Truly one of the best movies ever made!

Rating: 10/10 (22 December 2003)

An excellent beginning to a most excellent trilogy!
This movie is one of the best movies ever. It excels in all areas - an amazing story that is intriguing, fast-paced and beautiful to look at. The story draws you in and never lets go. The effects in this movie, as everybody knows, are groundbreaking and breathtaking.
Right from the green and black treatment of the Warner Bros logo (which is typically gold and blue) you know you are in for a different type of moviegoing experience. The opening action sequence is riveting with camera angles, stunts, and special effects not seen before. The dialogue between the agents and the police officers on the scene is as sharp as any heard on Law and Order, which now that I think of it is what the opening is (scene-spoiler) a crime scene investigation and takedown about to go wrong, setting the stage for the rest of the movie.
Gripping writing! (Scene-spoiler) (Cut away from the beginning of the opening action sequence - a police search of the 3rd Floor of the Heart O' the City Hotel - to the street below where the police have blocked off the street. Agent (Smith) arrives on the scene with two other agents in a typical mid 80's unmarked law enforcement cruiser. Smith exits the cruiser and approaches the officer in charge at the scene.)
Agent Smith: Lieutenant ...
Lieutenant (to himself): Oh shit!
Agent Smith: Lieutenant, you were given specific orders...
Lieutenant: Hey! I'm just doin' my job. You give me that juris-my-dick-tion crap, you can cram it up your ass!
Agent Smith: The orders were for your protection.
Lieutenant: Heh, heh. I think we can handle one little girl.

(Smith signals his agents and together they walk on) The Lieutenant shouts after them: I sent two units ... (agents keep walking) They're bringing her down now!
Agent Smith stops and turns: No, Lieutenant. Your men are already dead.
(Cut back to the action. OR cut to Law and Order theme! Hee hee!)

From this point on, the story, action, and effects take you "to Oz and back" in a cool New Millenium style way. This is not one of those "all flash and no substance" flicks. It's "all substance and all flash" all the way. You won't always know where you've been, or where you are being taken (at first), but that's part of what makes this film great! It is a well-crafted movie with a big story to tell. Brilliantly conceived as a trilogy from the outset, the Matrix tells a complete and very compelling story while sowing the seeds for the larger story. Every frame has a purpose, every phrase has meaning. It's no-holds-barred and all holds broken as new technology brings this film to LIFE!

----- Memorable lines (If you can guess each context there might be a little bit of spoilage here, but nothing too serious.):
Hugo Weaving's (Agent Smith's) deliberated monotonous delivery of the name "Misss-terr An-derson..."
(sidenote: Couldn't watch Weaving as Elrond in Lord of the Rings without humourously picturing Agent Smith delivering HIS lines as Elrond. e.g. to Boromir or Aragorn: "Human beings are a disease, a cancer on this planet, a plague. And we (Elves) are the cure." OR, as the Elves are leaving Middle-Earth: "I hate this place, this zoo, this prison, this reality whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell. ... I feel saturated by it. I can taste ..(aside to Gimli) your stink. And everytime I do I fear that I have somehow been infected by it - it's repulsive! Isn't it? I must get out of here. I must GET FREE.")

"Tell me, Mister Anderson, what good is a phone call if you're unable to speak?"
Neo (to Morpheus): I know Kung-Fu! Morpheus: Show me.
Morpheus: Come ON! Stop trying to hit me and HIT ME!
Cypher: I should've taken the BLUE pill.
Tank: "Take the door on your left. (Neo goes right!?!?) No, your OTHER left."
Trinity: Dodge THIS.
Agent Smith (on the subway tracks): "Hear that, Mr. Anderson. That's the sound of inevitability. .. Good-bye, Miss-ter Anderson." Neo: "My name .. is Neo." -----
All of this, and an ending that puts down a challenge and says "C'mon, Let's GO! Bring it on!"
It doesn't get any better than this!