@WTFE
My short review of The Matrix:
For the sake of brevity, I'm going to stick with the first movie, which is, for me, the only movie I care to recognize when asked about my thoughts on the trilogy. "There were three movies? Pretty sure there was one movie and two pointless, boring, overwrought wankfests that make the Twilight series seem watchable." Which it isn't, by the way.
I liked the movie. I liked the premise, and I like the execution. To say that the entire concept of existence within a machine is novel or ground-breaking is akin to saying that you only heard that there could be more than two genders in the past couple of years thanks to Caitlyn Jenner. That is, if you so believe, then you probably haven't been paying attention to the very genre that The Matrix attempts to rise from: science-fiction.
The idea of being trapped in a contrived universe is a trope used in various genres and settings, from ST:TNG (Ep. 82 -- Future Imperfect) to The Truman Show. References to Plato's Allegory of the Cave and other sources makes The Matrix about as new as dirt. The difference, however, is that The Matrix is able to take those ideas and present them in a wholly ground-breaking way. It's not the ideas or the message, but how it is shown.
I'll admit I was entertained, but I was also entertained by Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which also broke ground in how it presented its poorly-written plot. Still, it would be wrong to hate hard on something presented with such glitz and glamour that so many others would attempt and fail to replicate. This is a movie to be watched for what it is, not what it says. And for that, we thank you, Wachowski Brothers.