Product Description

Set in the 22nd century, The Matrix tells of a computer hacker (Reeves) who joins a group of underground insurgents fighting the vast and powerful computers who now rule the earth. The computers are powered by human beings...

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary:Commentary by C. Moss, J. Gaeta, & Z. Staenberg
Featurette:"Bullet Time" Featurette (6:01) "What is the Concept" Featurette (10:50)
Music Clips:2.0 Music only with commentary
Other:HBO 1st Look Special: Making the Matrix (25:48) "White Rabbit" Clips (22:22) [4x3]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7658 in DVD
• Released on: 1999-09-21
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 136 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
By following up their debut thriller Bound with the 1999 box-office smash The Matrix, the codirecting Wachowski brothers--Andy and Larry--annihilated any suggestion of a sophomore jinx, crafting one of the most exhilarating sci-fi/action movies of the 1990s. Set in the not too distant future in an insipid, characterless city, we find a young man named Neo (Keanu Reeves). A software techie by day and a computer hacker by night, he sits alone at home by his monitor, waiting for a sign, a signal--from what or whom he doesn't know--until one night, a mysterious woman named Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) seeks him out and introduces him to that faceless character he has been waiting for: Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne). A messiah of sorts, Morpheus presents Neo with the truth about his world by shedding light on the dark secrets that have troubled him for so long: "You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad." Ultimately, Morpheus illustrates to Neo what the Matrix is--a reality beyond reality that controls all of their lives, in a way that Neo can barely comprehend.

Neo thus embarks on an adventure that is both terrifying and enthralling. Pitted against an enemy that transcends human concepts of evil, Morpheus and his team must train Neo to believe that he is the chosen champion of their fight. With mind-boggling, technically innovative special effects and a thought-provoking script that owes a debt of inspiration to the legacy of cyberpunk fiction, this is much more than an out-and-out action yarn; it's a thinking man's journey into the realm of futuristic fantasy, a dreamscape full of eye candy that will satisfy sci-fi, kung fu, action, and adventure fans alike. Although the film is headlined by Reeves and Fishburne--who both turn in fine performances--much of the fun and excitement should be attributed to Moss, who flawlessly mixes vulnerability with immense strength, making other contemporary female heroines look timid by comparison. And if we were going to cast a vote for most dastardly movie villain of 1999, it would have to go to Hugo Weaving, who plays the feckless, semipsychotic Agent Smith with panache and edginess. As the film's box-office profits soared, the Wachowski brothers announced that The Matrix is merely the first chapter in a cinematically dazzling franchise--a chapter that is arguably superior to the other sci-fi smash of 1999 (you know... the one starring Jar Jar Binks). --Jeremy Storey

From The New Yorker
It has some of the pop-intellectual momentousness of the first "Terminator," but without the wrenching emotions of that movie. We are all living, it turns out, in "the matrix"-a seeming reality controlled by artificial intelligence and policed by vicious men in black. The few people who are free hole up in a space capsule somewhere above the earth, and Keanu Reeves, who is first seen strapped down, with needles and other paraphernalia stuck into him and a disgusting little creature inserted through his belly button (unfortunately for him, he's got an inny), eventually joins the free and becomes a liberator. He fights the bad guys by flying through the air and engaging them in a rhythmic version of kung fu that has the clickety-clack excitement of tap dancing. The movie is nonsense, but it does achieve a brazenly chic high style-black-on-black, airborne, spasmodic. With Laurence Fishburne, who intones his lines rather than speaking them, as the leader of the free men and women. Written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Editor's note
Some DVD players may experience technical difficulties while playing the Matrix DVD. The disc itself is not affected. For more information, go to the following URL: http://www.pcfriendly.com/support/title/matrix/

Customer Reviews

I am outraged...1999 disc in 2008 box-when a 2003 remaster exists!
I just purchased the newly-in-a- keepcase (not a snapper)edition which has ©2008 on the back cover fine print (Amazon says 2007)
I had held out because I had heard rave reviews of the remaster for the box set back in 2003-which you could only buy in the set at the time . I already had the 1999 disc-so I could wait
So, 5 years later a new package, with new package design work, current year copyright,-and WHV sitting on a nice RM for a few years I thought "Aha! Now is the time to get it it!"=thinking that after all the years they would ditch the 1999 transfer.
I watched the movie and thought, hmmmmmmmm nothing here that outstanding-almost looks like the old disc.
So I put my disc into my iMac, opened it on the desktop-nothing!
I use this trick to determine when a discs is remastered.
They can press the disc for 5 years but the transfer date is the constant on file creation.

WTF? I open to a blank page! no TS_AUDIO, no TS_VIDEO no .VOB files nothing-these would show dates of creation on them, so one can tell the last time a disc was remastered.
My long used trick didnt work.
Then I get the idea to do a 'right click' to 'get info' from the menu

Lets party like it was 1999! August 2-to be exact. Seems like they were hiding something?
an 8 year old transfer in a 2008 box......"File creation date-Aug 2, 1999" hmmmmmm is it just me?
I also notice on the inner ring, a different catalog number-and MADE IN CANADA printed on the plastic)
Curiously, nowhere on the label is a visible date or place of manufacture-which I thought to be law.
And the box has the ©2008 date only

Misspackaging? They should destroy back stock, or stop printinng them-not reship it at this late date as if 'new'
I dont think the marketseller will refund me-"Whaaaa! I got the 1999 pressing I want my money back"-he couldnt know

This has me pi**ed because they have been sitting on a remaster for several years-and it should have been made available as a single disc by now- I didnt want the whole box-back then, or now
After all, it would not be two far out of reason to expect it with new box/design change, that they would use the new transfer,no?
With an economic meltdown happening right before our eyes-$175 Trillion in bailouts (total so far), consumer spending dropping like a stone,- and the deficits-we sit in a trance and allow this

