A true masterpiece!

Rating: 9/10 (30 December 2012)

The Wachowskis are no strangers to the commercial side of Hollywood. Their movies are either half-brilliant half-commercial blockbuster or just a dumb version of the second half.
Tom Tykwer on the other hand had the "luxury" as a European director to make movies his way.
On this note, thank the stars that WB didn't fund it... it almost didn't get made because of it, but probably due to Tykwer's connections in Germany the movie got funded and made the way the authors wanted.
I'm not going to comment much on the brilliant storytelling techniques, or on the beautiful score/cinematography. Those alone never make a great movie. A great movie does one of the following things (not necessarily mutually exclusive): entertain, move you emotionally, make you think, sends a message etc...
When a movie is really successful at doing more than one of the above then I call it a masterpiece!
The most interesting part of the movie and the one that probably most people will sadly miss, is the message. This is a constant for the Wachowskis (Matrix, V for Vendetta...). Each of the 6 stories makes a point, the same point. I can try to phrase it but it sounds cliché either way I try.
--- Minor spoilers below ---
There is a common theme that runs through all of them. The theme of "evil" as a product of greed and selfishness that becomes more and more monstrous as the ages progress and a theme of "resistance" and "bond" of the ones opposing it. In each story there is a bond of 2 characters who help each other defeat the "evil" of the age. The message goes beyond this... it's just an artistic instrument for transmitting it.
I also liked various other things: the "reincarnation" theme is suggested but never pushed down your throat and sufficient alternative interpretations are left to the viewer. There are also a lot of moral choices the characters face, situations where their actions can be viewed from both angles. This moral ambiguity is also something that I liked very much...
I only saw the movie once and I'm sure I've missed a lot of subtleties the first run... and am very much looking forward to seeing it a second and third time. I missed for example the connections between some of the stories... some are obvious but others aren't.
I rate this 10/10 not because it's the best movie ever made but because it's one of the few that does most of everything right. It is entertaining, moving, makes you think, has a very strong (although a bit too subtle) message, can use great CGI without becoming CGI porn... It's a movie you will want to see at least twice because of how dense the information presented is and also because the presentation style can be a little confusing during the first viewing.