Possibly the best film I have seen, with an above average DVD (The Matrix (DVD))

Member Name: little devil

Product:	The Matrix (DVD)
Date:	16/07/01 (221 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: the film, some geat extras

Disadvantages: i wanted more

Being a DVD virgin you will have to be kind to me and put up with me lack of knowledge on what to write in a review of a DVD. Well the way I see it I love the film and have recently acquired the DVD, from a friend, and so thought what the hey, I mean I have nothing better to do with my Saturday afternoon (well i did so really add Sunday night to that too).

The Matrix was one of the biggest films in its year of release, and rightly so, this is a fantastic film that has both style and substance. It is superb and personally I cannot knock it. Many people took the feeling that this was just special effects, wrong the story is so intricate and complicated you cannot watch it only once. This is one of those films that revels something new every time you see it and never fails to entertain.

So here goes, the confessions of a virgin, please be gentle this is my first time!

…The Movie
You can’t review the DVD without mentioning the film, so lets take a trip to the Matrix…

The Cast…
Neo (Thomas Anderson) – Keanu Reeves plays a young man looking for an answer, is a bred computer hacker who seeks thrills from his mundane run of the mill life. Hence why he chooses to hack systems for people, to get a buzz. However as with the rest of the film, all is not what I seems, and Neo has a secret, which even he doesn’t know. But is he ready?

Morpheus – Laurence Fishburne plays the man with the answers, he sets people free and helps them realises just what is going on in the world. He will do anything for what he believes. A rather suspicious character, which is very secretive and we never learn a lot about.

Trinity – Carrie-Anne Moss she one of the few females to be set free by Morpheus, she was once a top computer hacker, but what is it exactly hat she does now? Well she helps Morpheus in his quest to enlighten the world.

The Story…
Neo is a compute
r hacker who by night and Thomas Anderson by day. That’s not to say he has split personalities it’s just he has a respectable job, life and such as Thomas, but he is unfulfilled. As a result he uses his free time to hack computers under the name of Neo. However his world is turned upside down when he gets a mysterious message on his computer, to ‘follow the white rabbit’.

He has been contacted by a group of individuals lead by Morpheus, they are a revolutionary lot (I don’t know how else to put it), they have spent years looking for ‘the one’ and that person Morpheus believes is Neo. This is why he is so important to them, and they put their lives in danger to make him one of them.

Neo is taken to Morpheus where he is told the horrible truth about the world he is living in. The reality is that the world as Neo knows it does not exist, it is a computer program. The earth is actually run by artificial intelligence (computers with their own minds) and they use humans as a source of power, the world (or matrix) is designed to keep them happy and content. He must then learn how to live inside and outside of the matrix as someone with the knowledge, this roves to be difficult as they encounter bounty hunters in the matrix and attacks in reality. All in all dangerous living.

Well the rest of the story is basically Neo coming to realise if he is ‘the one’ and dealing with the knowledge he now has.

The directing and acting…
This film does rely heavily on the use of special effects, I am not denying that, but the whole movie is actually given a real level by the high standard of acting and the brilliant directing it received. This is truly a masterpiece I can assure you. The effects are amazing and will blow your mind and the actors are perfectly suited to their roles, this was the perfect ‘come back’ movie for Mr. Reeves and the supporting cast is well ch
osen to balance his skill.

Soundtrack…
This film has everything going for it, including a pumping soundtrack which adds to the over all viewing experience. Boasting contributions by:

Marilyn Manson
The Prodigy with the excellent ‘Minefields’
Rage Against the Machine
Deftones
Rob D with the fantastic and much used in this film ‘Clubbed to death’ what a top song, good going guys!
And a whole lot more you can see the basic feel of the music, that is soft rock/alternative, to fit in with the movie really.

The soundtrack was released on Maverick Records and a mate of mine has it and I am telling you it is well worth your hard-earned cash.

General info…
Rating – 15
Run time – 131 minutes
Warner Brothers movie
Region 2 DVD
PC compatible, with added extras, see rest of op
Windscreen

Website = www.whatisthematrix.com


…The DVD
Now onto the real stuff, the DVD and what it offers you.

When you put the DVD on, after the initial screen that you get with all movies, by the distributor of the film, you are quickly thrown into a fast paced trailer like sequence. This introduces you to the film, just incase you haven’t seen it or missed all the hype! The menu selections then come onto the screen with the background being a loop of numerous sequences from the film, oh and some dodgy music, which really got on my nerves.

So what special features con you get with your very own DVD player, well as follows…

In the Main menu there are four options, there are:

Scene Selection
Special Features
Languages
Play Movie

Scene Selection…
There are 38 individual screen selection available to chose from, they are:

1 – Trinity in a jam
2 – Impossible pursuit
3 – Follow the instructions
4 – The question
5 –
; “They’re coming for you”
…
34 – “My name is Neo”
35 – Sentinels attack
36 – “He is the one”
37 – Final connections
38 – End credits

Well you didn’t think I was going to list all of them did you?! Each scene selection comes with a little picture in a spherical type of space, quite groovy looking actually. Those familiar with the scene will see from the above that the selections are self explanatory, if not by their name (in the DVD case) then by their picture.

As I said there is a scene index in the front of the DVD case, will when you open it, it is the first thing, and so this should aid your decision making, for those of us that don’t want to watch everything or have stopped half way through. Always useful don’t you think?

Languages…
You can only have the soundtrack in English, but as with most DVD’s there is the option of subtitles, in this case there is

English
Arabic
Romanian and
Bulgarian

If any of the above tickle your fancy, however there is also an option ‘English for the hearing impaired’ which just basically adds English subtitles!

