Brilliant

Rating: 9/10 (17 November 2005)

When I first saw this movie, I was astonished. Ground-breaking special effects, the coolest theme you could imagine, great characters, a gripping story. Since then I have seen this movie several times, and never got bored of it.
What makes Matrix work so well is not the hard rock/metal/industrial score, although this greatly helps establishing the overall mood. It is not the expertly-done camera work. It is not the breath-taking special effects and the perfect timing and general craftsmanship. All this helps, of course, but what makes Matrix so brilliant is that the story is actually creative. It raises philosophical questions, the most important one being "what is reality?". The actors do their part to make the story believable enough, so that one really does not want to this film to end, ever.
Of course there are also goofs of some sort. The reason for the very existence of "The Matrix" for example is quite silly, from a physical point of view. But somehow, this is completely unimportant when watching the film.
What remains is a brilliant, expertly done piece of cinematographic work, a masterpiece. And then they blew it in the sequels, but that is another story.