One of a kind…
1999 ★★★★★ OUT 7 JUNE CINEMAS
As with George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy or Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, it’s hard to overstate the impact of the Wachowskis’ cyberpunk sci-fi action classic. Rereleased in cinemas to mark its 25th anniversary, The Matrix first arrived just as Lucas’ The Phantom Menace was due, stealing some of that much-hyped prequel’s thunder with its mind-frazzling notions of ‘bullet time’ and the Matrix itself, an all-powerful simulation used to pacify humans enslaved by an army of intelligent machines.
Blending subcultural conspiracy theories, postmodern philosophy (Jean Baudrillard’s Simulacra and Simulation), Lewis Carroll (‘Tumbling down the rabbit hole…’), and Hong Kong cinema, this was the film that also revitalised Keanu Reeves’ career: he’s pure ‘whoa’ as Neo, the computer programmer-slash-chosen one guided by Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) to Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), the rebel leader looking to unplug mankind from the Matrix. Also brilliant? Hugo Weaving as the suited, booted and relentless AI antagonist Agent Smith.
The leather coats, PVC catsuits and wraparound shades make a sleek fashion statement, but The Matrix’s most trailblazing moments remain the wire-work kung-fu fights and still-stunning bullet-time sequences, as Neo and co bend physics to avoid being sprayed with ammunition. About the only thing that dates the film? Those once cool-looking Nokia slide phones they all use...
THE VERDICT A landmark work of modern sci-fi, still every bit as thrilling as the day it was released.
TRAIN SPOTTING 18
1996 ★★★★★ OUT 24 MAY CINEMAS
In 2017, Danny Boyle’s Cool Britannia classic, based on Irvine Welsh’s zeitgeist novel, was rereleased into cinemas just ahead of the long-awaited T2 Trainspotting. Back then, revisiting the 1996 movie’s youthful exuberance, albeit peppered with crushing despair, only deepened the midlife crises on display in the belated sequel. Rewatching the OG movie now – it’s again back in multiplexes, this time in 4K – the overwhelming feeling is relief: how we need its energetic swagger, anarchic attitude and scabrous humour in these desperate post-Brexit times.
The deal, as you know, is that Edinburgh junkie Renton (Ewan McGregor) is trying to kick skag and choose life. But it’s not easy when your mates are Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Spud (Ewen Bremner) and the psychotic Begbie (Robert Carlyle). The action flip-flops between vertiginous highs and plummeting lows, grimy social realism and show-stopping fantasy, bilious belly laughs and gut-punch tragedy, all propelled by iconic needle drops (Lust for Life, Born Slippy, et al) and the kind of supe
