Awsome movie

Rating: 9/10 (2 April 1999)

Saw the movie yesterday, and it kicked! Anyone who enjoys a good sci-fi movie will love this. Good visuals, plot, and acting (it's all been said before)
However, I felt a number of echos from William Gibson's works such as Neuromancer (Let's face it, the discs to teach the people skills are basically Gibson's microsofts). In fact, I believed at first that the Matrix was a film based on one of Gibson's stories, considering the title (if you've read any Gibson, you know what I'm talking about). It's interesting how one author can have such a rippling effect on an entire genre of work. I'd go into detail, but I'd probably spoil a lot of this excellent story.
Down sides to this movie? The ending left me wanting more... something else than what happened, but that's just the breaks with movies. Also, most of the forshadowing was rather blatant (the fact that Neo is a hacker springs to mind, and let's not forget his name means "new" which is basically what he is in more than one way) Chessiest foreshadowing? Finally, I wanted to see Neo manipulate the Matrix a whole lot more than he did... I didn't feel compelled to "believe" like the characters did.
Overall, this movie really whips the llama's a**. Pumping soundtrack (I am listening to it right now actually) combined with stark, moving visuals and a fresh twist on an old idea all helped give the action scenes depth and meaning. Go check this sucker out. It's worth another trip into the Matrix, just for the visuals. I give it a 9.0 on the cult-film-o-meter. Sure to be haunting your movie collection for years to come.