Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) works as a lowly IT programmer, leading a double-life as a hacker at night, under the alias ‘Neo’. One night he is visited by a group of rebels led by charismatic seer Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), who imparts a shattering revelation about life as we know it, and seeks to recruit Neo to fight evil forces at work.
Rising to the reality-bending potential of their premise, writer-directors the Wachowski sisters pushed computer-generated imagery to stage gravity-defying fight sequences between Neo and the Matrix’s black-suited villain Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving).
Alongside its breathtaking spectacle, the film also tapped into contemporary philosophical unease about our over-mediated perception of reality, with radical thinkers such as Jean Baudrillard referenced in the smart screenplay.
