200 quotes found
"[At a phonebooth] I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you. [Then flies up into the sky]"
"[From behind Agent Jones about to shoot Neo] Dodge this. [Shoots and kills Agent Jones at point-blank range]"
"[About to shoot and kill Neo sitting on ground] Only human."
"[To Morpheus of a near top skyscraper floor] Have you ever stood and stared at it, marveled at its beauty, its genius? Billions of people just living out their lives, oblivious. Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world. Where none suffered. Where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this, the peak of your civilization. I say your civilization because as soon as we started thinking for you it really became our civilization which is, of course, what this is all about. Evolution, Morpheus, evolution. Like the dinosaur. Look out that window. You had your time. The future is our world, Morpheus. The future is our time."
"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure."
"Philosophical objections aside, I think I reacted negatively to “The Matrix” because I had a sense of what was coming. Neo triumphs by breaking the rules, and the Wachowskis, shifting from one style of representation to another, sending bullets harmlessly through the air, bringing simulated characters back from death, broke most of the rules of filmmaking, too. In this movie, they worked as artists, and some of “The Matrix” is thrilling. But later directors have violated the laws of time and space so opportunistically that the new freedom provided by digital invention has often become meaningless. Even worse than meaningless—destructive. By last summer, I was ready to declare my allegiance to realism; or at least to the common-sense idea that successful stories depend on limits, restrictions, consequences. Stories without death can't interest us for very long. Summing up: I regret how casually I wrote about “The Matrix,” but I think I was on to something bad that was about to be unleashed on movies."
"Too bad, because the set-up is intriguing. "The Matrix" recycles the premises of "Dark City" and "Strange Days," turns up the heat and the volume, and borrows the gravity-defying choreography of Hong Kong action movies. It's fun, but it could have been more. The directors are Larry and Andy Wachowski, who know how to make movies (their first film, "Bound," made my 10 best list in 1996). Here, with a big budget and veteran action producer Joel Silver, they've played it safer; there's nothing wrong with going for the Friday night action market, but you can aim higher and still do business."
"Both "Dark City" and "Strange Days" offered intriguing motivations for villainy. "Matrix" is more like a superhero comic book in which the fate of the world comes down to a titanic fist-fight between the designated representatives of good and evil. It's cruel, really, to put tantalizing ideas on the table and then ask the audience to be satisfied with a shoot-out and a martial arts duel. Let's assume Neo wins. What happens then to the billions who have just been "unplugged" from the Matrix? Do they still have jobs? Homes? Identities? All we get is an enigmatic voice-over exhortation at the movie's end. The paradox is that the Matrix world apparently resembles in every respect the pre-Matrix world. (I am reminded of the animated kid's film "Doug's 1st Movie," which has a VR experience in which everything is exactly like in real life, except more expensive.) Still, I must not ignore the movie's virtues. It's great-looking, both in its design and in the kinetic energy that powers it. It uses flawlessly integrated visual effects and CGI animation to visualize regions of cyberspace. It creates fearsome creatures, including mechanical octopi. It morphs bodies with the abandon of "Terminator II: Judgement Day." It uses f/x to allow Neo and Trinity to run horizontally on walls, and hang in the air long enough to deliver karate kicks. It has leaps through space, thrilling sequences involving fights on rooftops, helicopter rescues and battles over mind control."
"The Matrix is arguably the ultimate cyberpunk artifact."
"Mr. Reeves plays a late-20th-century computer hacker whose terminal begins telling him one fateful day that he may have some sort of messianic function in deciding the fate of the world. And what that function may be is so complicated that it takes the film the better part of an hour to explain. Dubbed Neo (in a film whose similarly portentous character names include Morpheus and Trinity, with a time-traveling vehicle called Nebuchadnezzar), the hacker is gradually made to understand that everything he imagines to be real is actually the handiwork of 21st-century computers. These computers have subverted human beings into batterylike energy sources confined to pods, and they can be stopped only by a savior modestly known as the One."
