There are movies which become instant classics the oment they are released. With just the opening sequence, they can enthrall and captivate the imaginations of their audience, making them lifelong fans, always returning for more. Back in 1977, George Lucas released Star Wars, and the world of movies was never the same again. In 1999, directors Larry and Andy Wachowski unveiled what is now considered the definitive vision of cyberpunk, The Matrix, to unsuspecting audiences worldwide. It shattered the limits of movie audiences' imaginations, made a lot of money for everyone involved in making the movie, and became the first ever DVD title to sell over 3 million units.

The premise of this movie is rather high-concept for an action-packed science-fiction flick. It deals with the question of "what is reality?". In the future, the Earth is a desolate wasteland, and the last pocket of human civilization is located underground near the Earth's core where it is still warm. The rest of the world is controlled by a computer, and practically all humans alive are plugged into what is known as the Matrix, an artificial world constructed by the computer, which derives it's power from the bio-electrical energy naturally generated by the human body. Rag-tag teams of human rebels regularly hack into the Matrix, freeing the occasional human being from the clutches of the Matrix. The leader of one such group, Morpheus hopes to find the one who has been prophesized to destroy the Matrix, freeing human civilization once and for all. He hopes that computer über-hacker Neo, is that one special individual.

There is a lot of bibilical imagery here, as well as many references to Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland. One can consider the prophecy of the One similar to the second coming of Christ. After all, he is the one who will free mankind from the opression of evil, in this case the subjugation of man by the machines. Morpheus believes Neo to be the one who will fulfill that prophecy, even though Neo himself doubts it. Save for his second-in-command Trinity, the rest of Morpheus' group has difficulty believing that Neo is the savior of mankind, especialy the tired and jaded Cypher. Once Morpheus' most ardent disciple, he has grown tired and weary of the bleak existence he lives. Biblical references come into play here as Cypher is eventually revealed to be a traitor to the human rebellion, much like Judas Iscariot selling Jesus Christ out to the Roman Empire.

A lot of the appeal of this movie centres not only around it's highly developed storyline, but also it's innovative special effects which have been duplicated endlessly with various degrees of success in movies and TV series such as Charlie's Angels, X-Men, Smallville, and Witchblade. Heck, it has even been spoofed in Scary Movie and Shrek, and used in games such as Max Payne. For those who still have no idea what I am talking about, I am referring to the much-vaunted "Bullet Time" effects created by Special Effects Supervisor John Gaeta. It beat ILM's already impressive work on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in the Special Effects category at the 2000 Academy Awards.

The wire-work and martial arts training and choreography by Yuen Wo-Ping is also first-class. Master Yuen is responsible for the outlandish action sequences in many Hong Kong martial arts classics, including Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

It is also one of the earlier movies to really utilize the Internet as a medium which not only promotes the movie, but also expands upon the experience and stories established in the movie, fleshing out a lot of background to the world in which the Matrix takes place in. Many big-name comic-book creators such as Neil Gaiman, Paul Chadwick, Bill Sienkiewicz, Keron Grant, and Cliff Van Meter have produced original short stories for this series of webcomics. Most of the storyboards and design work for the movie are even done by comic pros Geof Darrow and Steve Skroce.

The DVD menu is designed to be an extension of the Matrix, with its stylistic green-hued code slithering all over the screen. In terms of extras, there is the standard HBO "making-of" featurette, two documentaries focusing on the special effects work, a feature-length audio commentary by Carrie-Anne Moss, John Gaeta and editor Zach Staenberg. and an isolated music-only track with occasional commentary by score composer Don S. Davis. My favourite feature, however, is the Follow The White Rabbit feature. With this feature enabled, a White Rabbit icon will appear on-screen at certain crucial points of the movie. By clicking on it with the mouse or pressing Enter on the DVD remote, the movie jumps to a quick interlude showcasing informative featurettes covering how that particular special-effects sequence was shot.

There is also a lot of material in the DVD-ROM sections of this disc. There are a lot of links to exclusive websites and on-line celebrity chat rooms, loads of storyboards, retrospective articles on comic-book and martial-arts movies, and many other cool and entertaining stuff to be uncovered. The original theatrical website is also available in it's entirety here, with the option of downloading updated materials over the Internet.