The surprise of The Keymaker. He really wasn’t like I was expecting. The people I saw it with were also pleasantly surprised with how he ended up being. I guess with a name like The Keymaker we expected some thing more… Trench Coaty?
The Burly Brawl was brilliant. It was just fantastic.
Pretty much everything The Merovingian said. What a great character.
Morpheus fighting and agent and holding his ground against him for awhile. Impressive considering the track record of agents against humans.
Link’s reaction to Neo saving The Keymaker and Morpheus. Both times I’ve seen it, the audience applauded at that part.
The in-jokes to the first one. Like one Neo goes to do that move he pulled on Smith in the subway scene where he punches, gets his arm grabbed, and extends his fingers to Smith throat, and one of the agents he fights stops his arm too far away for him to do that move and he says “Hm… Upgrades”
During the car chase scene when Trinity calls Link so he can download her the instructions to hotwire the motorcycle and the Keymaker just hands her the key. That cracked me up for some reason, specially the way she says “You DO come pretty handy”
I really enjoyed the references to the first Matrix. I especially liked how everybody retained their signature moves (Trinity’s crane kick, Morpheus’ leap, Smith’s neck crack, etc.) It is especially good right after seeing the first Matrix.
The special effects, of course, but also the visuals in Zion. It was perfect.
The cold, calculated, sesquipedalian lines of dialogue delivered by one particular character. (If you’ve seen it, you know who I mean.) Stated with such precision, those kind of statements send chills down me.
Possibly my single favorite line was the Merovingian’s, “Okay, so you got some skill.”
I loved it when Neo flew away from the Smith brawl. The reaction of the Smiths was priceless. They just stared upward a few seconds… one cracked his neck… and they slowly began to disperse.
The complete emotionlessness of it got me: “He flew away… oh, well.”
Pretty much the entire Burly Brawl sequence, but in particular: When a Smith gets batted around and mutters “more.” Then it shows a series of door flying open with Smiths pouring out into the yard. That was a perfect “Oh… crap.” moment.
I also snicker at one point - There’s Neo, his back to us, and a bench in the foreground. Neo gets hit, flies up, up, back… and completely misses the bench.
Also: the Burly Brawl, any line by the Merovingian (especially the bit about cursing in French), the entire climactic face-off between Neo and the Architect, the freeway battle… errmm, okay, so I’m essentially listing ALL of the “cool bits.” Yeah. I liked the movie.
In response to an earlier comment about the origin of the name “burly brawl”: I recall hearing that it was, at least at first, just the unofficial internal code-name for that fight scene.
My favorite bits are the “mirror” scenes that the Matrix movies have shown with Star Wars:
On the original Matrix, Neo is shaken by a sudden move of the ship while he was going into the cockpit; a similar shake appears in Star Wars (EP4, ANH or the original 1st movie (or whatever )) with Han Solo (or was it Luke?) shaken on the approach to the cockpit.
On the Matrix reloaded, the scene on the beginning, where the hovercraft lands, had steam trails and a “welcome” group that was very similar to the reception scene the Millennium Falcon got on Bespin, in the Empire Strikes Back.
A lot of the Matrix mirror Star Wars, which in turn mirrors…?
Neo = Luke
Morphues = Han
Trinity = Leia
The Oracle = Yoda
Smith = Vader
The Merovingian = Lando*
The Architect = The Emperor.
As to the best cool bits: Any scene with Agent Smith. He’s 2nd on my list of best villains ever.
*Going to his home, finding the really suave character, who’s firendly but not trustworthy. Also introduced in the 2nd installment of the franchise. This character is too strong to be in just this movie. He’ll be back in the next and fighting with the good guys.
So are you suggesting that Neo is Trinity’s brother, that Trinity will end up with Morpheus, and that Neo and Trinity will come to find out that Smith is their father? That would be very interesting.
Nah.
But I think the characters mirror SW, if not the plot. Luke was never a messiah, even though the force was strong with him. Maybe he had just OD’d on midi-chlorians. Maybe those are what’s helping Neo along now, and - gasp! - will there be prequels to the Matrix in 20 years?
The Nebuchadnezzar’s entry into Zion and the whole landing sequence. Beautifully conceived and rendered, convincing and well-paced. It was a really good use of the all CGI and compositing FX artistry to produce a coherent, visually graceful scene which actually looked right, rather than trying to impress me for the sake of impressing me. As I watched it, I could just imagine everyone associated with the last two Star Wars movies thinking, ‘Yep, that’s what our movies could have and should have looked like’.
Then there’s the Burly Brawl. It was more than a bit silly, it didn’t really work, it made no sense whatsoever as a fight, it had no ending (if he could just fly off like that, why didn’t he do it sooner?) and the FX weren’t totally convincing. But what the heck. Someone had to have a go and say ‘Just how far can we push this FX technology?’, and the Wachowskis stepped up to the plate and delivered. Can you imagine how long it took to get this scene together?
I also thought that the Ghost Twins were visually wonderful. If you see what the actors actually look like, and then look at them in the movie, you realise that one very imaginative stylist came up with something very special.
My impression of that scene was that the Smiths were a bit, I dunno, embarrassed that they couldn’t follow Neo. All these hundreds of copies of the Smith character, obviously better than the original Smith, but they couldn’t yet achieve that particular skill of Neo’s.
So instead they all looked around uncomfortably for a few seconds, and then melted off into the scenery because that was all they could do.
)) with Han Solo (or was it Luke?) shaken on the approach to the cockpit.
