On the 25th anniversary of The Matrix, the movie remains a cultural touchstone. Its mix of gravity-defying, phenomenal CGI enhanced stunts, martial arts choreography, awesome sunglasses, and Philip K. Dick-esque paranoia set a new standard for cool badass action movie myth-making.

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If you peel back the layers, though, there’s a bleaker, darker truth under all the shiny success. After a quarter century, the film is not just an inspiration. It’s also a cautionary tale about how mainstream expectations and demands have a way of fitting even the most liberatory dream into a familiar, oppressive matrix.

As even casual pop-culture fans know, The Matrix (which was released on March 31st, 1999) is set in a far future in which AI has gained sentience and conquered humanity. People are stored in vats where the machines feed off their bioelectricity. To keep humans dormant, their consciousness is inserted into a simulation of life on earth circa 1999.

Only a few rebels, led by Morpheus (LAurence Fishburne), resist, occasionally entering the Matrix to find others for their cause. Their latest recruit is Neo (Keanu Reeves). Morpheus believes Neo may be the One prophesied to free them from the machines.

The film espouses a generalized rebuke to sterile conformity and authoritarian rule, personified by the malevolent Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving.) The rebels hope for a “world without rules or controls, without borders and boundaries.”........

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