3. Slow-Motion Action - The Matrix (1999)
Annoying Examples: Zack Snyder's Filmography/Len Wiseman's Filmography/Charlie's Angels It's hard to think back to a time where you weren't watching movie heroes dodging bullets in slow-motion (or as it has come to be known amongst the masses nowadays: "bullet time"), but
The Matrix was the movie that really made "things moving at less-normal speed" cool, for some reason. Why is slow-mo cool? I don't think anybody know for sure, but it basically allows us to watch characters doing things at speeds that we wouldn't be able to see ordinarily, therefore giving us a glimpse into their super-awesome reflexes. Or something like that. Fact is, you owe all those instances of slow-motion bullet dodging and kung-fu camera swinging to the Wachowskis' seminal 1999 sci-fi flick. You know that already, of course, because it would be impossible
not to know such a thing, given how many times the action beats of
The Matrix have been spoofed, parodied and flat-out copied over the past decade or so. Though the passage of time has probably allowed us to move away from that comparison now, it's still difficult to watch a scene in slow-mo without thinking of the movie that did it first.