeal to an artificial intelligence than it would to human beings and other carbon-based life forms.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 13, 2023

It's rare, and kind of touching, really, to see a lushly financed studio spectacular work so hard to keep everyone's attention. And with enough symbolism to keep online chat rooms busier than the day Babylon 5 was cancelled.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 13, 2023

What could be heavy-handed or just plain corny ends up as good science fiction should -- provoking thought and eliciting questions about our Now by handing us a Future unthinkable but at the same time quite plausible.

| Jul 13, 2023

While the new sci-fi thriller The Matrix won't win any prizes for its script or its acting, it may be the most outlandish feat of futurism since Blade Runner.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 13, 2023

What we are seeing here is the death of one kind of cinema and, possibly, the birth of another. One that's getting closer to the computer games that people play at home... The Matrix doesn't succeed on any other level except this.

| Jul 13, 2023

The constant temptation during The Matrix is to giggle at its absurdity while marvelling at its visual verve. But in Wachowski world, giggling doesn't seem an unacceptable option. One leaves the cinema feeling raucous and light-headed.

| Jul 13, 2023

There's much to relish in this virtuoso slice of sci-fi nonsense. Forget trying to follow the garbled plot; it's just a peg on which to drape all manner of visuals.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 13, 2023

Rarely has a blockbuster been so enjoyable. Superbly staged and edited, it never loses its drive and intrigue. Reeves has come a long way as an actor since the woeful Johnny Mnemonic, and so has the entire cyberpunk genre on screen.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 12, 2023

The visual effects are impressive, but the movie’s overall style is wearing... The cumulative effect is perversely deflationary: long before it’s over, the film has flushed the paranoia from its system.

| Jul 12, 2023

An eye-popping but incoherent extravaganza of morphing and superhuman martial arts. Ultra-cool visuals that truly deliver something new to the sci-fi action lexicon will make this time-jumping thriller a must-see among genre fans.

| Jul 12, 2023

This is a film so gorged on computer game aesthetics that the theatre seats ought to have joysticks... It's already a hit after one weekend in the U.S., but for me, "Game Over" was a long time coming.

| Jul 12, 2023

For a cyber-techno action thriller, though, the film lacks imagination.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 12, 2023

Given a budget that encourages their kinesthetic skills, the filmmakers tend to go on a bit, but it's mostly a kind of quick, glancing hipness that's being indulged here. And that's a rare and welcome commodity in mass-market moviemaking these days.

| Jul 12, 2023

The Matrix offers the most exhilaratingly inventive action sequences to come down the pike in years.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 12, 2023

Outside of the scenes of hysterical destruction and moderate suspense, the rhythms of The Matrix are positively languorous; where there isn't hard-core action, shots shift like water lapping against a disinterested shore.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 12, 2023