10 Best The Matrix Moments

5. “Morpheus is fighting Neo.“

Along with being an attempt to get French postmodernist philosophical theory into Hollywood science-fiction blockbusters with an A-list cast (a tricky task at the best of times), The Matrix was also an excuse to blend in popular culture, and especially influences from the East. Whilst learning basic training and fighting skills through enhanced computer means, Neo opens his eyes to Morpheus and recites the now-immortal line: “I know kung-fu.” Following this, the two stand in a simulated dojo, and test Neo’s new abilities against Morpheus’s honed skills and understanding of the virtual world they fight in.

Part of this scene is to set up the rules of fighting in The Matrix. Reality isn’t true, so the rules, although mostly true, are more like guidelines. They can be bent, and some can be broken, as they demonstrate first through the wire-fu fighting and eventually through extreme speed enhanced by the editing. This in turn sets up the following Jump programme, explaining the extreme, superhero-like leaping abilities of Trinity and the Agents in the cold open.

It is, however, also a chance for the viewer to let off some steam from all the dark and heavy existentialism of previous scenes and simply go for some all-out martial arts madness between two actors at the top of their game. The bright set and over-the-top wire-fu action proves that The Matrix, for all its interesting philosophical questions, is there for fun and enjoyment and shouldn’t be thought less of because of it.

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4. Lobby Shootout

This is the big shootout of the film, and it’s filled with slow-motion exploding brickwork, flips and trips, and enough raining bullets to satisfy any action fan.

It’s the first time we properly see Keanu Reeves in the now-iconic glasses and trench coat, the beginning of the team-up between Trinity and Neo, and the beginning of their rescue of Morpheus from the hands of the Agents, who want to break his mind to get the codes to the human city of Zion.

The scene is so memorable for one simple reason; it is pure visual excess. There’s no philosophical reasoning behind it. There’s no attempt to divine the true nature of humanity here. All that happens is that Neo and Trinity shoot their way through a hoard of security guards with all the wire-fu and matrix cinematography that they can. The camera captures every chunk of wall as it rips free, every bounce of bullet casing clinking off the marble floor. It is complete action spectacle and remains one of the best shootouts ever put to film.

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3. Subway Showdown

The final fight between our main protagonist, Neo, and our main antagonist, Agent Smith, plays out in a dirty, grimy New York subway station. With nobody there to help him escape The Matrix through a phone line, and sentinels closing in on their position in the real world, the two of them take to replicating a traditional American Western, complete with soundtrack and blowing newspaper tumbleweed.

Having only shared a scene properly before Neo was unplugged from The Matrix, this scene perfectly shows Neo’s hero’s journey completing itself. He returns to face off against his original antagonist, who before had wielded so much power over him and his world, managing to seal his mouth shut and leave him unable to talk. Now, after punching and kicking and shooting at each other, held down in the path of an oncoming train, the former Mr Anderson finally manages to speak. “My name is Neo.” He is becoming the one, and starting to believe it at last. He holds his own, fights back, and if it weren’t for Smith’s ability to take control of other people (essentially rendering him immortal for all Neo can do about it), he would have beaten him. It is wondrously entertaining, tense, and joyful all at once.

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