As the credits roll at the end of The Matrix, my middle-aged father sighs
contemplatively from across the living room. I glance over. He shifts in his chair and
then says with a knowing air: “It’s very relevant these days. Quite scary, actually.” I
ask him what he means. He pauses. “It’s just– people these days. Always on their
damn phones.”
Released in the UK 25 years ago, The Matrix is considered one of the greatest sci-fi
movies ever by critics and viewers alike. It enjoyed huge profits, becoming the
second-highest grossing Warner Bros film ever at the time, and this year, 25th
anniversary screenings were held around the world. The vision and ground-breaking camera work of directing duo Lana and Lilly Wachowski made the film an instant hit– but The Matrix goes much deeper than your average sci-fi flick. The film’s continued relevance comes from its attempt to define the cultural moment of the Y2K era; it captures the uneasy mood in the West at the turn of the
millennia, a feeling that something is off.
The plot centres around Neo (Keanu Reeves), a talented hacker offered the choice
to escape a mindless office job to dismantle the system that controls him – the
perfect hero for an audience unfulfilled by the trappings of modern life. Neo wakes
up from the Matrix (a computer programme enslaving human life in a simulation)
by taking the red pill offered to him by Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). This
metaphor has found increasingly widespread popularity in online discourse,
especially in right-wing forums, where it is used to describe seeing through purported conspiracies inherent in society to understand its “true” nature and fight back against an ever-changing cabal of mainstream figures. The idea that one can simply break free from society’s restrictions with a comprehensive but closely guarded aid is not only misguided but potentially dangerous.
This is, however, far from the least terrifying legacy of the film. After waking from the Matrix, Morpheus warns Neo and the viewer about the rise of a singular machine consciousness– artificial intelligence, or AI– powerful enough to defeat humanity in a global conflict and take human life hostage through the endlessly complex simulation. Questions of machine dominance over humanity are closer to reality than ever before as AI is becoming an increasingly prominent path in our species’ technological development. The film’s warning of AI’s hold of humanity is a truly dystopian vision.
In the climatic interrogation scene, the rogue computer program known as Agent
Smith (Hugo Weaving) reveals to Morpheus that the simulation is set in the same
year as the movie’s release, 1999 – the peak of human civilisation according to
Smith. The Matrix’s inhabitants live not in a science-fiction fantasy, but a dystopian
alternate reality where the wool is pulled over our eyes, and humanity is reduced to
bondage.
Morpheus describes this version of reality as “a prison that you cannot taste, or see,
or touch– a prison for your mind.” Following in the footsteps of Descartes, the film
asks how we know any of this is real, investigating ideas of freedom and control in
the 21st century. These seeded meanings encourage audiences to tumble down the
rabbit hole in a philosophy-for-dummies joyride. Post-modernist Jean Baudrillard’s
Simulacra and Simulation was required reading for the project; the film also features
plenty of kung fu. Who knew philosophy could be so much fun?
25 years on, the franchise has a complicated legacy – the relative failure of the
sequels, including a 2021 reboot that scored just 5.7/10 on IMDb, has only increased
the appeal of the original– which could have worked as a stand-alone if not for the
relentless demands of Hollywood. As long this film continues to incite interpretation
of the world around us, its popularity will continue.
“System Code” by Yu. Samoilov is licensed under CC BY 2.0.