let me first say that the conditions that i was forced to watch the matrix under were less than ideal . 
so i have tried to be as fair as possible considering that my viewing experience was significantly less than ideal . 
i watched the matrix in a theater that is in serious need of upgrades at the best of times . 
under no circumstances , should it have ever been allowed to show a big budget special effects laden film like the matrix . 
this theater , owned by the parent company of one of hollywood's biggest studios , hasn't even graduated into stereo sound yet . 
the mono sound that the audience was subjected to sounded as if it was coming out of a speaker that was many years past mandatory retirement age . 
in other words , the sound sucked . 
as someone used to digital sound in a movie theater , bad sound doesn't do anything to add to a film . 
i'm not even going to go into the horrible splicing job that the projectionist did putting this film together . 
there , i've had my rant , now on with the regularly scheduled review . 
which sadly won't include commentary on the film's sound which i'm assuming was spectacular , but i'm just guessing . 
my guess on the sound seems like a fairly solid one considering the visual quality of the matrix . 
it is nothing short of stunning visually . 
sadly , the rest of the film , while pretty good , doesn't quite measure up to the obvious effort that was expended on making this film look so darn good . 
the matrix has at it's core a good concept , although it strays into the confusing side more often than i would have liked . 
keanu reeves plays a computer hacker who is drawn into the frightening realization that reality is just a hoax . 
it turns out that that many years ago the world was devastated by some sort of disaster . 
now machines run the planet and humans spend their lives in a sort of incubator , plugged into a computer network . 
the computers are generating a virtual reality world which is a representation of the earth before it was destroyed . 
the population of the planet never realizes that their entire life is a hoax and that they really spend their entire lives as comatose . 
that is except a small band who have discovered this horrible secret and have escaped their virtual prisons . 
they now spend their lives combating the computers in an effort to expose this lie . 
reeve's character , neo , is recruited by this band of rebels led by morpheus ( laurence fishburne ) . 
newcomer carrie-anne moss and one of hollywood's most underrated actors , joe pantoliano , join fishburne in the band of freedom-fighters . 
the action sequences are nothing short of spectacular . 
this can be attributed as much to the amazing special effects as to many of the actor's extensive pre-production training in martial arts . 
this lends itself to some of the best martial arts sequences that you are ever likely to see in a film . 
when you add this to some of the wild effects in the computer generated world , it all adds up to an eyeful . 
as i already said , the visuals far outpace the rest of the film . 
acting in the matrix is not bad , but it certainly isn't real good either . 
keanu reeves gives his usual fairly emotionless performances . 
although to his credit , it is one of his better performances . 
laurence fishburne on the other hand often seemed to forget that he was in a sci-fi action film . 
more than a few times he delivered his lines as if he thought he was performing in some sort of shakespearean drama . 
joe pantoliano was a little under used in this film but he made the most with what he had . 
carrie-anne moss turned out a surprisingly good performance for this her first feature film role . 
it's nice to see that she was cast as much for her talent as for her breathtaking looks . 
you have to give all of the main actors a healthy dose of credit for the work that they obviously put into the physical training for their roles in this film . 
it was clear that no small effort went into getting the moves down perfectly for the fighting sequences . 
i also put much of the blame for the somewhat strained performances in the matrix on the dialogue , which was terrible at times . 
in more than a few places it got way too existential for my liking and at other times it was just plain weird . 
it almost seems as though the writers were having a difficult time trying to figure out how to explain the concept for the movie . 
so they decided to make the dialogue as obtuse as possible so that no one could figure out what the heck they were talking about . 
thereby covering up any leaps of faith that they may have had to make in the departments of logic and believability . 
my other major complaint with the matrix was with the very unsatisfying ending . 
the setup for it was hokey and frankly used in many a bad film before . 
the ending itself was just plain strange . 
the main reasons to recommend the matrix are the visual effects and computer animation which make this a real treat to watch . 
while the rest of the film ( acting , dialogue and to a degree plot ) detract from the high production values , they don't detract enough to prevent me from recommending the matrix as a fun way to spend an evening .