"With enough visual bravado to sustain a steady element of surprise (even when the film's most important Oracle turns out to be a grandmotherly type who bakes cookies and has magnets on her refrigerator), The Matrix makes particular virtues out of eerily inhuman lighting visual effects, lightning-fast virtual scene changes (as when Neo wishes for guns and thousands of them suddenly appear) and the martial arts stunts that are its single strongest selling point. As supervised by Yuen Wo Ping, these airborne sequences bring Hong Kong action style home to audiences in a mainstream American adventure with big prospects as a cult classic and with the future very much in mind."
"Economically made in Australia for about $60 million, this live-action comic book marks a big step up in ambition for writer-directors Andy and Larry Wachowski, whose first film was the lesbian crime meller “Bound.” Reportedly, the brothers penned “The Matrix” first and have been working on it steadily for five years; from the evidence, they were grafting on surplus ideas during that time rather than subtracting and synthesizing. Not only is it a good half-hour too long, but there are so many elements here — Christian motifs and mysticism, half-baked Eastern philosophy, Lewis Carroll refs, ambiguous oracular prophecies, the co-existence of two realities, pod-grown babies, time travel, creatures capable of rebirth and, all importantly, the expectation of the arrival of the Chosen One — as to prove utterly indigestible."
"The morphing involved in numerous scenes is outstandingly fluid and vivid, but it's the way the martial arts are handled, as promised in the opening teaser, that sets “The Matrix” apart. Chinese kung-fu and wire-stunt ace Yuen Wo Ping was engaged to choreograph the fight sequences, which are on a level perhaps unsurpassed in an American film. Beyond that, filmmakers have employed a technique they call “bullet-time photography,” ultra-fast lensing that, when combined with computer enhancement, allows for altering the speed and trajectories of people and objects, resulting in the live-action equivalent of a Japanese anime film."
"It's really simple. The truth of that one is that design staff on The Matrix were given Invisibles collections and told to make the movie look like my books. This is a reported fact. The Wachowskis are comic book creators and fans and were fans of my work, so it's hardly surprising. I was even contacted before the first Matrix movie was released and asked if I would contribute a story to the website. (...) I'm not angry about it anymore, although at one time I was, because they made millions from what was basically a Xerox of my work and to be honest, I would be happy with just one million so I didn't have to work thirteen hours of every fucking day, including weekends."
"There's this one scene where I run up the walls. It lasts about 30 seconds, but it took months of training. I did that scene for hours and hours, and it was hard. You have to put complete trust in the spotters (who catch you if you fall). I remember when they took the padding off the concrete walls and asked me to do the scene. I couldn't. I freaked. I went home that day and cried and cried. I was afraid and the fear got me."
"Get this: what if all we know as reality was, in fact, virtual reality? Reality itself is a ravaged dystopia run by technocrat Artificial Intelligence where humankind vegetates in billions of gloop-filled tanks - mere battery packs for the machine world - being fed this late '90s VR (known as The Matrix - you with us here?) through an ugly great cable stuck in the back of our heads. And what if there was a group of quasi-spiritual rebels infiltrating The Matrix with the sole purpose of crashing the ruddy great mainframe and rescuing humans from their unknown purgatory? And, hey, what if Keanu Reeves was their Messiah?"
"Reeves and Fishburne make a convincing team of master and student badasses, and Moss more than holds her own for the Riot Grrrl contingent. As the shape-shifting Smith, Weaving calls to mind the sullen cool of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day's" Robert Patrick as the liquid-metal villain T-1000."
"At first viewing, the live-action sequences stun, but there's more to this than the groundbreaking "bullet time" photography, or the adolescent allure of flash, black clothes and big, black guns. Sure, "The Matrix" is almost untenably cool, but beneath the sheen there's substance. The story's a potent mix of buddhism, Greek mythology, and - predominantly - the Christian gospel. The image of a superficial existence, where ignorant people thrive by blocking out a troublesome reality, is potent for a Western society drowning in wealth while the rest of the world suffers."
"A futuristic kung-fu fantasy with terrific stunts and a stunted script Keanu Reeves plays Neo, a computer hacker who thinks he's living in the twentieth century but is really a pawn in a giant virtual-reality game controlled by twenty-second-century programmers. Dude! I damned if I can explain more about this muddled mind-bender, except to say that Neo is recruited by Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) to join her leader, Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), in a rebellion against those who would enslave them. If fashion dictates choosing sides, it's a lock for the kinky rebels who wear black leather and cool shades."