I would not offend the still very large S-DVD market which is still 90% of your revenue-BR can never quite keep a continual average of 10% in monthly sales (source: videoscan/endgadget-industry gerbils- for past 6 months ZD Net-a popular widely read IT i-zine' -say 5% 0f the market)-and now you can bet that will drop with the economy.
a 10% sales drop in DVD sales could be absorbed-a 10% in BR would finish it off
Sales of players are slow now and will be dead in Jan-you can see the writing on the wall-"BUY ANY 1 BR title AND GET 3 FREE!! Not exactly confidence building- which i s why Ive held off- and who knows how long I will have my job?
And YOU?
So Warner-dont pull tricks like you did to 'force' us from LD to DVD-namely-by either giving the BR the special features ONLY, and for SDVD, sloppy pressing and packaging-or not even manufacturing the disc at all.
BOTH SONY and WHV were guilty of this when DVD started. Some will chime in "Nobodies forcing you to go to BR..." Well, if I like watching moves or getting SEs-and they no longer press them on DVD-I AM forced-into BR-not a very good marketing idea when we may soon see 25% unemployment*-and people will only buy NECESSITIES (nobody in finance the fairy tale calculation models that BLS use seriuosly-which curiuosly make things look 'rosier' than they really are-they ONLY count you as UE if you are COLLECTING UC..the rest of you can get lost for all they care) They say 6.5%! ha!

Action movie disguised as science-fiction delivers the goods
Beginning this review I was writing the film's title and ended up with "The Mainstream" (100% accident) which pretty much sums up the premise of The Matrix franchise. The Matrix is good in the fact that it takes complex science-fiction from previous 1990s films that didn't quite meet mainstream audiences (Dark City, 12 Monkeys) and merges it with the spectacular CGI effects of an action film. As an action film The Matrix is incredibly successful and deserves great recognition as one of the best films of the 1990s, or the past two decades for that matter. However I do feel let down by the fact that I felt cheated by the story when they didn't try to further flesh out the world it took place in.

My main problem with the film falls on the fact that, as an avid sci-fi fan, I had already seen most of the concepts The Matrix presented in previous films (go back to the two I listed above). The religious spin on things however does really make it interesting, kind of like a science-fiction version of some religious document, but a human being having special abilities and saving a captive human population from a controlling force which had everyone living in a false reality had already been used in Dark City back in 1996. This, among other things, is one of the reasons I don't give The Matrix a perfect score of 10/10.

As a sci-fi film it was very good, regardless of how many of the elements that it was reusing from other films, but I often felt like the production team couldn't decide on whether or not they wanted an action picture, or a thought stimulating sci-fi epic. By the end however The Matrix does succeed in balancing these two things very nicely. The CGI deserved its Academy Award, because it really is amazing some of the things they were able to pull off.

The acting in this film was grade-A, and one of the strongest aspects of the film's production, and there was only ONE performance that failed to catch my attention...sadly this performance (my opinion) came from the star of the film: Keanu Reeves. Reeves has had his moments throughout his career, don't get me wrong, back in the late 1980s (most will remember the Bill & Ted films) he was a rather likable young actor, even in his lesser known performances; he seemed very honest and sincere in his performances. A change came about when he announced he was going to "take acting more seriously". The result, in my mind, was horrific! He comes across now as someone with very little emotion, and just doesn't seem really human.

I had the same problem with Keanu in the action movie, Speed, which followed the Die Hard franchise, but unlike Bruce Willis, I couldn't connect, or really care about Reeves in this film (similar feeling in Bram Stoker's Dracula, but he wasn't TOO bad in that film), which was certainly on par with the Die Hard films in production and story. Same problem is present in The Matrix. Reeves is trying way too hard to seem serious, and dramatic, and in the end comes across as being artificial, and dull. If that was the director's intention, I don't really care, because I felt this was a character the audience should have been able to relate to and care about, but that's just my opinion and you don't have to agree with me (just giving an honest view from my perspective).

Okay, I've given my criticisms, but now I have to say what was really good about The Matrix, and there are a lot of good aspects of this film which is why it deserves my high rating (and a spot in my DVD collection). The action is well-done, and truly is an eye opener, and as I previously stated the performances are mostly strong. Laurence Fishburne (Morpheus) and Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith) are very good in their respective roles, and both (as most people will say) are embraced as engaging characters in the mind of the audience, while Reeves was more of a vehicle to channel elaborate action sequences (the highlight, in most people's opinion, of the film). Also the Wachowski Brother's film is simply beautiful to look at, from the all CGI sequences to the live sets. The sequels, which go purely into action, prove that this film could have been a much worse (I don't hate the sequels, they just are not really sci-fi; just action films).

This film really does have all it needs to work as a successful film, especially in the mainstream Hollywood of this day and age. It would have been braver for the filmmakers to try and expand, and concentrate on the complex science-fiction aspects, instead of the action, but then it wouldn't have been the box-office success it was. I would defend them no matter what, but when you go against the powers if mainstream and the production companies and end up with a good film you'll always have me backing up your film...of course I will be critical if the plot and direction is bad, but at least I'll give you a positive word for daring to be different.

I can only hope that The Matrix can help get moviegoers into the lesser known art-house science-fiction stories that inspired it, because it's a shame that our modern audiences can't seem to appreciate things that don't fuse with action or comedy, because I don't feel science-fiction was ever really intended to be a genre simply designed to create exciting action sequences.

The Matrix was a great film, deserving its mainstream applause: Solid 9/10 stars

What a price!!
Excellent price on this DVD. Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks Amazon.