The Matrix (R) ★★★½

By Kenneth Turan, Times Film Critic

Wednesday March 31, 1999

''Imagine you're feeling a little like Alice, tumbling down the

rabbit hole,'' someone says in the dazzling and disorienting ''The Matrix,'' and who has the strength to argue?

A wildly cinematic futuristic thriller that is determined to overpower

the imagination, ''The Matrix'' combines traditional science-fiction

premises with spanking new visual technology in a way that almost defies description. Like it or not, this is one movie that words don't come close to approximating.

Written and directed by the Wachowski brothers, Larry and Andy, ''The

Matrix'' is the unlikely spiritual love child of dark futurist Philip K.

Dick and the snap and dazzle of Hong Kong filmmaking, with digital

technology serving as the helpful midwife.

Yet because this tale has been on the Wachowskis' minds for so

long--it was written before their 1996 debut film, ''Bound''--''The Matrix'' never feels patched together. And its story, constructed though it is from familiar elements and pseudo-mystical musings, is nevertheless strong enough to support the film's rip-roaring visuals.

Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves), a software programmer in a world very

much like our own who goes by his nighttime hacker moniker of Neo, has

heard the Matrix whispered about his whole life, but no one knows what it is. All the beautiful Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss of TV's ''Dark Justice'') can tell him is that ''it's looking for you,'' which is certainly scary but not a great deal of help.

For that Neo has to turn to Trinity's partner, the legendary Morpheus

(Laurence Fishburne), considered the most dangerous man alive by the

authorities. What he says is more than frightening: What Neo thinks is

the real world is no more than a computer-generated dreamscape, a virtual reality created by the artificial intelligence that really controls things to distract our human minds while our bodies are systematically plundered as an energy source to keep those nefarious machines up and running.

Sometimes those machines take human form as agents, robotic parodies

of FBI men, like the chilling Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving of ''Proof'' and

''The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert''), who wear security

earpieces, sunglasses and white shirts with ties and are terrifyingly

close to indestructible.

These Matrix men have a special interest in Neo. There's a feeling in

the air, one that Morpheus and his ragtag colleagues (including ''Bound''

veteran Joe Pantoliano) are tempted to share, that Neo might be the One, the foretold liberator who has the power to destroy the Matrix and free the human race. But only the Oracle (a fine cameo by Gloria Foster) knows for sure, and everything she says is, well, oracular.

Obviously, there's a great deal that's familiar about ''The Matrix,''

starting with its sturdy themes of alternate realities, the deadly

rivalry between men and machines, the resilient power of the human mind

and the creeping dangers of conformity. And the film's fake-Zen dialogue, lines like ''Don't think you are; know you are'' and ''There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path,'' isn't going to win any ovations for originality.

On the other hand, the somber quality of the dialogue suits the

apocalyptic quality of ''The Matrix'' story, and the gravity of the actors, especially the always magisterial Fishburne and the magnetically phlegmatic Reeves, makes the words more bemusing than bothersome.

Helping most of all are the riveting visuals shot by Bill Pope. The

Wachowskis do have a taste for the bizarre (witness an electronic bug

that turns into a body-piercing insect) but this tendency pays off in

bravura moments like a mesmerizing vista of a body farm without end

(inspired by the work of comic-book artist Geof Darrow) where humans are relentlessly harvested for energy like so many replaceable Eveready

batteries.

Just as exciting are ''The Matrix's'' two kinds of action sequences. One

strata involves John Woo-type expenditures of massive amounts of

ammunition shot in super slow-motion and the other uses both Hong

Kong-style stunt work and a technique the press notes refer to as

''bullet-time photography'' that involved shooting film at the

computer-aided equivalent of 12,000 frames per second.

''The Matrix'' cast members who were involved in the film's eye-catching

kung fu fight sequences also apparently committed to four months of

pre-production work with Hong Kong director and stunt coordinator Yuen Wo Ping, someone who specializes in the technique, known as wire fighting, that gives H.K. films like ''Drunken Master,'' ''Once Upon a Time in China'' and ''Fist of Legend'' their distinctive high-flying look.

Not everything in ''The Matrix'' makes even minimal sense, but the

Wachowski brothers, said to be major fans of comic books and graphic

novels, are sure-handed enough to smoothly pull us over the rough spots. When a film is as successful as this one is at hooking into the kinetic joy of adrenalized movie making, quibbling with it feels beside the point.

* MPAA rating: R for sci-fi violence and brief language. Times

guidelines: several grotesque moments involving voracious and aggressive oversized insect-like beings, plus a graphic beating.

'The Matrix'

Keanu Reeves: Neo

Laurence Fishburne: Morpheus

Carrie-Anne Moss: Trinity

Joe Pantoliano: Cypher

Hugo Weaving: Agent Smith

Warner Bros. presents, in association with Village Roadshow

Pictures-Groucho II Film Partnership, a Silver Pictures production.

Written and directed by the Wachowski brothers. Producer Joel Silver.

Executive producers Barrie Osborne, Andrew Mason, Andy Wachowski, Larry

Wachowski, Erwin Stoff, Bruce Berman. Cinematographer Bill Pope. Editor

Zach Staenberg. Music Don Davis. Costume designer Kym Barrett. Production designer Owen Paterson. Art directors Hugh Bateup, Michelle McGahey. Running time: 2 hours, 19 minutes.