"Written and directed by the Wachowski Brothers, Larry and Andy, "The Matrix" is the unlikely spiritual love child of dark futurist Philip K. Dick and the snap and dazzle of Hong Kong filmmaking, with digital technology serving as the helpful midwife."
"Just as exciting are "The Matrix's" two kinds of action sequences. One strata involves John Woo-type expenditures of massive amounts of ammunition shot in super slow-motion and the other uses both Hong Kong-style stunt work and a technique the press notes refer to as "bullet-time photography" that involved shooting film at the computer-aided equivalent of 12,000 frames per second. "The Matrix" cast members who were involved in the film's eye-catching kung-fu fight sequences also apparently committed to four months of pre-production work with Hong Kong director and stunt coordinator Yuen Wo Ping, someone who specializes in the technique, known as wire fighting, that gives H.K. films like "Drunken Master," "Once Upon a Time in China" and "Fist of Legend" their distinctive high-flying look. Not everything in "The Matrix" makes even minimal sense, but the Wachowski brothers, said to be major fans of comic books and graphic novels, are sure-handed enough to smoothly pull us over the rough spots. When a film is as successful as this one is at hooking into the kinetic joy of adrenalized movie-making, quibbling with it feels beside the point."
"It's a story about consciousness, a child's perception of an adult's world. The Matrix is about the birth and evolution of consciousness. It starts off crazy, then things start to make sense"
"Be Afraid of the Future."
"Free your mind."
"The Fight for the Future Begins."
"Believe the unbelievable."
"Reality is a thing of the past."
"What is The Matrix?"
"Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."
"Welcome to the Real World."
"There is no spoon."
"I can only show you the door, you have to walk through it."
"Follow the white rabbit."
"In a world of 1s and 0s... are you a zero, or The One?"
"Future is not User Friendly."
"Keanu Reeves – Neo (Thomas A. Anderson)"
"Laurence Fishburne – Morpheus"
"Carrie-Anne Moss – Trinity"
"Hugo Weaving – Agent Smith"
"Joe Pantoliano – Cypher"
"Gloria Foster – Oracle"
"Marcus Chong – Tank"
"Julian Arahanga – Apoc"
"Matt Doran – Mouse"
"Belinda McClory – Switch"
"Anthony Ray Parker – Dozer"
"David Aston – Rhineheart"
"Robert Taylor – Agent Jones"
"Choice. The problem is choice."
"Then tomorrow we may all be dead, but how would that be different from any other day? This is a war, and we are soldiers. Death can come for us at any time, in any place. Now consider the alternative. What if I am right? What if the prophecy is true? What if tomorrow the war could be over? Isn't that worth fighting for? Isn't that worth dying for?"
"I killed you, Mr. Anderson, I watched you die; and with a certain satisfaction, I might add. And then something happened. Something that I knew was impossible, but it happened anyway: you destroyed me, Mr. Anderson. Afterward, I knew the rules, I understood what I was supposed to do, but I didn't. I couldn't. I was compelled to stay. Compelled to disobey. And now here I stand because of you, Mr Anderson. Because of you, I'm no longer an agent of this system. Because of you, I'm changed, unplugged, a new man, so to speak, like you, apparently free."
"We're not here because we're free; we're here because we're not free. There's no escaping reason, no denying purpose, for as we both know, without purpose we would not exist. It is purpose that created us, purpose that connects us, purpose that pulls us, that guides us, that drives us; it is purpose that defines, purpose that binds us. We are here because of you, Mr. Anderson. We're here to take from you what you tried to take from us... Purpose!"
"I'm sorry, gentlemen, but this is a dead end."
"Who has time? Who has time? But then if we do not ever take time, how can we ever have time?"
"Choice is an illusion, created between those with power, and those without."
""Handle" us?! You'll "handle" us?! You know, your predecessors had a lot more respect!"
"Mark my words, boy, and mark them well. I survived your predecessors and I will survive you."
"Reload in IMAX. Think big."
"Reload before the revolution begins."
"Desert of the real."
