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... read more

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 (hide)

Everything clicked in this 1994 action hit, from the premise (a city bus has to keep moving at 50 mph or blow up) to the two leads (the... read more

Everything clicked in this 1994 action hit, from the premise (a city bus has to keep moving at 50 mph or blow up) to the two leads (the usually inscrutable Keanu Reeves and the cute-as-a-button Sandra Bullock) to the villain (Dennis Hopper in psycho mode) to the director (Jan De Bont, who made this film hit the ground running with an edge-of-your-seat opening sequence on a broken elevator). This is the sort of movie that becomes a prototype for a thousand lesser films (including De Bont's lousy sequel, Speed 2: Cruise Control), but Speed really is a one-of-a-kind experience almost anyone can enjoy. --Tom Keogh (hide)

Like, radical, dude--but not nearly as funny as it should be, even though it was a box-office hit. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are a pair of dim... read more

Like, radical, dude--but not nearly as funny as it should be, even though it was a box-office hit. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are a pair of dim Valley boys, whose life is made heinous by a school history project. Enter George Carlin as a futuristic dude with a time-traveling phone booth. So Bill and Ted go back in time to round up a gang of historical figures (Socrates, Joan of Arc) to bring back for their presentation. Abe Lincoln at the mall? That's about as witty as it gets, rendering this the kind of comedy that gives teenaged audiences a bad name. --Marshall Fine (hide)

How well you respond to Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly depends on how much you know about the life and work of celebrated science fiction writer Philip K.... read more

How well you respond to Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly depends on how much you know about the life and work of celebrated science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. While it qualifies as a faithful adaptation of Dick's semiautobiographical 1977 novel about the perils of drug abuse, Big Brother-like surveillance and rampant paranoia in a very near future ("seven years from now"), this is still very much a Linklater film, and those two qualities don't always connect effectively. The creepy potency of Dick's premise remains: The drug war's been lost, citizens are kept under rigid surveillance by holographic scanning recorders, and a schizoid addict named Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is facing an identity crisis he's not even aware of: Due to his voluminous intake of the highly addictive psychotropic drug Substance D, Arctor's brain has been split in two, each hemisphere functioning separately. So he doesn't know that he's also Agent Fred, an undercover agent assigned to infiltrate Arctor's circle of friends (played by Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder, Rory Cochrane, and Robert Downey, Jr.) to track down the secret source of Substance D. As he wears a "scramble suit" that constantly shifts identities and renders Agent Fred/Arctor into "the ultimate everyman," Dick's drug-addled antihero must come to grips with a society where, as the movie's tag-line makes clear, "everything is not going to be OK."

While it's virtually guaranteed to achieve some kind of cult status, A Scanner Darkly lacks the paranoid intensity of Dick's novel, and Linklater's established penchant for loose and loopy dialogue doesn't always work here, with an emphasis on drug-culture humor instead of the panicked anxiety that Dick's novel conveys. As for the use of "interpolated rotoscoping"--the technique used to apply shifting, highly stylized animation over conventional live-action footage--it's purely a matter of personal preference. The film's look is appropriate to Dick's dark, cautionary story about the high price of addiction, but it also robs performances of nuance and turns the seriousness of Dick's story into... well, a cartoon. Opinions will differ, but A Scanner Darkly is definitely worth a look--or two, if the mind-rattling plot doesn't sink in the first time around. --Jeff Shannon (hide)

Too old for Hamlet and too young for Lear--what's an ambitious actor to do? Play the Devil, of course. Jack Nicholson did it in The Witches of Eastwick;... read more

Too old for Hamlet and too young for Lear--what's an ambitious actor to do? Play the Devil, of course. Jack Nicholson did it in The Witches of Eastwick; Robert De Niro did it in Angel Heart (as Louis Cyphre--get it?). In The Devil's Advocate Al Pacino takes his turn as the great Satan, and clearly relishes his chance to raise hell. He's a New York lawyer, of course, by the name of John Milton, who recruits a hotshot young Florida attorney (Keanu Reeves) to his firm and seduces him with tempting offers of power, sex, and money. Think of the story as a twist on John Grisham's The Firm, with the corporate evil made even more explicit. Reeves is wooden, and therefore doesn't seem to have much of a soul to lose, but he's really just our excuse to meet the devil. Pacino's the main attraction, gleefully showing off his--and the Antichrist's--chops at perpetrating menace and mayhem. The film was directed by Taylor Hackford (Against All Odds, Dolores Claiborne), who provides alternate-track commentary for the movie itself, plus a dozen deleted scenes. Also note: due to a settlement with artist Frederick Hart over the movie's use of a sculpture resembling his Ex Nihilo in Washington's National Cathedral, future releases of the film will be altered. --Jim Emerson (hide)

Keanu Reeves is completely wooden in this romantic misfire by Alfonso Arau (Like Water for Chocolate). Reeves plays a World War II vet who hits the road as... read more

Keanu Reeves is completely wooden in this romantic misfire by Alfonso Arau (Like Water for Chocolate). Reeves plays a World War II vet who hits the road as a traveling salesman and agrees to help a desperate, pregnant woman (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon)--who is afraid to let her father (Giancarlo Giannini) see her condition--by pretending to be her husband. Most of the story takes place in the old man's vineyard, and Arau makes a life of swollen fruit, grape-stomping, sunlight, and tan flesh that looks amazingly erotic. But there are plenty of sillier distractions, such as the sight of farm hands chasing insects with flapping gossamer wings attached to their arms. Reeves is terribly self-conscious, while stalwart Anthony Quinn is memorable as the damsel's benevolent grandfather. --Tom Keogh (hide)

