(1999) Do you believe in fate? Do you think you are in control of your destiny? There's a difference between knowing and believing - abstractions that can take place in the real or a virtual world - but beyond both is the gift of acting inside either without fear, doubt, or disbelief.

Thomas A. Anderson (Keanu Reeves) has two lives: one as a program writer for a software company, a second as a notorious computer hacker calling himself Neo. Neo might refer to "new" (from the Greek) or be an anagram of "one." (His given name might be a combination of Thomas A. Edison and Philip Warren Anderson, the developer of solid-state circuitry.) Directors/writers/brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski's futuristic thriller is comprised of symbolism, numerous multiple meanings, and pop-culture references.

Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) have been closely observing Neo ever since he made an appearance in cyberspace; as soon as they confirm that he is real, they act to protect him from the agents in black suits and dark glasses, who want Neo for their own designs, offering him a clean slate (wiping out charges of computer crimes) for his cooperation with defeating Morpheus and his terrorists.

Morpheus was the name of the Greek god of dreams. Neo says he feels as if he's in a state somewhere between waking and dreaming. "What you know you can't explain … a splinter in your mind," says Morpheus, revered by his crew on the Nebuchadnezzar as the father of their movement. Together with Neo and Trinity (suggestive of both the Christian unity - herself the Holy Spirit - and the site of the first atomic blast), the three embark on a dangerous mission to free the world from the machines.

What we call reality is an illusion, a programmed fabrication called the Matrix, which is everywhere: "the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you," Morpheus explains to Neo, making slaves of humanity. After following the white rabbit, Neo has fallen down the rabbit hole where, to find out how deep it goes, he accepts the red pill Morpheus offers to remain in Wonderland; the blue pill would have brought the story to an abrupt end.

At first unable to wake from the dream, unable to distinguish real from unreal, Neo must be reborn on the other side of the mirror - Dorothy leaving Kansas for the Land of Oz - and then redesigned, provided with a port at the back of his neck, in order to enter the Construct as a mental projection where anything can be loaded into the program (people, weapons, equipment) and he trains with Morpheus ("Don't think … Know who you are"), learning that in this space-time some rules of physics can be bent or broken.

Morpheus (like St John) believes Neo is the One, the savior of the world, whom he can direct toward the door of enlightenment, through which only Neo can walk by himself and free his mind. The actual world is a catastrophe about 200 years into what we think of as the future when humans are grown (not born) in fields, fed the liquefied remains of the deceased, and completely controlled by sentient programs, agents such as Smith (Hugo Weaving): "If you aren't one of us," says Morpheus, "you're one of them." Proving his point, the agents find a Judas among Morpheus' followers, from whom they hope to obtain the location of the hidden stronghold of Zion. "Human beings are a disease," Smith declares: a plague, a virus that must be eradicated.

Taken to meet the Oracle, who can tell him who he is, Neo's told he has the gift, "but you're waiting for something," and bad news that either he or Morpheus must die; he accepts a cookie (your computer also accepts these from visiting Internet sites) from those she's baking before departing beneath a sign in Latin over the threshold, "Know thyself."

Since they are like machines, created from code, Smith and his agents must obey certain rules; but Neo, taking a hint from a wise child bending spoons, understands that the spoon doesn't exist: Neo must do the bending - adapt, improvise, even change the rules - "the difference between knowing the path and walking the path."

(By the way, in case you'd forgotten from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Tooter Turtle cried out when he got into trouble on his adventures: "Get me out of here, Mr Wizard!" - which is what Neo yells as he tries to escape from Agent Smith.)

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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