Thomas Anderson, who goes by the alias Neo, is a computer programmer and he is contacted by a terrorist called Morpheus who offers to tell him the truth about his existence if he promises to trust him. Neo agrees, and is freed from what he believes to be the real world, but is actually a virtual world based on the late twentieth century, known as the Matrix. In the real world all human beings have become enslaved by machines, who use them as a source of power, keeping them under control by immersing them in the Matrix. Morpheus and his group are people who have been freed from the Matrix and now fight against the machines, inserting themselves back into the Matrix, where they can act in apparently supernatural ways because they have realised that it is just an illusion. Morpheus, acting on the words of the Oracle, has been looking for the One, the Messiah figure who freed the first human beings, established the free city of Zion, and is prophesied to return to bring freedom to all and secure a final victory. Morpheus believes Neo is the One, but this is something that Neo himself has many doubts about. When Morpheus is betrayed and captured, Neo manages to rescue him, and also discovers in the process that he is infact the One. Neo is subsequently killed by Agents, the machine's operatives within the Matrix. Trinity, one of Morpheus' crew who has fallen in love with Neo, refuses to believe that he is dead, because she was told by the Oracle that she would fall in love with the One, she then kisses him, bringing him back to life. Neo challenges the Machines, and promises that he will bring salvation. This initial instalment of the trilogy was a world-wide phenomenon and it is not difficult to see why as the effects strewn battle scenes and confrontations are a feast in themselves, but the plot itself has biblical overtones of the return to earth of a messiah who was pre-destined to return in order to save mankind. This makes the whole concept a much more intense experience as that is a story known and believed all over the world today. This film works on different levels, it is without doubt a fantastic sci-fi thriller, while also being a dazzling platform for a whole new genre of effects and technology to be introduced and a superbly realised concept of a future world where technology has mastered and enslaved the human race. This film looks very good, all those black leather and latex outfits are classic sci-fi style and the cast are all very well chosen and the overall effect is of a blockbuster movie that has a lot more to it than just special effects and sci-fi toys blazing away all over the screen.