This fancy camera trick is in fact a variation on the fairly well-known special effect known as time-slicing - a technique popularised in adverts for Capital Radio and The Gap, and employed to great effect in Vincent Gallo's otherwise ultra-low-tech Buffalo 66. As well as establishing the film's moody 7-Up ad lighting scheme, and that the action will, at some point, require 'guns - lots of guns', the promotional clip for The Matrix offered a tantalising glimpse of what the film-makers have dubbed 'bullet time', the distinctive special effect where, moving in a weird, almost dream-like slow-motion, Keanu limbo-dances beneath the line of fire of someone shooting at him. Or, then again, it could have all been due to The Matrix's unusually tempting trailer.

A fter it took more than $150million at the US box office, but not much critical acclaim, the question on the movie industry's lips isn't so much 'What Is The Matrix?' but 'Why are so many people going to see it?' Could it have been the heady cocktail of Keanu Reeves' hoarse-voiced emoting and a hotly awaited follow-up to the Wachowski brothers' Bound? Was it the metaphysical themes appealing to cinemagoers' long-dormant spiritual side? Or - if you want to be pragmatic about it - was it just hordes of crazed Star Wars fans, driven to a state of near-unbearable anticipation by endless hyping of The Phantom Menace, ready to gorge themselves on pretty much any computer graphics feast that came along?

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