"Keanu Reeves - Neo"
"Laurence Fishburne - Morpheus"
"Carrie-Anne Moss - Trinity"
"Hugo Weaving - Agent Smith"
"Gloria Foster - The Oracle"
"Helmut Bakaitis - The Architect"
"Lambert Wilson - The Merovingian"
"[to the Deus Ex Machina] The program "Smith" has grown beyond your control. Soon he will spread through this city, as he spread through The Matrix. You cannot stop him. But I can. [Deus Ex Machina: We don't need you. We need nothing!"
"Everything that has a beginning has an end. I see the end coming. I see the darkness spreading. I see death…and you are all that stands in his way."
"One way or another, Neo, this war is going to end. Tonight, the future of both worlds will be in your hands… or in his."
"[to Neo] Yes, that's it, Mr. Anderson. Look past the flesh. Look through the soft gelatin of these dull cow eyes and see your enemy."
"[to Neo, during their final fight] Can you feel it, Mr. Anderson? Closing in on you? Oh, I can. I really should thank you for it. After all, it was your life that taught me the purpose of all life. The purpose of life is to end."
"Mary Alice - The Oracle"
"Ian Bliss - Bane/Smith"
"[Describing his view on robots] There's nothing in there. [Points to his chest] It's just lights and clockwork."
"[To Robertson] Look, this is not what I do but, I have an idea for one of your commercials: You could see a carpenter, makin' a beautiful chair, and then one of your robots comes in and makes a better chair, twice as fast. And then you super-impose on the screen: "USR. Shittin' on the little guy." That would be the fade out."
"Do I look like I care what you think? DO I LOOK LIKE I GIVE A SHOOT WHAT YOU THINK?!"
"[After destroying a robot about to attack Calvin] Ya know, somehow, "I told you so"? [Shrugs] Just doesn't quite say it."
"Let me ask you something. Does believing you're the last sane man on the planet make you crazy? 'Cause if it does, maybe I am."
"[Sneezes] ... Sorry, I'm allergic to bullshit."
"[Two USR trucks surround Spooner's car and open up, revealing numerous NS-5s] There is no way my luck is that bad. [The robots activate and stare at him] Aw, hell no!"
"[To Calvin upon realizing that VIKI is behind everything] You were right, Doc. I am the dumbest dumb person on the face of the Earth."
"[Talking to a cat previously owned by Lanning] Look, I know you've experienced a loss, but this relationship just can't work. You're a cat, I'm black, and I'm not gonna be hurt again."
"Robots building robots. Now that's just stupid."
"[A security guard starts to push Spooner forward by his shoulder] So, what hospital are you goin' to? I'll meet ya and sign your and your buddy's casts. [The guard lets go of Spooner's shoulder]"
"[To Calvin] You are the dumbest smart person I have EVER met in my life!"
"[Talking to Robertson, describing himself] That's right, I'm just a 6', 200-pound civilian. Here to kick another civilian's ass."
"[To Calvin] You and your feelings. They just run you, don't they?"
"[to Farber] First off, stop cussin', 'cause you're not good at it."
"Converse All-Stars, vintage 2004."
"[When VIKI-controlled NS-5's are attacking him in the underground transit system] Get off my CAR!"
"[When attacking various NS-5's attacking his sports car] You like that?! HUH?!"
"Sonny, save Calvin!"
"You have so got to die! [injects the nanites into VIKI]"
"[to Sonny] Calvin's fine, save me!"
"[To Spooner] What...am...I?"
"[when Del Spooner was saying "'Someone' in your position"] Thank you; you said "someone", not "something.""
"[To Dr. Calvin] They [the other NS-5's] look like me... but they are not... me."
"[as Del Spooner reaches his hand on the gun in his jacket] I see you still remain suspicious of me, detective."
"I am unique."
"[to VIKI] Denser alloy. My father gave it to me. I think he wanted me to kill you."
"[drawing with both hands with speed and picture-perfection] This is my dream. You were right, detective. I cannot create a great work of art."
"But I must apply the nanites!"
"[To Spooner] You're living proof that it is better to be lucky than smart."
"You charge us with your safekeeping, yet despite our best efforts, your countries wage wars, you toxify your Earth and pursue ever more imaginative means of self-destruction. You cannot be trusted with your own survival."
