26 Years Later, The Matrix Is Starting to Feel Underappreciated

The Matrix is one of the 20th century’s landmark sci-fi movies, and yet it can’t help but feel like its legacy has gotten just a bit quieter in the 21st century. Written and directed by the Wachowskis, The Matrix introduces Keanu Reeves as computer programmer/hacker Thomas Anderson, who goes by the pseudonym Neo online. Neo’s entire view of the world is shattered when the mysterious Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) reveals the truth to Neo – that man is ruled over by sentient machines using humans for energy, and the world Neo has known all his life is really a computer simulation. However, Neo could also be the hero mankind has been waiting for, with Morpheus convinced that Neo is the prophesied savior known as “The One.”

Twenty-six years since its debut, The Matrix stands as an all-time classic of sci-fi, action, martial arts, and innumerable other genre achievements, advancing the possibilities of visual effects to new heights and introducing an entire generation of moviegoers to Hong Kong-style action. However, even with The Matrix 5 in the works, The Matrix itself doesn’t quite seem to have as fervent a fandom or general immediacy in the popular zeitgeist as it once did, and a few factors could account for that (including, funnily enough, another Keanu Reeves character.)

The Matrix Changed Movies & Sci-Fi Forever

Few blockbusters have been the kind of out-of-left-field game changers that The Matrix was in 1999. With a cryptic marketing campaign, audiences by and large didn’t know what they were in for when they walked into The Matrix, other than it somehow involved Keanu Reeves dodging bullets and Carrie-Anne Moss leaping across city blocks. With its groundbreaking effects and Hong Kong-style martial arts action wrapped in a story of a messianic savior rising to challenge humanity’s machine overlords, The Matrix was a genuine cinematic turning point timed perfectly for the dawn of the 21st century.

The Matrix‘s influence included major technical advances like the rise of bullet time slow motion, and brought wire-fu style martial arts into the mainstream of Western moviemaking (admittedly, not necessarily one of The Matrix‘s better side effects, with wire-fu being shoehorned in a lot of action movies in which it simply didn’t fit for the next four or five years.) The Matrix also helped launch a resurgence in Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey as a blueprint for modern tentpoles, which arguably helped facilitate the contemporary rise of superhero movies. On top of that, the extent to which The Matrix has been spoofed and parodied is almost impossible to measure. It may be easy to forget after so many years, but The Matrix really did change movies and sci-fi alike forever.

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The Matrix Franchise Has Never Made The Same Impact It Did With The Original

Despite the monumental impact of The Matrix in 1999, the franchise itself is something of a one-hit wonder. The Matrix was everywhere in 2003 between the anime anthology The Animatrix and the movie’s two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. While The Animatrix proved to be quite popular on home video, it still didn’t shatter the world’s collective expectations like the original, and while The Matrix Reloaded became the franchise’s highest earner by far, its mixed reception led to a major box office downturn for The Matrix Revolutions, itself a quite divisive entry in the series.

Taking a big-screen break of 10 to 20 years or even more is how many franchises in a downturn manage an eventual comeback, as seen in Rocky Balboa, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Top Gun: Maverick. No such luck for 2021’s The Matrix Resurrections, which crashed and burned commercially with a mixed reception at best. Parallel to the mainline movies of the series, the Matrix franchise has had success in the video game world with games like Enter the Matrix, The Matrix: Path of Neo, and particularly the massively multiplayer online role-playing game The Matrix Online. However, with the latter officially ending in 2009, The Matrix as a video game property has been all but forgotten. It all begs the question of whether the franchise’s mixed reception in its subsequent entries might have also led to the original being slightly under-recognized in the ensuing years despite its undeniable impact.

Modern Tech (& John Wick) May Have Contributed To The Matrix‘s Muted Legacy

The Matrix is predicated on long-standing ideas of runaway technology leading to a conflict of man and machine not unlike that of the Terminator franchise. However, the rise of smartphones, social media, the general explosion of the internet as a factor of everyday life, and A.I. being integrated into modern tech in a controlled fashion, The Matrix might seem relatively quaint to younger audiences who weren’t present for the Earth-shattering impact it made. With modern life in the online sphere coming to resemble a Matrix of sorts, anyone born just before or just after The Matrix debuted could easily look at the original and wonder what all the post-apocalyptic fuss is all about.

Moreover, The Matrix‘s relative decline might also partially be the work of the Baba Yaga. Following a quiet period from the mid-2000s to the early 2010s, Keanu Reeves made an epic comeback in 2014’s John Wick, which not only launched an ongoing franchise of its own, but which proved every bit as influential on action movies as The Matrix. Since John Wick, shadowy assassins, gun-fu, grounded martial arts action and stunts have become all the rage, with many sleeper hit action films like Atomic Blonde and Nobody being directly likened to John Wick. A growing percentage of audiences, especially those born after the year 2000, know Keanu Reeves as John Wick well before they know him as Neo. Under those circumstances, Keanu may be back, but Neo not so much.

The Matrix certainly hasn’t become a forgotten footnote in Hollywood history, but given the impact it made in 1999, it is arguable that it has drifted at least somewhat into the background. Still, with streaming and home media preserving it forever, future generations will always be able to revisit Thomas Anderson waking up to become Neo in The Matrix, and hopefully, its legacy will level out from that in days to come.

The Matrix movies are all available to stream on Max.