It has great acting, great sets, great action, great themes, great sound, and most importantly a great story.

Rating: 9/10 (5 November 1999)

I gave this movie a 9 out of 10.
This has to be one of the best science fiction movies I have ever seen. It has great acting, great sets, great action, great themes, great sound, and most importantly a great story.
Background:
I am a 24 year old male engineering and computer science student living in SC. I do have a large humanities background.
Overview:
This review will be hard to do, since I don't want to reveal anything to you. This is one of those movies where you want to find out everything for yourself, like The Sixth Sense. But I can tell you this is an outstanding masterpiece of the science fiction genre. It will definitely be a classic for a long time.
The level of detail is amazing. For example, they went through the entire movie and filtered out a lot of the blue and changed it to green. Blue is too happy of a color they said. All of the sets have extreme levels of detail. It is almost to the point like in one of the Star Trek movies the screws on the Klingon weapons had little Klingon symbols cut out of them to screw them in even though nobody would ever be able to tell. That's the level of detail we are talking about here.
The sound is incredible. I got the DVD version and got to listen to it in Dolby Digital Surround sound and it was almost as good as when I saw it at the theaters in THX. If you have a good home theater system then I recommend this DVD to put it through the paces for you. It really shows off the range and power of Dolby Digital Surround sound.
Not only are the sets and audio full of great detail but the story is to. The Matrix explains why some people has special powers like being able to lift and move objects with their minds. It also has an explanation for deja vu. There are also little gems stuck in the story itself. See if you notice when Morpheus (the greek god of dreams, see...) asks the traitor to give him his phone, so he can call the operator, how he stalls until someone else gives up their phone instead, because he threw his in the trash. There are lots of these see how many you can find in the first viewing.
The movie opens up with a great intense female action scene. You just don't get to see enough women kicking butt these days. The guys always get to have all the fun. But not in this movie. The women can give it out with the best of 'em.
I love the special effects. The ship is great. The power plants are great. The sewer city is great. The sentinels are great. The "bugs" are great. The "bug" extractor is great. Bullet Time is great. The agents are great. The oracle is great. It really is just a great movie...
The best thing about the movie is it is very human. It really isn't about the violence, or the fancy gadgets, or the special effects. It is about the future. It is about us. It is about our will to survive and to make up for and overcome our mistakes. It is about fighting for what is right and to fight the good fight. It is about truth. It is about being real. It is about caring. You will really start to care for this group of rebels.
When you take all of the violence, and fancy gadgets, and special effects away from Star Wars, you still have a great story that almost everyone loves. And this movie works the same way.
Be sure to check out my other reviews.
Thanks.