"Welcome to the Real World"

Rating: 10/10 (13 May 2010)

Never has any movie so completely fulfilled my every wish of a movie experience as The Matrix did, and still does.
I first saw this movie while visiting an older friend of my family in London. The cinema had two parallel shows; The Matrix and The Mummy. We debated for a while which one to chose (he was more than twice my age at the time), he voting for the Mummy, since he knew that story (he thought) from his own matinées growing up. I had heard just rumor about these two movies, and only knew that I wasn't very keen on a classical matinée (being 29 at the time). So we went to see The Matrix...
When we left the cinema two hours later, we were both silent. What had we just seen? Slowly we started talking about the movie experience we had just had, or rather, I did. My older friend was very confused, and I think regretted a little that we hadn't seen The Mummy instead. I on the other hand, got more and more excited. My first impressions were of course the special effects, what I learned to be the so called Bullet Time, in the movie. But the more we talked about it, the more the story of this fantastic action movie became the center of discussion.
Yes, the STORY. It spoke to me in so many and interesting ways, I don't even think I understood on that walk home from town. An action movie with so much dialogue, it just doesn't compute! And with so many layers of philosophy, religion, science (fiction) and just pure intelligence, it's not supposed to be in an action movie. Period. Never before (maybe once, with Baraka) has a movie added to and completed my view of life, the Universe and Everything... I'm not sure I slept at all that night.
I saw it again, after returning home to Sweden, and then got the DVD at its first release. Have I got it on Bluray? Not yet!