The Matrix: Smart, slick, and exciting. Still great after 16 years.

Rating: 9/10 (19 April 2015)

There are those films that can be considered game-changers in their field. A Trip To The Moon, The Great Train Robbery, The Public Enemy, King Kong, The Godfather, Psycho, The Terminator. While it may be a bit pretentious to put The Matrix with the likes of those masterpieces, I don't think it's that much of stretch. Andy and Lana Wachowski's 1999 flick is one of the best of its kind. A smart, slick sci-fi actioner that helped redefine both of those genres. Suddenly, action movies could be intelligent, have deeper meaning, infuse themselves with unique visual styles and philosophical undertones. I took influences from places rangning from Akira and Ghost in the Shell, to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Plato's Allegory of the Cave, then fashioned them into something new and original. The tale of down-on-his luck hacker-turned-savior of mankind Neo (Keanu Reeves), prophesized to free humanity to from the simulated reality that had become their mental prison, keeping them from seeing the dark post-apocalyptic future ruled over by sentient machine A.I. A film that introduced average movie goers to concepts like simulated reality, showing that popcorn flicks didn't have to be big and dumb. A film that blew our minds with VFX innovations like bullet time, and gave us a taste of that wonderful movie junkfood that is wire fu. A fairly simple story held together by an excellent cast including the likes of Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Gloria Foster, and Hugo Weaving, giving us memorable dialogue and characters that have engrained themselves in the public pop consciousness. It's a movie up there with the likes of Jaws, Die Hard and Star Wars as one of the all time greatest blockbusters, one that could hold its against the likes of the 15-year hyped Phantom Menace and temporarily halting the Star Wars v. Star Trek debate. A highly influential film that's been unsuccessfully copied many times, even by its own sadly average sequels. When one scene (the roof-top bullet dodge) is so popular that it has been copied/parodied nearly 200 times within 4 years, that should tell you how much influence this film had in Hollywood and abroad (a Bollywood remake of The Whole Nine Yards copies the famous lobby shoot-out nearly shot-for-shot). A film that truly did live up to its hype and beyond. A smart, well-directed, exquisitely shot and choreographed film that still holds up 16 years on.