Instant Access To 100,000+ Essays!

The Matrix (1999) is an extension of the existentialist motifs of the mid 20th Century set in the 23rd, for its obvious influences from the American Style. This is apparent when looking at the five points of this existentialism. First, Thomas A. Anderson (Keanu Reeves), a.k.a. “Neo,” is portrayed from the beginning of the film as a “normal Joe” who holds the potential of a world savior, yet without the egotism. He does not have X-ray vision or the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but rather, he is a lowly computer programmer for a respectable computer company. He does not appear important to anyone else in the film at first, and it is because of his lifestyle. Mister Anderson is wrapped up in the world of computers. As a result, he is lonely and alienated from the world. This feeling is also reflected in the high, swooping camera angle found in the film, which is characteristically Noir. But what is reality? The truth? Neo makes the conscious choice to “see how deep the rabbit hole goes.” He finds out later in the film that at the point of making such a choice, he was nothing… or nothing more than an oversized Energizer; but upon choosing the truth, he is also trying to free his mind from the priso