who saw it in the cinema back in 99?

Who saw this back in the day? What were your memories - the anticipation of seeing it in the weeks/days before, the actually seeing it and how much a big deal was it where you were back then, the crowds, audience etc and after coming out of the cinema what were your thoughts and in the days/weeks that followed.

i remember reading the 1999 preview issue of Empire at the end of 98 where they would tell you the ones to see and they would go into depth with pics for the big dogs (like Star Wars Ep 1, Eyes Wide Shut, End Of Days etc) but the lesser ones would be consigned to a few lines in the side bar and thats where Matrix was with a line saying something like 'Keanu Reeves returns to more Johnny Mnemonic style cyber punk action with this film from the Bound directors about virtual reality and aliens' (i remember there was talk of the machines being aliens before it came out)

and since Speed in 1994 K Reeves had been on a steady decline (Chain Reaction, Devils Advocate, and of course Johnny Mnemonic - which unlike Matrix was highly anticipated as it was his first movie following the huge success of Speed) so there was no reason to think Matrix would be anything different... so in a funny way Johnny Mnemonic kind of helped The Matrix go under the radar so when it came out people were even more blown away as everyone just thought it was going to be Johnny Mnemonic 2 (funny Reeves returned to the same genre so soon after the failure of Johnny Mnemonic).

and as for the movies release, Empire gave it the 5star rating which meant it was unmissable (but I probably wouldve gone anyway as the trailers were very impressive) and then seeing it was incredible for me - not for the bullet time or cool action but for the story and the Twilight Zoneness of it all...at times it really did feel like a mega budget Twilight Zone or even some far off sequel to the original Terminator (which itself was heavily inspired by a couple of eps of Outer Limits). I particularly liked all the stuff before he got out of the matrix - the mystery of it all...the eerie dark atmosphere . that feel of a doomed world/dark underworld that only some people know about (similar to the original Terminator/Blade/Dark City).. the urban legendness of it....the WTF is going on uneasy feeling.... the retro/gothic/noir/'night hawks'/kafka look/feel and the look of the night time scenes (e.g. the opening hotel/rooftop/phonebox, neo being picked up in the underpass/the 'youve been down that road' shot, the strange hotel with red/blue pill and the trace program leading to 'the truth') ..then we find out the twist (it was great that they managed to keep that under wraps in the trailers etc).

came out of the theatre well and truly blown away and started to make me think about the nature of reality stuff (that was obviously from Philip K Dick stuff but like Star Wars brought it firmly into the mainstream and got everyone going on about it) - that feeling lingered for months...maybe years (well until the sequels :)

soon after seeing it began to track down any memorabilia to do with the film but as it was something of a 'sleeper' there wasn't that much. so bought the Press Kit off ebay containing various B&W stills (ebay was also a new mindblowing thing at the time), the UK cinema chain 'Odean' did a souvenir magazine, the 3 posters (27x40), both soundtrack CDs (score and the music tracks), and some of the action figures - Neo, Smith (whoever thought to do them was a stroke of genius like the Star Wars figures). also got the Art of book (came out abit after like someone went oh crap Matrix is huge quick do a book!)

think I saw it a further 2-3 times (I remember one was in Europe and it was the uncut version so saw all the headbutts!)