Well worth seeing but not original.

Rating: Null/10 (10 April 2001)

The story of this thing is more a rip off of Virtuosity, Star Wars, Hideaway and every other "chosen one" flick. The dialogue is pretty corny as well, "he is the one", the acting is fine for what the actors are given, Morpheas is laughable with all his oooh aaah knowledge and the way he comes up with extremely complicated answers to simple questions, how complicated is the matrix concept, all of humanity is plugged in to a giant computer that pulls a digital world over our eyes to use us as batteries, let me know when it gets complicated.
Reeves does not do a bad job at all, he suits the role and he is never unbelievable in the digital world he has to act against, and nobody save Schwarzeneggar can wear sunnies and leather like he does. At the theatre this would have been one of the greatest experiences, I saw alot of movies at the theatre in 99 but this was not one of them unfortunately. Overall this really is not a bad movie for entertainment, it is very definitely a teen flick formula but it can work for other people as well. The effects dont really seem to dominate the movie, there is only 5 or 6 points where they are used to the max, and there is only 3 or 4 where that multicamera trick is used, the effects basically just help you to believe that there are two worlds.
Getting plugged into a computer that makes you believe it is reality and having to rescue someone inside that and the possibility that being killed in the computer can kill you in reality are all Virtuosity, as for a messiah taking a young and unsuspecting boy off to train for the time when he must save the galaxy from a dominating empire I dont think I need to say where that formula has come before. You really aren't quite so analytical when your watching it.
In short, the effects, the characters and acting and the story are all pretty good, and this a movie to note, it is not run of the mill, its also watchable more than once. Overall its worth seeing at least once so do yourself a favour.