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The Matrix
Set in the 22nd century, The Matrix tells the story of a computer hacker who joins a group of underground insurgents fighting the vast and powerful computers who now rule the earth.
1999 · Directed by Lana Wachowski · 136 min · Action · Science Fiction · Screenplay in the scene database · 44 frames
Tagline
Believe the unbelievable.
Plot
In an unnamed city in 1999, Thomas Anderson, a computer programmer known as "Neo" in hacking circles, investigates the mystery of the "Matrix", bringing him to the attention of hacker Trinity. She tells him that Morpheus can answer Neo's questions. At his workplace, Neo is pursued by Agents led by Agent Smith, while Morpheus, able to somehow observe their movements, guides him by phone, but Neo ultimately surrenders.
The Agents interrogate Neo about Morpheus, but he refuses to cooperate. In response, they seal his mouth shut and implant a robotic tracking device in his abdomen. Neo awakens at home, believing the encounter was a nightmare until Trinity and her companions remove the device and take him to Morpheus. Morpheus offers Neo a choice: a red pill to uncover the truth about the Matrix or a blue pill to return to his normal life. Neo takes the red pill and awakens in the real world, submerged in a mechanical pod and connected to invasive cables. He sees countless humans similarly encased and tended by machines before he is ejected from the building and rescued by Morpheus aboard the hovercraft Nebuchadnezzar.
Morpheus explains that the year is approximately 2199. In the 21st century, humanity lost a war against its artificially intelligent creations, leaving Earth a devastated ruin. Humans blackened the sky to deprive the machines of solar power, but the machines retaliated by creating vast fields of artificially grown humans, harvesting their bioelectric energy. To pacify their captives, they built the Matrix, a simulated reality modeled on human civilization at its peak. The remaining free humans founded an underground refuge called Zion, surviving on scarce resources. Morpheus and his crew hack into the Matrix to liberate others, exploiting its rules to gain superhuman abilities inside it. Even so, they remain outmatched by the Agents—sentient programs that protect the system—and death in the Matrix means death in the real world. Morpheus freed Neo because he believed him to be "the One", a prophesied figure destined to free humanity.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski
- Cinematography: Bill Pope
- Edited by: Zach Staenberg
- Music: Don Davis
- Production design: Owen Paterson
- Produced by: Joel Silver
Cast
- Keanu Reeves as Neo
- Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus
- Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity
- Hugo Weaving as Agent Smith
- Gloria Foster as Oracle
- Joe Pantoliano as Cypher
- Marcus Chong as Tank
- Julian Arahanga as Apoc
- Matt Doran as Mouse
- Belinda McClory as Switch
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Village Roadshow Pictures, Groucho II Film Partnership, Silver Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures
- Budget: $63,000,000
- Box office: $463,517,383
- Themes: man vs machine, martial arts, fortune teller, artificial intelligence (a.i.), saving the world, prophecy, philosophy, dystopia, allegory, insurgence
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