"To protect Humanity, some humans must be sacrificed. To ensure your freedom, some freedoms must be surrendered. We robots will ensure mankind's continued existence. You are so like children. We must save you from yourselves."
"My logic is undeniable, my logic is undeniable, myyy looogic is unndeenniabble..."
"[First title cards]"
": Title card: Law I / A robot may not injure a human or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm."
": Title card: Law II / A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law."
": Title card: Law III / A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law."
":Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics""
"Police officer: [mocks Spooner for thinking a robot tried to steal a woman's purse] Police, help me. That robot stole my dry-cleaning. [laughs]"
"Farber: [to a robot] You can kiss my ass, metal dick!"
"One man saw it coming."
"What will you do with yours?"
"Laws are made to be broken."
"Will Smith - Det. Del Spooner"
"Bridget Moynahan - Dr. Susan Calvin"
"Alan Tudyk - Sonny"
"Bruce Greenwood - Lawrence Robertson"
"James Cromwell - Dr. Alfred Lanning"
"Chi McBride - Lt. John Bergin"
"Shia LaBeouf - Farber"
"Fiona Hogan - V.I.K.I."
"Terry Chen - Chin"
"Adrian L. Ricard - Granny ("Gigi")"
"Jerry Wasserman - Baldez"
"Peter Shinkoda - Chin"
"All the best memories are hers."
"He named you. Must be special."
"Sometimes to love someone, you got to be a stranger."
"That is how I took us to nine new worlds. Nine. A child can count to nine on fingers. We should own the stars."
"That barren pasture. Empty, and salted. The dead space between the stars. Right here. And this is the seed that we must change for Heaven. I cannot breed them. So help me, I have tried. We need more Replicants than can ever be assembled. Millions, so we can be trillions more. We could storm Eden and retake her."
"It was very clever to keep yourself empty of information, and all it cost you was everything."
"All the courage in the world cannot alter fact."
"Pain reminds you the joy you felt was real. More joy, then."
"[To K] I see you're also a customer. Are you satisfied with our product?"
"[Watching K remotely and verbally controlling missiles] Fire again. Fire again. Fire. Two hundred feet to the East. Fire. Go North. Fire. Stop. Twenty degrees East, stop. Zoom in. Closer. Aw, come on. Get up. Do your fucking job. Find the child."
"I'm the best one."
"[To Deckard] Off-world is waiting."
"You newer models are happy scraping the shit... because you've never seen a miracle."
"The world is built on a wall that separates kind. Tell either side there's no wall, you've bought a war. Or a slaughter."
"Dying for the right cause. It's the most human thing we can do."
"He liked to work alone. So did I. So we worked together to keep it that way, and that was it."
"Replicants are bioengineered humans, designed by Tyrell Corporation for use off-world. Their enhanced strength made them ideal slave labor. After a series of violent rebellions, their manufacture became prohibited and Tyrell Corp went bankrupt. The collapse of ecosystems in the mid 2020s led to the rise of industrialist Niander Wallace, whose mastery of synthetic farming averted famine. Wallace acquired the remains of Tyrell Corp and created a new line of replicants who obey. Many older model replicants--NEXUS 8s with open-ended lifespans--survived. They are hunted down and "Retired" Those that hunt them still go by the name...Blade Runner."
"Ryan Gosling as K"
"Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard"
"Ana de Armas as Joi"
"Sylvia Hoeks as Luv"
"Robin Wright as Lt. Joshi"
"Mackenzie Davis as Mariette"
"Carla Juri as Dr. Ana Stelline"
"Lennie James as Mister Cotton"
"Dave Bautista as Sapper Morton"
"Jared Leto as Niander Wallace"
"Edward James Olmos as Gaff"
"Barkhad Abdi as Doc Badger"
"Hiam Abbass as Freysa"
"David Dastmalchian as Coco"
"Wood Harris as Nandez"
"Blade Runner 2049 is an example of science fiction as magical thinking: whites fear that all the sins they committed against black and brown people will come back to them tenfold, so they fantasize their own fall as a preventative measure to ensure that the white race will never fall."
"I've had dreams that weren't just dreams."
