The Matrix was truly groundbreaking, both as a technical achievement and as far as the plot. There was alot of mystery surrounding this film, and when it came out it certainly delivered an explosive, mind-blowing journey. The "Big Brother"-esque Matrix and the rebeling against the system of a few people in the "know" appeals on a lot of levels to many of the Generation X crowd, and the technology and effects were enough to keep a lot of other people happy.

My big beef is really nothing to do with this film's faults, but rather it's sequels. There was so much build up in this film, and rather than fully explore a lot of the potential new rules they had available for the character of Neo's development, they pulled back from a lot of this in the second two films, instead pulling Neo out of the running in a lot of ways for most of the next two films and focusing on sub-plots which basically came out of nowhere from the context of the first film.

Overall, I really like this film. This is truly the best of the Matrix series and I only wish the rest of the series had lived up to this film's level.