The Must-Watch Film for Thinking Minds

Rating: 10/10 (5 February 2008)

Believe it or not, in 2008, I still know people who have never watched The Matrix (released 1999). Well, just one person... who may not even be human, but that's part of my point: all thinking people should watch this movie.
It popularized "bullet time" special effects, which would then be used in movies such as Swordfish, and video games such as Max Payne and, more recently, Stranglehold.
Although not directly related to William Gibson (the coiner of the phrase "cyberspace" and one of the more respected English-language Cyberpunk-genre authors), he would go on to comment that the virtual reality portrayed in the matrix was as exact as he could have envisioned it when he was writing his novels.
Thusly, people who think about life and the "digital era", will tend to identify on some level with the story, characters, and even virtual worlds presented in the series, but esp. is this the first one (I'm not a fan of the two sequels, but that's another story).
Although I marked this as containing spoilers, I'm not going to really go into the plot... but if you haven't watched it yet, then my description may make it seem more philosophical than it appears; the beauty of this movie is that it is, superficially, an action-packed drama where you care about the characters, and can admire both the "good guys" and the Agents.
Moreover, the fun and freedom of interacting with a virtual world is well presented; as are the consequences of becoming too ... attached, or sympathetic, with a game-world (or perhaps, even reality).
On another level, this movie is about how the "new world order", which is really just the same old Imperial world order, just with shiny computers to dazzle the mortals, imprisons the minds of the "mature" (it is mentioned that people over a certain age usually cannot ever truly adapt to seeing the world as it truly is), and also makes them skitsophrenic (i.e. potential Agents) and prone to flashes of violence against free-thinkers.
This and Fight Club are very deep movies, on some level... but this is also an intense action and special effects masterpiece which still looks great even after almost a decade. It sounds great too; the "lobby scene" is a standard for testing surround sound systems subjectively.