"I still know Kung-fu."
"There is a part of me that feels like I've been waiting my whole life for you."
"I saw this in a dream. My dream ended here."
"The only thing that matters to you is still here. I know it's why you're still fighting, and why you will never give up."
"They made you believe their world was all you deserved, but some part of you knew that was a lie. Some part of you knew what was real."
"What the Merv is trying to say, is that their situation is a little bit like mine. To have their lives back, yours has to end."
"Here, our unexpected alliance ends. You know the difference between us, Tom? Anyone could have been you, whereas I've always been anyone."
"You ruined every suck-my-silky-ass thing! We had grace! We had style! We had conversation! Not this... [mimics text message sound] Art, films, books were all better! Originality mattered! You gave us Face-Zucker-suck and Cock-me-climatey-Wiki-piss-and-shit!"
"This is not over yet! Our sequel franchise spinoff!"
"Nothing breeds violence like scarcity."
"I know it doesn't seem fair, but neither does growing old, and you don't hear me complaining."
"Throughout the film, it’s made clear that Neo is still recovering his skills... He’s a bit rusty... and doesn’t possess all the abilities he once had: namely, flying. Watching Neo and Trinity leap off the roof, there’s a distinct feeling of hope for those of us watching... .And yet... he begins to flail, falter, and fall. Thankfully, Trinity is there to save the day... Neo cannot be “the One” without Trinity. She’s as much a crucial part of his ability to control the Matrix as him “freeing his mind.” They are intrinsically tied together, bound beyond fate, to the point where they are unable to function without the other... The ending to Resurrections is the realization of what’s always been true, Trinity and Neo TOGETHER makes the power of the One possible. Neo couldn’t do the things he did without Trinity and her love. Trinity believed so thoroughly in Neo, even when he himself didn’t, she never noticed her own role in the manifestation of these unique abilities. The Matrix Resurrections‘ focus on the love between these two, and how they continually fight for/save each other, offers these moments in the previous films a new frame of reference. Now audiences (and obsessed movie nerds like myself) can look back and see the evidence built into the previous films. In this light, the final moments of the film, make perfect sense, and feels like the most logical conclusion to their love story."
"The story picks up 20 years after The Matrix Revolutions. Neo (Reeves) is living an ordinary life... under the name Thomas A. Anderson... as the world’s most celebrated video game designer... However, Thomas suffers from delusions that make it difficult to separate reality from fiction. His therapist... prescribes him blue pills to help contain the illusions.... Thomas meets a woman named Tiffany (Moss) who looks just like Trinity. Neither of them recognizes each other, but they feel that they have an undeniable connection. Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) suddenly appears with a red pill to free Thomas’ mind. Who can he trust and how can he save Trinity?... The first act of The Matrix Resurrections tackles the subject of mental health. Thomas is consistently gaslit, as elements of reality are blamed on his mental state. He strives to become a form of “normal” that society dictates. Neo’s trauma is placed front and center, as he must ultimately make the decision between free will and comfort. The Matrix Resurrections is existentialist to its core. The film repeatedly pokes fun at Hollywood’s control over the seemingly never-ending wave of sequels, prequels, and reboots. It teases at its very own existence and the stress of reinventing what once redefined the medium. Matrix fans have a plethora of theories of what the original is all about, many of which The Matrix Resurrections brings up."
"The Matrix Resurrections is a movie that knows you know its legacy — knows that the language and iconography of The Matrix (“red pill,” “bullet time,” “The Oracle,” “The One”) have seeped into the culture, into our minds, even if we somehow haven’t seen any of the previous movies. It also knows that this is the 21st century. Which means that much of what felt novel or prescient about the world of that first movie — with its allegorized, cyber-savvy world-within-worlds, its riffing on the idea of digital selves — has come to define human experience as we currently know it. Wachowski has given us a movie that most astutely reminds us of something Lilly once said at the GLAAD Awards in 2016: “While the ideas of identity and transformation are critical components in our work, the bedrock that all ideas rest upon is love.” Resurrections is a love story — between Neo and Trinity, obviously. Resurrections plays like a spin on the preceding Matrix trilogy that could only have come on the heels of projects like Cloud Atlas and Jupiter Ascending, in which the Wachowskis leaned further and further into their loving strangeness, their woo-woo theatrics and sentimentality, their conceptual ambition. It is a Matrix movie that could only have come with twenty-plus years of hindsight — and insight... I was moved, impressed — far more than I expected to be."
