I remember coming back to school from Spring Break in 1999 and everyone was buzzing about The Matrix, myself included. I had already seen it twice in the span of a week and couldn't wait to tell my friends in the dorm what I had discovered and ask them if they had seen it yet. Most of the guys already had, but some hadn't so we all went to see it the night before classes started back up. When we left the theater Phil was surprisingly quiet and when I asked him if he liked the movie, he replied that he didn't really like it as it was pretty much a ripoff of Dark City. Having not seen that movie and having just seen for the third time what I at the time thought was the greatest movie EVER, I proceeded to argue about how insane and wrong he was. Upon finally watching Dark City, I kind of saw his point. After watching the Director's Cut Blu-Ray this weekend, I regret ever saying how insane he was.

Now let me just say that I still enjoy the hell out of the action sequences in The Matrix. But for me, at the time it was released, it was the story that really captivated me. The story that I thought was so new, so original. The virtual worlds, the chosen one, all that stuff. Stuff that had all been done before in Dark City, revealed even more so in the Director's Cut, which delves even deeper into the idea of the artificial world created by aliens (machines) and the man (The One), John Murdoch, who manages to break free and bring it down. Mr. Hand (Agent Smith) attempts to track down Murdoch (addressing him as "Mr. Murdoch" more times than I can count) as Dr. Schreber helps Murodoch unleash his full potential. Seriously. I could go on and on about the similarities, but I don't want to spoil what is a very incredible movie that everyone should watch if they haven't yet. It's definitely worth a look.