When The Matrix opened in 1999, few people realized the significance of what they were seeing. The film's creators, Larry and Andy Wachowski, were shaping a new film genre: spirituality fiction. Borrowing and sometimes satirizing the conventions of the action film, the western, science fiction and other genres, the first in this trilogy was very much part of the high tech culture of the late 1990's. But the Wachowski brothers were attempting to do much more than mirror or comment upon pop culture. They were evidently trying to recast the more enduring themes of the world's great religious and philosophical traditions into a contemporary idiom. And they seemed to strike a responsive chord in the hearts and minds of the movie going public.

The Matrix touched a need in our consciousness. It's rare in action movies that audiences are asked to think, even though that's what we want. The Matrix made us think about everything from our faith to our
destiny.

So, get ready to break free into the Matrix...