On March 31, 1999, the writing and directing sibling team of Lana and Lilly Wachowski release their second film, the mind-blowing science-fiction blockbuster The Matrix.
Born and raised in Chicago, the Wachowskis both dropped out of college and started a house-painting and construction business before they got into the film industry. They collaborated on two screenplays, the second of which was made into the action movie Assassins (1995), starring Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas. A year later, the Wachowskis wrote, directed and executive-produced their debut film, Bound. Critics praised the relatively low-budget crime thriller, about lesbian lovers who steal from the mob, and it became a cult hit.
The Wachowski’s next project, however, brought them to a whole new level. Filmed for $70 million, The Matrix was a stylish, innovative and visually spectacular take on a familiar premise–that humans are unknowing inhabitants of a world controlled by machines–central to films such as Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Matrix starred Keanu Reeves as a computer hacker who learns that human-like computers have created a fake world, the Matrix, to enslave the remaining humans while keeping them in the dark about their dire fate. Guided by the sleek, mysterious Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss), the hacker is dubbed Neo and told he alone can play the crucial role in deciding the fate of the world. Packed with slow-motion camera tricks and references from a myriad of sources–including comic books, the Bible, Lewis Carroll, Eastern philosophy and film noir—The Matrix also stunned viewers with its Hong Kong-style fight scenes, choreographed by the martial-arts master Yuen Wo Ping and performed with the help of invisible wires allowing the characters to fly through the air. Greeted with enthusiasm by computer-gaming fanatics and mainstream audiences alike, The Matrix earned a staggering $470 million worldwide and won four Academy Awards, for Best Editing, Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Visual Effects and Best Sound.
The Wachowskis had always envisioned The Matrix as a trilogy, and they shot back-to-back sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, in Australia. Released six months apart in 2003, they were generally agreed to be less successful than the original film. All in all, however, the franchise–including a best-selling video game, Enter the Matrix–earned the production company, Warner Brothers, more than $1 billion. The Wachowskis, meanwhile, became famously reclusive, refusing to promote the Matrix sequels or give interviews.
As a follow-up to their phenomenal success, the Wachowskis wrote and produced for Animatrix, a series of short films based on The Matrix, and wrote and produced the provocative action thriller V for Vendetta (2006). In 2008, the Wachowskis returned to directing (as well as writing and producing) with Speed Racer, a film adaptation of the Japanese anime series by the same name. Later films include Cloud Atlas (2012) and Jupiter Ascending (2015). A sequel to The Matrix Revolutions, The Matrix Resurrections, was released in 2021.
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Good discussion of the philosophy of The Matrix.
Twitter cut me off as I have no Twitter account. Seemed like he was on a good roll before it ended. Pretty much how I always felt about its message.
Never understood the point of the second and third movies other than money. It seemed obvious where things were headed at the end of the first movie, but that is not where they seemed to go at all.
Why support the left wing nuts in hollywierd. All Hollywood garbage is ignored in this house. They can all go broke and die of starvation for all I care. Those people shake their fist in God’s face everyday. It will not end well for them!
Matrix 2 continued the anti-semitic allegory, but the 3rd one jumped the shark to transhumanism.
Exactly how are Alien and 2001 about “a world controlled by machines”? Did the author even watch either of those films? Aside from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, this is not exactly a “familiar premise” in films.
That said, this was a hell of a movie, too bad the sequels never got to the same level.
The best movie of all time, hands down.
The writers forgot to mention that the Wachowski’s stole the story from the actual creator of it, a black, female science fiction writer. She won the lawsuit against the scum that you glamorize twenty years later.
That was written by the Wachowski BROTHERS. They didn’t become trannies until much later – shortly after they went insane.
An anti-semitic masterpiece that is largely misunderstood for its simple allegory. Irony, thy name is Matrix.