Painfully obvious, atrociously plotted, passably executed

Rating: 1/10 (14 June 1999)

For me, the experience of watching this film was like paying to watch paint dry in a room full of people who have never before seen paint dry and are hence absolutely thrilled by it.
You will probably love it, mind you. That's your privilege.
It just about functions as a crass action movie, provided you can sit through the tedious first hour, and the terrifyingly non-existent justification for something that (as several other reviewers have observed) could actually have been sensibly reasoned if anyone with reasonable intelligence or knowledge had been on the writing team.
As it is, this mediocre script using an old, old, old idea has nothing to offer fans of sci fi who can read and were awake in the eighties, and considerably less to offer action fans than John Woo's Hong Kong films. The framing plot, when revealed, requires more than just a willing suspension of disbelief, it requires that you dismantle all your critical faculties and just content yourself with wallowing in the faintly entertaining special effects.
It tries to be cool - and evidently succeeds in the eyes of many of the people who see it - but it seems to me little more than another soulless product of committee thinking and appeals to the lowest common denominator - and it doesn't get much lower than this.
If you wish to see the same ground covered with more intelligence and visual flare, try the better-than-average film 'Dark City' (also mentioned by another reviewer) or the less accessible, but more stylish 'eXistenZ'. Not that I feel 'The Matrix' stole it's one flimsy idea from these films. This old chestnut has been around as long as cyberpunk has, and probably longer for all I know.
Still, bread and circuses, I suppose. Keep the masses happy and then they don't have to think for themselves.
Ah well, it's only a blockbuster, I suppose. It's not supposed to be well made.