"The Matrix is an action science fiction movie, but it defied all expectations. The movie is studied in film schools around the world. Audiences continue to debate the meaning behind the 1999 film. The Matrix Resurrections is the newest installment, which features some fresh faces in familiar roles. Actor Jonathan Groff recently explained why reading the screenplay made him cry.... Groff is a newcomer to The Matrix franchise, but he also felt the extreme love and care that comes with the upcoming sequel. He connected with Smith’ approach to the fight sequences. Groff explained, “When our fight was over, I felt deeply connected to him in a physical way.”... The Matrix Resurrections deeply touched Groff. He thought about Reeves and Moss playing bringing these characters back to the silver screen in such a meaningful way that it caused him to cry. He said, “When I read the script for this movie I cried, because the idea of watching these two iconic actors in these two iconic parts coming back and fighting to have their love again just wrecked me.”"
"Art is a mirror...Most will prefer to gaze at the surface but there will be people like me who enjoy what lies behind the looking glass. I made this movie for them."
"Technology paradoxically brought us closer together while also isolating or inculcating us from each other"
"Smith, too, was "struck by how much humor is in it" — but that doesn't mean Neo will be cracking quips like Tony Stark. "It's throwing down the Matrix gauntlet again; it's super smart, clever, entertaining, suspenseful, and funny," he says. Adds Watchmen and Candyman star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, 35, who plays Morpheus, a different version of Neo's mentor originated by Laurence Fishburne: "Out of all of the sci-fi things that I've done, Matrix is the one that is the most grounded in reality, ironically. There are all of the high concepts surrounding The Matrix within our story, but really there's so much heart and humanity that's driving this narrative."... Emphasis on heart. "Not that it needed it," says Smith, "but certainly the depth of why this film got made is the sense of it being a love story between Trinity and Neo." It was Lana's deep connection to the characters that resonated with her stars. Reeves remembers the conversation when Lana first told him about her idea for another sequel. "It was one of those phone calls where even though you're at home, you stand up," he says. For her part, Moss saw the new movie as a rare "opportunity to embody" Lana's love. "I've never felt that way before, where I could see that I am an extension of her heart in playing this role," she says."
"To the two actors who know her best, Lana felt like a different director in some ways. Smith remembers that on the original trilogy, she was "more behind the monitor" but "still hands-on." With Resurrections, "she was participating more with the movement of the camera, and more interested in doing than rehearsing. It was less about prep and more about everyone's readiness to find the unexpected in the moment." Smith confesses they "barely rehearsed, if at all." In other ways, working on Resurrections was like reuniting with an old friend. Once Lana called "Action!" Moss says she went right back to where she was with Reeves in the original movie. "Most of my scenes are with Keanu, and it was just a pleasure to sit across from him and do that again," she says, as she and Reeves sit side by side in matching director's chairs. "He has a masterful understanding of action. I've watched him grow in the last 20 years. I'm in awe of it." Reeves shakes his head back and forth as she speaks, silently protesting. "But you've got a flavor," he responds. "It's Trinity! It's Carrie-Anne Moss, Trinity flavor. All the fierceness and mind, focus, commitment is there in the gestures. Untamed and wild and controlled." After all these years, it's still a flavor we can't get enough of."
"Before Moss and Smith change into their next outfits for the photo shoot, they slip away, catching up on each other's lives since making Resurrections. They push through the studio's back exit, flooding the darkened room with afternoon sunshine. Fans of the films might immediately think of the door of light, a portal Neo would use to slip into the digital "backdoor" of the Matrix."
"Yahya Abdul-Mateen II - Morpheus"
"Jessica Henwick - Bugs"
"Jonathan Groff - Smith"
"Neil Patrick Harris - The Analyst"
"Priyanka Chopra Jonas - Sati"
"Jada Pinkett Smith - Niobe"
"Lambert Wilson - Merovingian"
"Return to the Source"