An unbelievable movie, and deliriously better for it. Keanu Reeves is a hotshot law enforcement dude--Johnny Utah by name--investigating a series of bank robberies in L.A. Four gunmen,... read more

An unbelievable movie, and deliriously better for it. Keanu Reeves is a hotshot law enforcement dude--Johnny Utah by name--investigating a series of bank robberies in L.A. Four gunmen, disguised in rubber masks of ex-U.S. presidents, have never come close to being caught, but veteran agent Gary Busey has a theory: The bandits are surfers. This prompts the superb line, "The ex-presidents rip off banks to finance the endless summer!" This movie's full of dialogue like that, but instead of sounding ridiculous it creates its own infectious comic-book energy--ride the crest of it and you'll find the film's giddy zone. Patrick Swayze plays Bodhi, zen-master leader of the surfing clan, humming serenely with the wisdom of the waves. (Alarmingly, Swayze also did his own skydiving stunts.) Director Kathryn Bigelow (Strange Days) stages the action sequences with a visceral snap, and clearly has a gift for orchestrating pulp fiction. Though not a huge hit when was first released, Point Break has a well-deserved cult reputation thanks to its video afterlife. The film's executive producer is James Cameron, Bigelow's husband at the time. --Robert Horton (hide)

Despite the inevitable law of diminishing returns, The Matrix Revolutions is quite satisfying as an adrenalized action epic, marking yet another milestone in the exponential evolution of computer-generated... read more

Despite the inevitable law of diminishing returns, The Matrix Revolutions is quite satisfying as an adrenalized action epic, marking yet another milestone in the exponential evolution of computer-generated special effects. That may not be enough to satisfy hardcore Matrix fans who turned the Wachowski Brothers' hacker mythology into a quasi-religious pop-cultural phenomenon, but there's no denying that the trilogy goes out with a cosmic bang instead of the whimper that many expected. Picking up precisely where The Matrix Reloaded left off, this 130-minute finale finds Neo (Keanu Reeves) at a virtual junction, defending the besieged human enclave of Zion by confronting the attacking machines on their home turf, while humans combat swarms of tentacled mechanical sentinels as Zion's fate lies in the balance. It all amounts to a blaze of CGI glory, devoid of all but the shallowest emotions, and so full of metaphysical hokum that the trilogy's detractors can gloat with I-told-you-so sarcasm. And yet, Revolutions still succeeds as a slick, exciting hybrid of cinema and video game, operating by its own internal logic with enough forward momentum to make the whole trilogy seem like a thrilling, magnificent dream. -- Jeff Shannon (hide)

With dizzying cinematic tricks and astonishing performances, Francis Coppola's 1992 version of the oft-filmed Dracula story is one of the most exuberant, extravagant films of the 1990s. Gary... read more

With dizzying cinematic tricks and astonishing performances, Francis Coppola's 1992 version of the oft-filmed Dracula story is one of the most exuberant, extravagant films of the 1990s. Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder, as the Count and Mina Murray, are quite a pair of star-crossed lovers. She's betrothed to another man; he can't kick the habit of feeding off the living. Anthony Hopkins plays Van Helsing, the vampire slayer, with tongue firmly in cheek. Tom Waits is great fun as Renfield, the hapless slave of Dracula who craves the blood of insects and cats. Sadie Frost is a sexy Lucy Westenra. And poor Keanu Reeves, as Jonathan Harker, has the misfortune to be seduced by Dracula's three half-naked wives. There's a little bit of everything in this version of Dracula: gore, high-speed horseback chases, passion, and longing. (hide)

He's a power-suited, plugged-in ad executive speed-dialing through life. She's a bohemian, free-spirited pet groomer taking life as it comes. You may not expect them to share a... read more

He's a power-suited, plugged-in ad executive speed-dialing through life. She's a bohemian, free-spirited pet groomer taking life as it comes. You may not expect them to share a life- altering romance together. But love has other ideas in this inspired re-teaming of the stars of The Devil's Advocate. (hide)

It is the future. Society has at last solved all its major problems, thanks to amiable lunkheads Bill and Ted and the inspiring music of their band, Wyld... read more

It is the future. Society has at last solved all its major problems, thanks to amiable lunkheads Bill and Ted and the inspiring music of their band, Wyld Stallyns. Only one man is dissatisfied with the way things have turned out, the evil De Nomolos. In an effort to change the future, De Nomolos sends evil Bill and Ted robots back in time to prevent the real Bill and Ted from winning a pivotal Battle of the Bands. What follows is a spirited journey through the afterlife as Bill and Ted try to rescue their girlfriends, save the future, and, oh, yeah, learn how to play the guitar. Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey swings easily between childish and clever humor, and is good at both: a Bergman reference is quickly followed by an equally funny bit about Death's stinky feet. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter seem happy to be reprising their roles and even manage to add funny spins on Evil Robot Bill and Ted. William Sadler very nearly steals the movie as Death, playing both his wounded dignity and budding desire to be funky to a T. As if that weren't enough, George Carlin returns as Rufus and Pam Grier does a cameo just for the hell of it. Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey is ample proof that not all sequels suck. Sometimes they're even better than the original. --Ali Davis (hide)