Play Move…
Self-explanatory really, this is to play the film!

…Special Features
Now onto the really juicy stuff, the rest this baby has to offer.

There are two options in this, ‘cast and crew’ and ‘the dream world’.

Cast and Crew…
A list of all the actors, well important ones, and the main people involved in the making of the film, you then decide who you want to know about, simple as. A ‘data file’ is then brought up which tells you everything you wanted to know about that person, or something they thought was of interest. Numerous pages for each one, happy reading, but personally I found it annoying and the text a lit
tle difficult to read.

The Dream World…
The real features I have to say, consisting of three options, although if you are like me they may confuse you a little bit, or am I just stupid?!

1. Making of the Matrix

Shows you how the film was made, obviously, including interviews from the people involved and explanations of the story, how things were done etc. There are some good interviews with the cast, which I found to be fun to watch, but the crew seemed boring to me! I suppose they are all ‘boffs’ so there we go. You also get everyone’s different view of the film, what they thought the story was, and of the way things were done.

Takes you to different places where filming was done too, like Sidney.

2. Follow the White Rabbit

What this does is play the film with the added bonus of you getting a little white rabbit popping up on the screen every now and again. When you see the rabbit it means there is some extra footage you can see or as the DVD says ‘viewable hidden special effects footage’. Indeed! When you see the rabbit you are supposed to press ‘enter’ on your remote (click the little bunny if using a computer DVD player thing) and then you are shown secrets of the matrix. Simple as that. Quite a novel and I must say compelling idea, with lots of fun, just trying to second guess when the rabbit will appear.

Makes the film a little more exciting if this is the 100th time you have watched it. You get 9 little documentaries on the special effects, aww bless!

3. Take the red pills…
To go to this option you have to highlight the little red pill and then select it and off we go. What this does is explain things to you and take you through the mind bending features!

‘What is bullet time’
This explains how the scenes where the camera slows everything down was done and the way technology was used to achiev
e those fantastic results.

All in all I was not impressed with this option, the case says ‘mysterious, mind bending extras’ but maybe that was me. This selection is all about hidden special effects documentaries, but personally I was sick of documentary type things, too many!

For a PC DVD-ROM drive…
Yes there are added bonuses for the lucky people who happen to be using their computer to watch the DVD this consist of:

The One…
This is like a mini test where you are to answer questions about the film to test your knowledge and see if you are ‘the one’.

Do You Know Kung Fu…
This allows you to choose a specific action sequence in the film, so you can go straight to your favourite fight.

Screenplay and Storyboards…
This follows the making of the film from paper to reels of movie.

7 Special Essays and Articles…
There are published articles and essays written especially about various topics such as, a martial arts retrospective, comic books on screen, stuff like that.

Original Website…
No need to access the Internet to have a look around the website, it is all here for you on the disk, links and all.

Special Web Events…
Listing all special stuff going off for promotion, like celebrities going in the chat room and happenings etc.

For this there are some set system requirements though…
Windows 95 or above
DVD-ROM drive
166 MHz Pentium Processor
32 MB RAM
5-20 MB hard disk available
IE 4.0 or above

Packaging…
Ok this is where you might be thinking how on earth could the DVD case be of interest, well this one actually is. It is like a book (the best way I can think to describe it. It opens like a normal case, except it is not the hard type and is shut by a plastic strip; well a film of this quality couldn’t do the normal things!

- The fro
nt

This is not over the top or at all flashy, it is simple yet very effective. It is the main image that was used on the posters of the film, with four of the characters stood around in tight clothes looking sexy and provocative with Keanu Reeves in the foreground. The title and two main actors names and that’s it really. Except for the background, which looks plain and boring but actually it is more complicated and there is a lot more going on than at a first glance.

As with the film, nothing is what it seems to be!

- The back

A little cluttered for my liking, I think the problem is they tried to put too much information on and it spoils the effect. We are given a kind of blurb (short introduction to the story) and a picture to go along with it. Then it goes on about the special features, both for the DVD player and the DVD-ROM. Then the web events and such, and last the necessary credits and disclaimers (like age certificate). Overall too much is going on with no definition or structure.

- The rest

So open the box up and there’s the funky looking disk and opposite a scene selection guide, with a picture of Miss Carrie-Anne Moss looking damn fine, and that’s from a female point of view blokes! The background is also really nice, a fade and mix of colours, really eye-catching.

But hang on it gets better, this will actually move and you open it up to reveal another two inlay things. The first concentrates on the special features for DVD players, well a very short and brief idea of what there is, with a picture of Neo and Trinity in the background. The second concentrates on the features for DVD-ROM, with only a little picture and a black background, plain but effective opposite the big picture of the other two characters.

However the content of these left a lot to e desired and my initial excitement was short lived, but still a great idea, looks good and well I read it
all, so I suppose it worked.


…Conclusion
Well for those of us who are still awake after all that my opinion will very soon be coming to an end. Firstly I have to say that this is a fantastic film, with mind blowing and outstanding special effects and a story to match this. A flash of brilliance form those who brought us the disappointing ‘Bound’ (Wachowski Brothers).

So having said that, and loved the film so much I was not expecting a lot from the DVD, after all most films just don’t bother. The DVD did have some very good features, but they mainly concentrated on the special effects. For those of us into that sort of thing this is a brilliant DVD, however I was left a little empty and lacking something more, but maybe I just expected perfection to compliment the outstanding film.


All things considered not a bad purchase and the film more than makes up for the one track mind of the DVD. This is a truly excellent film with a more than average DVD, but I just wanted a little more, is that so bad?

Summary: