Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Die Hard
John McClane, a detective with the New York City Police Department, arrives in Los Angeles to attempt a Christmas reunion with his estranged wife Holly. He is taken by limousine driver Argyle to her workplace, the highrise Nakatomi Plaza. While Argyle waits in the building's parking garage, McClane joins the Nakatomi Christmas party, where he meets Holly's boss Joseph Takagi and sleazy co-woker Ellis. He finally finds Holly and they immediately get into an argument over her use of her maiden name Gennaro. Holly leaves McClane in a small room near the party.
A gang led by the suave and refined German terrorist Hans Gruber invades and secures the building, under the pretense of gaining the release of various terrorist operatives. The party-goers are subdued and it is revealed that the group are actually thieves; their plan is to use the false terrorist crisis to cover their theft of millions of dollars in bearer bonds from the building's security vault. When Takagi refuses to provide the vault combination, he is killed and Theo, the gang's technical mastermind, begins disabling the sequential vault locks, warning Gruber that the final electro-magnetic based lock will be impossible to bypass.
McClane manages to slip away during the round-up of the party-goers, albeit without his shoes. His attempt to summon help via the building's fire alarm brings him into confrontation with gang member Tony. He kills Tony, prompting the man's vengeful brother Karl to lead a hunt for the policeman through the building. McClane captures a radio and manages to convince a skeptical 911 operator to send a patrol unit, and then secures the attention of responding Los Angeles Police Department officer Al Powell by dropping the body of one of his pursuers onto the hood of the officer's car. He also takes a collection of C4 explosives and detonators off the body of another gangmember.
The LAPD responds in force, but this merely accelerates Gruber's timetable. With the police led by the incompetent Deputy Chief Dwayne Robinson, Powell quickly proves to be McClane's only useful ally outside the building. A SWAT team and an armored transport are easily and brutally repelled, to which McClane retaliates by bombing two of Gruber's men along with an entire floor of the building with some of the C4. The blast unnerves Ellis who reveals McClane's identity to Gruber with the hopes of negotiating his release. He is murdered when McClane refuses to cooperate.
An incensed Gruber orders Karl to track McClane down and recover the detonators while Gruber goes up to the roof access, where he finds himself in an unexpected face-to-face confrontation with McClane. Gruber attempts to pass himself off as a hostage; the ruse is distraction enough that Karl and his team surprise McClane in an ambush. McClane kills two more gang-members but is forced to flee, leaving behind the detonators and severely injuring his feet. As he tends his wounds, Powell tells him via radio how, in the past, he had mistakenly shot a child "armed" with a toy gun. His grief had him heading for a career as a desk officer.
Outside, the spectacle attracts massive media attention, while the FBI arrives on the scene in the form of two swaggering agents. The duo order the building's power be cut, which serves only to deactivate the final lock on the building's vault, just as Gruber had planned. He "negotiates" with the FBI to release the hostages on the rooftop via helicopter transport. The agents plan on double crossing the "terrorists" with a surprise attack using gunships (with little regard to the hostages' welfare), while Gruber in fact is planning his own treachery; using the C4 to destroy the entire upper structure of the building, killing all the hostages and covering the gang's escape.
McClane investigates the roof access, wondering about Gruber's ealier presence in that area. He discovers the primed C4 and tries to alert Powell, only to be cut off by an attacking Karl. After a vicious battle, McClane leaves Karl hanging from a heavy chain. Back outside the building, an irresponsible TV reporter named Richard Thornburg accidentally alerts Gruber to the fact that Holly is McClane's wife. He takes her aside as a special hostage as his remaining men raid the vault and Theo goes to the parking garage to prepare the gang's getaway ambulance. Argyle, who has kept up with events via his limo's radio, rams the vehicle with his limousine and punches Theo unconscious.
McClane storms the roof, driving the hostages back down to safety with warning gunfire. The FBI mistake McClane for a terrorist and fire at him, while Gruber proceeds with the detonation of the C4. McClane escapes the blast by tying a fire hose around his waist, jumping over the side of the building, and shooting his way in through a window a couple of stories down. The gunship crew, including both FBI agents, are killed.
A battered McClane confronts Gruber one last time high up in the tower, with Holly being held at gunpoint. McClane tricks Gruber with a faked surrender and shoots the villain, who falls from the building to his death. As McClane and his wife leave the building, the seemingly-indestructible Karl reappears one last time, only to be gunned down by Powell. Holly and John are approached by Thornburg, still relentlessly angling for a fresh scoop. Holly punches the reporter and the couple departs the scene in Argyle's battered limo.
Die Hard 2
The story begins on Christmas Eve, 1990, exactly two years after the Nakatomi Plaza incident. John McClane is at Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C.. As he waits for his wife Holly to arrive from California, airport police tow away his in-laws' car and give him a parking ticket. Hanging out at an airport lounge, McClane sees a group of men, dressed in Army fatigues, and at least one of whom has a gun in his jacket, pass a package between them and disappear into a baggage handling area. He follows, and a fight ensues in which McClane kills one of the men.
McClane confronts the head of airport police, the hotheaded Captain Carmine Lorenzo, who dismisses McClane's report as punks stealing luggage, despite the fact that one of the assailants was wielding a rare porcelain gun (supposedly) capable of evading metal detectors. McClane storms off to investigate on his own, taking fingerprints from the corpse and faxing them to his friend, LAPD officer Al Powell, who runs them through several databases. The resulting records indicates that the man had been declared officially dead even before the fight, leading McClane to suspect that he had been part of a plot to seize control of the airport.
Which is exactly the truth: as weather conditions worsen, a vengeful rogue US Army officer, Colonel Stuart, prepares to hold the approaching planes and their passengers and crew hostage until he can free a former Central American general and drug lord, Ramon Esperanza, as the deposed despot is arriving at the airport under guard for trial by the United States government. Stuart has set up his operational base in a nearby church and has hacked directly into Dulles' communications and air traffic control.
McClane sneaks into the airport's control tower and confronts the head of air traffic control, Trudeau, just as Stuart commences his operation and takes control of the airport controls. McClane is chased out from the tower; as he descends in the elevator with reporter Samantha Coleman, she tips him to the presence of Stuart. McClane slips out of the elevator and into the underground maintenance area of the airport, where he gains assistance from an airport janitor named Marvin.
Trudeau and his controllers contact the approaching planes and inform the cabin crews (without mentioning the terrorists) that they must circle the airport. Trudeau’s communications director, Leslie Barnes, takes a team to a new antenna outpost at the skywalk to restore unbugged communication with the planes. He and Lorenzo’s SWAT team are attacked by a detachment of Stuart’s men. Fortunately, McClane heard about the auxiliary outpost while in the tower, and just as Barnes is about to be killed, McClane emerges and kills Stuart’s men. Stuart retaliates by crashing a British jet, killing everyone on board.
McClane returns to the underground maintenance level, where a two-way radio dropped by one of Stuart’s crew tells him that Esperanza is about to arrive in his now-commendeered plane, who has killed his guard and the pilots. McClane rushes to the runway and briefly apprehends Esperanza, before Stuart and his men show up to retrieve the general themselves. McClane hides in the cockpit of Esperanza’s plane, but Stuart and his crew toss grenades inside, forcing McClane to strap himself into the pilot’s ejector seat and escape the resulting blast by engaging the eject function.
An Army Special Forces unit arrives at the airport. Their leader, Major Grant, once served with Stuart and claims to know his tactics. Barnes surmises that Stuart’s command post is near the airport, and he and McClane find the church where Stuart is hiding. Shortly after McClane kills one of Stuart’s guards and takes possession of his submachine gun, Grant and his squad show up and a gunfight ensues. Stuart, his men and Esperanza escape on snowmobiles. McClane chases after them, but his gun left by one of Stuart's henchmen proves strangely ineffective. McClane checks the weapon and finds that the bullets are blanks.
McClane returns to the airport police station and announces to Lorenzo that Grant and Stuart are actually working together. Lorenzo thinks he is lying and attempts to arrest him, but McClane fires his submachine gun (still loaded with blanks) at Lorenzo. Finally convinced, Lorenzo mobilizes his police to converge on the hangar containing the Boeing 747 that Stuart has demanded as an escape vehicle.
Meanwhile, circling above the airport, Holly has unexpectedly found herself in the same plane as Richard Thornberg, the reporter who had endangered her and John during their previous meeting. As the terrorists' plans unfold, both Holly and Thornberg begin to realize that something is amiss; culminating in Thornberg listening into the tower radio transmissions, learning about the crisis and making a live news report from aboard the plane. The crowds in the airport watching the report are thrown into panic, which greatly hampers McClane's and Lorenzo's efforts to apprehend Stuart. Holly zaps Thornberg with a fellow passenger's stun gun.
McClane hitches a ride in Sam Coleman's news helicopter to the villains' plane, which is taxiing for takeoff. He manages to jump onto the aircraft's wing and finds himself in hand-to-hand combat with Major Grant. During the fight, Grant is sucked into one of the plane’s engines and killed, but Stuart takes up the fight and kicks McClane off the wing. As he falls, McClane opens the fuel hatch on the engine and it starts to dump. He then delivers his classic catchphrase, "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker" and uses his cigarette lighter to ignite the trail of fuel, exploding the plane and resulting in a fireball. The fire from the aftermath becomes a landing light for the other planes, which all make to the ground safely. Emergency services arrive and begin evacuating the air passengers, including Holly and a badly-shaken Thornburg. McClane and Holly joyfully reunite, Lorenzo tears up McClane's parking ticket as a Christmas gift, and Marvin drives the couple offDie Hard with a Vengeance
The antagonist in this movie is Simon Gruber (Jeremy Irons), brother of Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman, who, like Irons, was an English actor playing a German). Hans was a German criminal who was killed by NYPD cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) at the climax of Die Hard, the first film in the series. It first appears as though Simon is out to avenge his brother's death, but it is later revealed that other motives are at work.
He begins by blowing up a bomb in a department store and telling Inspector Walter Cobb, calling himself "Simon", that McClane must walk through Harlem displaying a sandwich board reading "I hate niggers", or expect 'another big bang at a public place'. When some offended African Americans threaten him, they are held back at gunpoint by shopkeeper and African American activist Zeus Carver (Samuel L. Jackson). Carver gets McClane away, not out of concern for a white man, but that the colleagues of a white cop might go gunning for every black person in the area if one of their own is killed; "One white cop dies in Harlem, tomorrow we got a thousand white cops, all of 'em with itchy trigger fingers." Back at the police station, Simon calls and insists that this "Good Samaritan" has become part of the game whether he likes it or not.
Simon has planted real as well as phony bombs throughout the city, and forces McClane and Carver to participate in a game of "Simon says", which usually consists of giving them information about a bomb and giving them a chance to defuse them.
The first game happens at a public telephone. Simon calls and reads them the As I Was Going to St Ives riddle. To answer the riddle, McClane needs to dial 555 followed by the answer within 30 seconds. They make the call, but are 10 seconds late. Simon laughs and says there is no bomb, since he "didn't say 'Simon Says'."
McClane is told they have half an hour to go to a phone at a subway station near Wall Street from where they are on the upper west side. To do this, McClane commandeers a taxi and drives through Central Park, and makes a radio call for an ambulance which they follow through heavy traffic. McClane later manages to climb into the subway train from a grating and finds the bomb, quickly chucking it out the train window. Only Zeus makes it to the station to pick up the call. Simon says that McClane's absence is a breach of the rules and the bomb is detonated, however he had intended for the bomb to detonate regardless, since an activation switch was placed on the subway tracks to detonate the bomb once the subway car hit the switch. Only the audience is aware of the fact at this time.
After the bomb is detonated, they must go to another park to answer another riddle. This time, Simon says "What has four legs and is always ready to travel?" Zeus figures out that it is an elephant, and they find a briefcase bomb in an elephant fountain in the park. After a short argument on whether or not to open the briefcase, John decides to open it. When he does, an LCD screen reads "I am a bomb. You have just armed me." Simon then calls them again, telling them that they must use a 5 gallon and a 3 gallon jug to put exactly 4 gallons of water on the bomb's scale to disarm it, which they do in the nick of time.
When Simon next calls, he states that there is a bomb within one of the schools in New York. They must not evacuate schools, but the police start a massive search for the bomb. Simon's next riddle is "What is 21 out of 42?", and Zeus figures out that there have been 42 Presidents of the United States but is unable to remember who the 21st was. Later, a truck driver tells McClane he was Chester A. Arthur, and it identifies a school in which Simon claims to have placed a bomb — it is later found to be Chester A. Arthur Elementary School, the very school where Zeus' two nephews happen to be attending.
As Zeus and McClane are traveling between destinations, McClane catches and reprimands a boy for stealing a candy bar in plain sight. The boy comments that every cop in the city is searching the schools and one could, as the boy puts it, "steal City Hall". McClane abruptly realizes the nature of Simon's plan.
So far the police have been led to believe that all this is an overblown act of revenge. However, it is really a diversion from Simon's real goal: to rob the high-security vault in the basement of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which holds the gold reserves of many nations, even more than Fort Knox. The need to search the thousands of schools in New York, none of which are located in the financial district, means that the police, emergency and Federal agencies are all occupied elsewhere. This enables Simon and his army of East European mercenaries to break into the vault and make their escape with a dozen dump trucks filled to the brim with gold bars.
McClane and Carver see through the plan and catch up with the gang as they embark their trucks on board a ship. They are captured and left on the ship with a huge bomb. When McClane first sees this bomb, he realizes that there is no bomb in a school - the bomb that police found in the school is an elaborate dummy filled with pancake syrup. Simon advises McClane that "some gentlemen in the Middle East seem to think they'll make a lot of money" when a substantial portion of the world's gold reserves are destroyed. Carver asks what this has to do with killing McClane to which Simon replies, "Life has its little bonuses". The two men are left handcuffed to each other sitting astride the bomb.
At this point they hold a heart-to-heart, with McClane admitting that he and his wife are yet again estranged, and Carver trying to convince him to try to at least call her. They both manage to get off the ship just as the bomb explodes, destroying the ship.
Simon has (via a taped message transmitted over the ship's radio) led the authorities to believe that the gold was still aboard the ship and that the whole affair was a plot to upset the world economy. However, McClane surmises that it is yet another diversion and that the gold is safe elsewhere, based on experience with Simon's brother, Hans. After suffering a horrible headache all day, McClane had finally managed to obtain a bottle of aspirin from Simon himself. Based on Carver's prompting, McClane then calls his estranged wife. As the call is connecting, McClane goes to take one of the pills, and a label on the bottom of the bottle shows that they were purchased from a pharmacy in Quebec, Canada. McClane is forced to leave the phone to pursue Simon, and leaves his wife hanging on the line. This leads the action to a warehouse in Canada where Simon and his gang have indeed taken the gold. There they witness Simon's gang being caught by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police before being attacked by Simon in a helicopter. The final battle ensues and as the helicopter hovers underneath some power lines, McClane cleverly shoots out the power lines with two shots, destroying the helicopter, and sending Simon to join his late brother.
As the film ends, McClane calls his wife on a nearby pay phone, despite worrying about the fact that he left her on hold. The credits roll as the call is connecting.
Die Hard 4
At the start of the film, a terrorist breaches an FBI facility's computer system, and computer hackers are assassinated by the terrorist mastermind Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), instead of being paid for their collaboration. The FBI, unaware of the killings, dispatches NYPD Police Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) to visit a known hacker, Matthew Farrell (Justin Long), as part of their investigation regarding the breach. Gabriel's henchmen attempt to assassinate McClane and Farrell, but their targets escape. McClane transports Farrell to the FBI's Washington DC headquarters and its head, Assistant Director Bowman (Cliff Curtis), in the midst of a shutdown of the traffic system in DC. The stock market is manipulated shortly afterward, causing it to crash.
McClane is ordered to take Farrell into protective custody, and Gabriel sends more henchmen to kill the pair. McClane and Farrell evade their assassins again, and as the country's infrastructure is threatened with a major break down, Farrell tells McClane the terrorists are initiating a fire sale and that major utilities would be next. The detective and the hacker travel to a power hub in West Virginia to defend it, finding that the terrorists are already there. McClane battles terrorists while Farrell undoes the damage done to the computer system. They are contacted by Gabriel, who finds out that McClane has killed his lover Mai Lihn (Maggie Q) and angrily re-routes gas lines to destroy the hub in a gas explosion. McClane and Farrell escape once more, and on Farrell's advice, the pair visit his hacker friend the Warlock (Kevin Smith) for help. At the Warlock's home, they find out about Gabriel's background and attempt to hack into the terrorist's systems. Gabriel contacts the detective at the Warlock's home via webcam, and he shows that he has McClane's daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as a hostage. While McClane distracts Gabriel in conversation, Warlock determines Gabriel's location, at a hijacked NSA building.
McClane and Farrell travel to the NSA building, and the detective combats terrorists while Farrell discovers and tries to undo Gabriel's plan to steal backup financial information from servers in the building. Farrell is able to lock the terrorists out of their server hack, rendering the task incomplete, and then he is taken hostage by the terrorists. With McClane after them, Gabriel and his henchmen flee the building with their hostages. McClane manages to hijack one of the escaping trucks and pursues Gabriel and the hostages. Gabriel renders a hack to deceive the pilot of a F-35 Lightning II jet to attack McClane's truck. The jet engages McClane, destroying much of the freeway in the process, but the detective is able to escape. He tracks Gabriel to a warehouse, where the terrorist is forcing Farrell to undo the encryption at gunpoint. McClane and Farrell are able to kill Gabriel and his men before they force Farrell to decrypt the lock, resolving the crisis. The FBI arrives shortly after to tend to the wounds of Farrell, McClane, and his daughter. The final shot is McClane and his daughter leaving in an ambulance.
Die Hard
At the start of the film, a terrorist breaches an FBI facility's computer system, and computer hackers are assassinated by the terrorist mastermind Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), instead of being paid for their collaboration. The FBI, unaware of the killings, dispatches NYPD Police Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) to visit a known hacker, Matthew Farrell (Justin Long), as part of their investigation regarding the breach. Gabriel's henchmen attempt to assassinate McClane and Farrell, but their targets escape. McClane transports Farrell to the FBI's Washington DC headquarters and its head, Assistant Director Bowman (Cliff Curtis), in the midst of a shutdown of the traffic system in DC. The stock market is manipulated shortly afterward, causing it to crash.
McClane is ordered to take Farrell into protective custody, and Gabriel sends more henchmen to kill the pair. McClane and Farrell evade their assassins again, and as the country's infrastructure is threatened with a major break down, Farrell tells McClane the terrorists are initiating a fire sale and that major utilities would be next. The detective and the hacker travel to a power hub in West Virginia to defend it, finding that the terrorists are already there. McClane battles terrorists while Farrell undoes the damage done to the computer system. They are contacted by Gabriel, who finds out that McClane has killed his lover Mai Lihn (Maggie Q) and angrily re-routes gas lines to destroy the hub in a gas explosion. McClane and Farrell escape once more, and on Farrell's advice, the pair visit his hacker friend the Warlock (Kevin Smith) for help. At the Warlock's home, they find out about Gabriel's background and attempt to hack into the terrorist's systems. Gabriel contacts the detective at the Warlock's home via webcam, and he shows that he has McClane's daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) as a hostage. While McClane distracts Gabriel in conversation, Warlock determines Gabriel's location, at a hijacked NSA building.
McClane and Farrell travel to the NSA building, and the detective combats terrorists while Farrell discovers and tries to undo Gabriel's plan to steal backup financial information from servers in the building. Farrell is able to lock the terrorists out of their server hack, rendering the task incomplete, and then he is taken hostage by the terrorists. With McClane after them, Gabriel and his henchmen flee the building with their hostages. McClane manages to hijack one of the escaping trucks and pursues Gabriel and the hostages. Gabriel renders a hack to deceive the pilot of a F-35 Lightning II jet to attack McClane's truck. The jet engages McClane, destroying much of the freeway in the process, but the detective is able to escape. He tracks Gabriel to a warehouse, where the terrorist is forcing Farrell to undo the encryption at gunpoint. McClane and Farrell are able to kill Gabriel and his men before they force Farrell to decrypt the lock, resolving the crisis. The FBI arrives shortly after to tend to the wounds of Farrell, McClane, and his daughter. The final shot is McClane and his daughter leaving in an ambulance.
Minority Report
The film is set in Washington, D.C. in 2054, where murderers are apprehended based on foreknowledge. This is provided by three psychics termed "pre-cogs", nicknamed Agatha (Morton), Dashiell, and Arthur. The group making use of the pre-cogs is the Department of Pre-Crime, a high-tech policing division who arrest criminals predicted by the pre-cogs. Thanks to it, the city has gone six years without a single murder. At the start of the film, Pre-crime chief John Anderton (Cruise) is in the midst of apprehending a suspect, aided by his team. It is revealed that the pre-cogs only relate the time/date of the murder, the murderer's name, and the victim's name. All other facts, chiefly the location, can only be ascertained by clues given by the various images relayed around the time of murder. Images transfer from the pre-cogs' minds to a computer display, where Anderton manipulates the images in a manner similar to virtual reality to better determine how the murders might happen. Anderton is watched by Danny Witwer (Farrell), an observer from the Department of Justice sent to evaluate the system because the country is about to vote on whether to expand the Pre-Crime program nationally.
Later Anderton goes to his apartment, where he watches home movies of his deceased six-year old son and his ex-wife. The next morning, Witwer is given a tour of the pre-cogs' chamber. The pre-cogs float in a translucent substance, which helps enhance the images they produce. Anderton stays behind and Agatha suddenly emerges from the pool and grabs him. She draws his attention to the ceiling, which also displays images in a pre-cog's mind, now a woman named Ann Lively being murdered. Intrigued by a murder which he's never seen, Anderton decides to investigate. He learns that the other pre-cogs' images of the murder are on record, but Agatha's recorded images are missing. Anderton tells this to Burgess (Von Sydow), his boss and the director of Pre-crime, who appears unconcerned.
The next day, Anderton finds a new case unfolding: a murder is to take place in 36 hours. This is unusual: because the pre-cogs are public knowledge, few plan to murder someone in any given time; most crimes are acts of passion, decided upon the spot. The victim is a man named Leo Crowe. The murderer is revealed to be Anderton himself. Believing that he is being set up since he doesn't even know the victim, Anderton takes it on the lam. He manages to escape Witwer and his own team in a car factory, and seeks refuge in the country home of Iris Hineman, one of the pioneers of Pre-crime. She reveals that the three pre-cogs were actually the children of people who experimented with a new drug that did serious damage to their bodies, and that the pre-cogs do not always agree in their opinions about the future. On occasion, those convicted of a pre-crime may have an alternative future other than the one where the murder is committed, and, when this happens, the dissenting opinion is left out. Anderton's only hope at proving his innocence is acquiring the hidden "minority report", which Hineman explains is contained in Agatha, the most gifted pre-cog.
Traveling undetected is difficult, since everyone is subjected to constant public retinal scans. Anderton visits a shady doctor (Peter Stormare) to receive an eye transplant. While recovering - during which he must keep bandages over his eyes or go blind -, he dreams of his son, abducted from a swimming pool. He awakens to discover that the pre-crime team is investigating the building with "spyders", robotic eye scanners. He tries to hide in a bathtub full of ice water to mask his body heat, but is scanned. The surgery proves successful, however, and he is not identified. Later, he manages to reach the Pre-crime offices. He takes Agatha out of the nutrient water disrupting the pre-cog hive mind that makes Pre-crime work and escapes again. Anderton finds a hacker friend who accesses Agatha's vision of the murder, which appears identical to the one he saw earlier. An anguished Anderton begins to wonder if a minority report even exists for his future crime. Agatha then begins showing the Ann Lively murder again, prompting Anderton to realize that she wants him to see who killed Lively, but they are forced to flee as the Pre-crime team enters the building.
Inexorably, Anderton ends up in Leo Crowe’s empty apartment. Searching the room, he finds a pile of photos of children, including his son. Anderton suddenly realizes that there is no minority report for himself, and that Leo Crow is responsible for kidnapping his son. Anderton had pre-planned this murder, a long standing wish to kill the previously anonymous person who took his son. Crowe then enters and Anderton viciously attacks him, eliciting a confession. Agatha tries to convince Anderton that he does not have to kill Crowe, that his future isn't set because he actually knows what it could be, unlike everyone else caught by the Pre-crime system. As he is about to shoot Crowe, Anderton reconsiders and reads him his Miranda rights. Crowe then says that if Anderton doesn’t kill him, Crowe’s family will get nothing: the entire murder was a set-up. Crowe refuses to tell Anderton who set him up, grabs Anderton’s gun to point it at his chest and manages a suicide by cop by worrying Anderton's hand. Anderton and Agatha leave.
The Pre-crime unit arrives and investigates the scene. Witwer sees the photos and raises questions as to what sort of child killer would leave so much evidence lying around. Witwer then discusses his doubts with Burgess and shows him the Ann Lively pre-vision, but two different ones; one from recorded images at Pre-crime, and the other from Agatha, downloaded by Anderton's hacker friend. The images have slight differences, which Witwer infers that represent two different murders; the first was the one Pre-crime witnessed and someone else, who had set up the first suspect, would then, right after the first suspect was apprehended, kill Lively. Witwer intuits that only someone high up would even have access to the pre-cog's pre-visions. Burgess interrupts his analysis by shooting him; since Agatha is with Anderton, Pre-crime is not able to prevent the murder.
Anderton hides in his ex-wife Lara’s house; there he realizes he was set up because of his discovery of the Ann Lively murder. Lively is revealed to be Agatha's mother, and was killed because she wanted to re-unite with Agatha and thus ruin Pre-crime. The police arrive and arrest Anderton. Later, Burgess accidentally reveals to Lara that he killed Lively. Lara then releases Anderton from prison, and as Burgess is giving a speech, Anderton confronts him by showing the audience Agatha's pre-vision of Burgess killing Ann Lively. Burgess takes a gun and starts after Anderton; the pre-cogs are back online, they predict the murder and the Pre-crime team race away to apprehend him. Anderton shows Burgess that he's at a dead end. If he doesn't shoot him, Pre-crime would end due to incorrectly predicting a murder; if he does shoot him, he would be arrested, but it would prove that the system works. Anderton then explains the fatal flaw of the system: if someone knows their own future, he or she can choose to change it. Burgess commits suicide.
In the final sequence, Anderton explains in voiceover that the pre-crime experiment was shut down. All the criminals imprisoned by the program were unconditionally pardoned, although some were kept under surveillance by police for years afterward. The pre-cogs were taken to an undisclosed location where they could live out their lives in seclusion and peace, no longer tormented by their talents. Anderton reconciles with Lara, who is now pregnant.
SWAT
The film begins with a hostage situation in Los Angeles (loosely based on the 1997 North Hollywood shootout). Officer Jim Street, a hot-shot cop from the Los Angeles Police Department and his S.W.A.T. Team are sent to stop a gang of robbers who have taken over a bank. His high-tempered partner and close friend Brian Gamble disobeys a direct order from their lieutenant, and accidentally wounds a hostage. Gamble and Street are demoted by Tom Fuller, the SWAT captain, after an argument, and then Gamble quits. Street is punished, taken off the S.W.A.T. team and sent to work in the "gun cage," where he looks after gear and weapons.
The Chief of Police calls on Sergeant Dan "Hondo" Harrelson to help re-organize the S.W.A.T. division. Hondo is transferred in, and soon puts together a team made up of personality heavy cops, including himself, Street, Chris Sánchez, Deacon Kay, T.J. McCabe, and Michael Boxer.
Meanwhile, a drug lord by the name of Alex Montel kills his father and uncle for control of the family's crime empire. The L.A.P.D. stop Montel for a broken taillight, detain him, and eventually learn he is an international fugitive through Interpol. As they are transferring him, his associates, dressed as LAPD officers, assault the County Sheriffs bus Montel is on in an attempt to free him. Hondo's S.W.A.T. team foils the assault. As Montel is being brought into the police station in front of a group of reporters, he yells to them “I will give one hundred million dollars to whoever gets me out of here.”
The L.A.P.D. makes plans to transfer Montel into federal custody. They plan to fly him away, but an assailant (later revealed to be Gamble) shoots down the helicopter. The police next send out a large convoy, which is attacked by gang members. It turns out to be a decoy, and Hondo's team has spirited Montel away in two S.U.V.s. However, T.J. has been plotting with Gamble, and the two succeed in taking Montel from the other officers. Hondo and the rest give chase, and there is a final fierce battle, Gamble's group against the S.W.A.T. team. Hondo's team is victorious. T.J. kills himself rather than be captured, and there is a vicious hand to hand fight between Street and Gamble, with Street emerging the eventual victor when he kicks Gamble under the wheels of a passing train. Gamble's head is run over and he is instantly killed. The S.W.A.T. team delivers Montel to a federal prison awaiting trial.
The Rock
Brigadier General Francis X. Hummel (Harris) is disgusted by the way the government abandoned many of his men after sending them on illegal suicide missions. He assembles a rogue team of 14 elite U.S. Marines (Force Recon), most of whom have previously served under him, though Captains Frye and Darrow are new. Hummel attacks a naval weapons depot, taking fifteen VX missiles. He loses one of his men during the attack, when a ball of VX gas is dropped and a marine is exposed to the agent, dying a gruesome death while the rest of the squad gets out in time. Hummel then occupies Alcatraz Island, taking 81 tourists hostage in the process. Hummel threatens to kill San Francisco's entire population with the VX missiles unless the government agrees to pay $100 million out of a supposed slush fund both to the families of American commandos lost in classified operations throughout the world, and to him and his men.
Captain John Patrick Mason (Connery) is an SAS operative imprisoned for 30 years without trial for stealing microfilm that contained sensitive U.S. Government secrets. Upon his capture, he was disowned by the British government. All evidence of his existence has been erased by both the British and the Americans. An expert escape artist, Mason attempted to escape many times over the years, although he was always recaptured. He has been locked in another maximum security prison for an unspecified length of time since his last escape attempt. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had orchestrated all of this, since Mason refused to reveal where the microfilm was hidden, and the policy was continued by then agent, now current FBI Director James Womack (John Spencer). Upon hearing of the VX missile crisis, and after a discussion with Navy SEAL Commander Anderson, Womack reluctantly calls upon Mason, as he is the only man ever to escape from Alcatraz, and he is the one who can guide the commandos into the island via the catacombs underneath it.
Dr. Stanley Goodspeed (Cage), an FBI chemical weapons specialist educated at Columbia (B.A.) and Johns Hopkins (M.A. and Ph.D.) with limited field experience, is placed on the mission as his expertise is needed to disarm the VX missiles.
Mason is summoned by the FBI and agrees to help, only after a "good-faith" conversation from Goodspeed, which will include a pardon, and a stay and haircut at the Fairmount hotel. After tricking Womack into a handshake, Mason throws Womack over the balcony (anchored by a rope) and escapes in a Hummer, leading the FBI and San Francisco police on a wild car chase through the city that causes unaccounted destruction throughout. He contacts his daughter, Jade Angelou (Claire Forlani), that he fathered during his first escape, as she is the only proof of his identity. Goodspeed tracks them down and calls in the police; Jade gets upset and accuses Mason of escaping from prison again, but Goodspeed alleviates her unrest by saying that her father is now assisting the FBI.
Mason, Goodspeed and a team of U.S. Navy SEALs led by Commander Anderson (Michael Biehn) dive underwater and through the catacombs underneath the island. While the SEALs are initially successful in eluding the Marine patrols, they fall into a trap set by marine Captain Hendrix and are surrounded. General Hummel orders the men to surrender but Anderson refuses. The SEALs get nervous during the standoff, which breaks out into a firefight after they are provoked by Captain Frye against Hummel's wishes. Captains Frye and Darrow are part of the renegade marines purely for money and have a disregard for Hummel's code of honor, as Darrow unholsters his sidearm to execute a mortally wounded SEAL, but Hummel waves him away and personally closes the dying man's eyes. Hummel then looks into the fibre optics camera and delivers a stern warning to the FBI, who believe that all hope is lost.
With all of the SEALs killed by Hummel's forces, Goodspeed and Mason find that they are the only ones left between Hummel's VX gas rockets and San Francisco. Mason attempts to desert the mission, but stays after some persuasion from Goodspeed, notably as his daughter Jade and Goodspeed's pregnant fiancée Carla are one of the many citizens that are at risk. FBI Special Agent Ernest Paxton (William Forsythe), who personally advised Goodspeed in good faith, and in charge of the San Francisco region and is focused on the VX gas threat, notices that Director Womack is nervous about Mason taking part in the mission and having no supervision after the SEALs were killed. Paxton finds out that Womack's underlying motive is to recover the microfilm, even if that would have jeopardized the mission. Thus, Paxton understands Mason's anger when he says to Womack: "So you kept this guy without trial his whole life. No wonder he's pissed."
The Marines who are gathering up weapons realize that Goodspeed and Mason remain alive and attempt to bomb them, but they manage to survive. Mason guides Goodspeed through the catacombs to the morgue of Alcatraz. There they fight and kill two Marines stationed there. Goodspeed then defuses twelve VX rockets there by removing their guidance chips so that the rockets will just fall into the sea harmlessly. However, Hummel notes that the morgue team has not checked in and sends a trio of Marines. Mason and Goodspeed take the guidance chips with them and escape on a mine car, but it crashes and Goodspeed is stuck in a belt elevator and Mason hanging from the belt. The Marines arrive and begain shooting at Goodspeed. Mason sets the legs of Marine Captain Hendrix (McGinley) on fire and then drowns him. Goodspeed then tries to flee in the cable car and the Marines follow in another car. Mason surprises the Marines and knocks one of them into the abyss, but he gets choked by another, being saved by Goodspeed who shoots the Marine; Mason deduces that Goodspeed has never previously killed another person.
Hummel then demands over the island's speaker system that Mason and Goodspeed return the guidance chips or they will execute a hostage. Mason smashes the guidance chips, and then tells Goodspeed to disable the three remaining rockets while he surrenders to Hummel to buy time. During the confrontation between Mason and Hummel, both discuss their views on patriotism, and both realize that they are in a similar situation of being betrayed by their respective governments. Nevertheless, Mason tells Hummel that the plan to use VX gas on innocent civilians is insane, to which Hummel has no answer and strikes him. At the same time, Goodspeed is cornered by two Marines and is imprisoned in a cell, as is Mason. However, Mason breaks them out in the same way he got out in 1962. He then decides to abandon the mission, having realized that Hummel is a soldier and does not wish to kill civilians, though Goodspeed says that they cannot take that chance. Goodspeed tries to go on alone but is caught by a Marine sentry, then he is rescued by Mason, who decides to come back.
The Pentagon is preparing to load planes with Thermite Plasma, incendiary bombs, that will burn up the VX gas and also kill everyone on Alcatraz. However, the incendiaries, hot enough to burn the VX poison gas, are still in the testing phase, so it is taking time. There is less than an hour left, and the Pentagon calls Hummel and asks for more time. His remaining men believe it is a trick and urges him to fire one of the two remaining missiles. Hummel bows to their urgings and fires the missile, but at the last moment changes coordinates and sends the missile into the sea. The Marines are furious and wish to know why Hummel changed course. As Mason deduced, Hummel does not wish to kill civilians. (Hummel does subscribe to a code of honor throughout the film of trying not to kill innocents; he used tranquilizers to take out the men guarding the VX in the movie's beginning, and also told his men to cease fire during the firefight with the Navy SEALs.) As the US government essentially called his bluff, Hummel moves to his backup plan to leave the island with four hostages without firing the last missile. However, he is confronted by his surviving men, Captains Frye and Darrow, who openly reveal themselves as sadistic and being part of the mission for money; Hummel made the mistake of trusting Frye and Darrow although they never previously served under him, and perhaps they were not abandoned by the government unlike his other men. A firefight erupts, and Hummel, his loyal right-hand man Major Baxter (Morse) and Sergeant Crisp (Bokeem Woodbine) are killed. Mason and Goodspeed intervene at the last moment and drag the dying General out of the fray, Hummel tells them the location of the last VX missile and dies.
Goodspeed goes out to defuse the last rocket located on the lighthouse. He does so and takes out the VX canisters, but he is cornered by Captain Darrow (Tony Todd). Goodspeed kills Darrow by firing the empty rocket into his direction. Darrow is thrown in the air and is impaled by a pole sticking out of a pile of debris. As Goodspeed goes onto the roof of the lighthouse, he is fired upon by marine Private McCoy (Steve Harris), first with an M249 SAW machine gun and then an M40 rifle. But Mason sneaks up from behind and throws McCoy over the ledge to his death. Mason heads downstairs and is attacked by Private Cox (Brendan Kelly), an Irishman who resents Mason for being English, even though Mason is Scottish as Glasgow was given as his place of birth. Mason kills him by wrapping chains around his neck and throwing them into a nearby well, strangling him.
Unfortunately, the President finally approves of an air strike, and the F/A-18 Hornets carrying the incendiaries are ready and set out for the island, unaware that all the rockets are now defused. Goodspeed is attacked by the last surviving marine, Captain Frye (Gregory Sporleder), but kills him by shoving a VX bulb into his mouth and breaking it. Goodspeed (who has a pronounced fear of needles) saves himself from the exposure by injecting Atropine into his heart. He then sees the approaching jets. He remembers that he was told to set off two green flares when the threat was neutralized. He does so. The flares are seen and the pilots are told to abort their mission at the last second. Before he can disengage the live fire switch, one of the pilots drops a bomb, however, he swerved his aircraft and hit the back of the island, leaving the hostages safe. Goodspeed is thrown into the sea by the explosion but is rescued by Mason. After making radio contact with the FBI, Goodspeed tells Mason that Director Womack tore up the pardon, and so the best thing to do is for Mason to slip away and Goodspeed will say that he is killed. Before leaving, Mason gives him the address to a church in Kansas . Womack is skeptical about Mason's "death", but Goodspeed and Agent Paxton (who knows Goodspeed is lying about Mason's death) move to close the case.
At the movie's end, Goodspeed and his bride, Carla (Vanessa Marcil), are shown just married, fleeing the church with Mason's microfilm as a priest shouts at them for destroying church property.
As their car drives out on the open road, Goodspeed examines the microfilm and says "Honey, want to know who killed JFK?"
The Matrix
Computer programmer Thomas A. Anderson leads a secret life as a hacker under the alias "Neo". He wishes to learn the answer to the question: "What is the Matrix?" Cryptic messages appearing on his computer monitor and an encounter with several sinister agents lead him to a group led by the mysterious Morpheus, a man who offers him the chance to learn the truth about the Matrix.
Neo accepts. Swallowing a red pill, he abruptly wakes up naked in a liquid-filled chamber, his body connected by wires to a vast mechanical tower covered with identical pods. The connections are severed and he is rescued by Morpheus and taken aboard his hovercraft, the Nebuchadnezzar. Neo's neglected physical body is restored, and Morpheus explains the situation.
The year is estimated to be around 2199, and humanity is fighting a war against intelligent machines created in the early 21st century. The sky is covered in thick black clouds created by the humans in an attempt to cut off the machines' supply of solar power. The machines responded by using human beings as their energy source, growing countless people in pods and harvesting their bioelectrical energy and body heat. The world which Neo has inhabited since birth is the Matrix, an illusory simulated reality construct of the world of 1999, developed by the machines to keep the human population docile. Morpheus and his crew are a group of free humans who "unplug" others from the Matrix and recruit them to their resistance against the machines. Within the Matrix they are able to use their understanding of its nature to bend the laws of physics within the simulation, giving them superhuman abilities. Morpheus believes that Neo is "the One", a man prophesied to end the war through his limitless control over the Matrix.
Neo is trained to become a member of the group. A socket in the back of Neo's skull, formerly used to connect him to the Matrix, allows knowledge to be uploaded directly into his mind. He learns numerous martial arts disciplines, and demonstrates his kung fu skills by sparring with Morpheus in a virtual reality "construct" environment similar to the Matrix, impressing the crew with his speed. Further training introduces Neo to the key dangers in the Matrix itself. Injuries suffered there are reflected in the real world; if he is killed in the Matrix, his physical body will also die. He is warned of the presence of Agents, powerful and fast sentient programs with the ability to take over the body of anyone still connected to the system, whose purpose is to seek out and eliminate any threats to the simulation. Yet Morpheus predicts that, once Neo fully understands his own abilities as "the One", they will be no match for him.
The group enters the Matrix and takes Neo to the apartment of the Oracle, the woman who has predicted the eventual emergence of the One. She tells Neo that he has "the gift", but that he is waiting for something, perhaps the next life. Neo interprets from this that he is not "the One". She adds that Morpheus believes in Neo so blindly that he will sacrifice his life to save him. Returning to the hacked telephone line which serves as a safe "exit" from the Matrix, the group is ambushed by Agents and police officers, and Morpheus is captured as Neo and the others escape. The group was betrayed by one crew-member, Cypher, who preferred his old life in ignorance of the real world's hardships, and made a deal with the Agents to give them Morpheus in exchange for a permanent return to the Matrix. The betrayal leads to the deaths of all crew-members except Neo, Trinity, Tank, and Morpheus, who is imprisoned in a government building within the Matrix. The Agents attempt to gain information from him regarding access codes to the mainframe of Zion, the humans’ last refuge which is deep underground. Neo and Trinity return to the Matrix and storm the building, rescuing their leader. Neo becomes more confident and familiar with manipulating the Matrix, ultimately dodging bullets fired at him by an Agent. Morpheus and Trinity use a subway station telephone to exit the Matrix, but before Neo can leave, he is ambushed by Agent Smith. He stands his ground and eventually defeats Smith, but flees when the Agent possesses another body.
As Neo runs through the city towards another telephone exit, he is pursued by the Agents while "Sentinel" machines converge on the Nebuchadnezzar's position in the real world. Neo reaches an exit, but he is shot dead by the pursuing Agent Smith. Back on-board the Nebuchadnezzar, in the real world, Trinity whispers to Neo that she was told by the Oracle that she would fall in love with "the One", implying that Neo is "the One". She refuses to accept his death and kisses him. Neo's heart beats again, and within the Matrix he stands up; the Agents shoot at him, but he raises his palm and stops their bullets in mid-air. Neo sees the Matrix as it really is: lines of streaming green code; he finally becomes "the One". Agent Smith makes a final attempt to physically attack him, but his punches are effortlessly blocked, and Neo destroys him. The other two Agents flee, and Neo returns to the real world just in time for the ship's EMP weapon to destroy the Sentinels that had already breached the hull of the ship. A short epilogue shows Neo back in the Matrix, making a telephone call promising that he will demonstrate to the people imprisoned in the Matrix that "anything is possible." He hangs up the phone and flies into the sky above the city.
The Matrix Reloaded
Six months after the events of the first movie, Captain Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith) of the Logos calls an emergency meeting of all Zion's Hovercraft Ship Fleet. She has successfully recovered the information left by Captain Thaddeus (in the Animatrix short film "Final Flight of the Osiris," recovered in the video game Enter The Matrix): 250,000 Sentinels are tunneling towards the underground city of Zion and will reach it in 72 hours. Commander Locke, the ranking military officer of Zion, orders all ships and their crews, including Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus, to return to Zion to prepare for the onslaught of the machines. The Caduceus receives a message from the Oracle, and the Nebuchadnezzar, in defiance of Locke's order, ventures out to allow Neo to contact her. Meanwhile, one of the Caduceus' crew members, Bane, encounters Agent Smith, who takes over Bane's body. Bane/Smith then leaves the Matrix via the hard line.
Before the meeting, Neo and Trinity make love, but Neo is having trouble sleeping and has recurring dreams about Trinity falling and being shot by an Agent. After the meeting, he enters the Matrix to meet with the Oracle. Upon arriving, he encounters and spars with Seraph, the Oracle's bodyguard. Seraph is convinced that Neo is who he claims to be, and opens a back door, leading Neo to an isolated courtyard, where he meets with the Oracle. They have a conversation where the Oracle confirms that she is not human, and indeed a program of the Machine World. She also explains that self-aware programs exist in the Matrix besides the Agents that do not function properly, called Exiles. Finally, she says that to reach the Source, effectively the center of the Matrix, Neo needs the assistance of the Keymaker, another rogue program. He can access "back doors" such as the one Seraph used to take Neo to the Oracle. He is held captive by the Merovingian, a powerful and dangerous Exile.
The Oracle wishes Neo good luck and exits the courtyard just before Agent Smith arrives. Smith demonstrates his ability to infect other residents of the Matrix with his program, turning them into copies of himself. He attempts to compromise Neo, and the encounter soon becomes a fight between Neo and hundreds of Smith clones. After an extended, one-sided fight, Neo abandons the battle by flying away, something Smith apparently can't do.
Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus visit the Merovingian, who exists in the Matrix mainly for his own enjoyment; he is accompanied by his wife Persephone and a veritable army of skilled bodyguards. When the protagonist trio requests the Keymaker, the Merovingian is not compliant.
Persephone turns on her husband and takes the three to the Keymaker. Morpheus and Trinity flee the scene with him, while Neo remains behind to combat the Merovingian's henchmen, who use medieval weaponry to little effect.
Morpheus and Trinity take their cargo to the freeway, beginning a chaotic conflict between the heroes, the Merovingian's most skilled bodyguards, and agents loyal to the Matrix (therefore, not including Smith). Collateral damage is massive, but Trinity escapes while Morpheus and the Keymaker are saved in the nick of time by Neo.
Shortly afterwards, the Keymaker explains how to reach the Source. Three ships work together to get Neo to his destiny. The team responsible for taking down the power grid fails when their real-world selves are killed by Sentinels. With the power up, Neo will be unable to reach the source without triggering a fatal alarm system. Therefore, Trinity, against Neo's wishes, perilously enters the Matrix to take down the power.
The Keymaker leads Morpheus and Neo to the necessary door, where they are confronted by the Smith army. The keymaker opens the door safely thanks to Trinity, but dies holding the door for Neo and Morpheus. Neo walks through the final door while Morpheus leaves the Matrix.
Confronting the Architect, who describes himself as the creator of the Matrix, Neo asks the main question: "Why am I here?". The Architect says Neo is "the eventuality of an anomaly" he has been trying to eradicate from the Matrix program. Neo responds by saying the Architect has failed to answer his question, to which the Architect agrees with a slight smile in recognition that Neo was "quicker than the others". Neo is caught off-guard by what he is hearing, but the Architect continues, saying that "the Matrix is older than you know".
The Architect tells Neo there have been many versions of the Matrix, and many predecessors to Neo himself. The wall of monitors surrounding the Architect's room shows possible reactions Neo has to the Architect's revelations. In the course of the dialog Neo realizes "Choice. The problem is choice." The Architect proceeds to detail the history of the Matrix and just how this problem of choice affected its design.
After some modifications about 99.99% of the pod-born humans accepted the program, bringing stability to the Matrix. Neo concludes that the point-zero-one percent who refused the program (and their offspring) constitute the population of Zion. It now becomes clear that the prophecy about "the end of the war" was designed merely as a measure to control both the Zionite rebels and The One.
The Architect continues to reveal that Neo's final task will be to "select from the Matrix 23 individuals – sixteen females, seven males – to rebuild Zion." The Architect then warns Neo "Failure to comply with this process will result in a cataclysmic system crash, killing everyone connected to the Matrix which, coupled with the extermination of Zion will ultimately result in the extinction of the entire human race." Neo tries to call the Architect's bluff saying that humans are necessary for machines to survive, but the Architect merely rebuts the claim, saying that machines are prepared to accept "certain levels of survival" and re-states Neo's dilemma, whether he is or is not ready to accept the responsibility for the death of every human being in this world. As a side-note, he adds that Trinity entered the Matrix to save Neo's life at the expense of her own, and shows Trinity being attacked by an Agent just as Neo had seen in his dream. Despite all logical reasoning, Neo chooses to try to save Trinity over the rest of humanity, and for the first time every screen shows the same decision: Neo walking to the door leading back to the Matrix. After warning the Architect that they had better not meet again (the Architect assures him that they will not), Neo reciprocates Trinity's saving of his life in the first film and uses his powers to remove the bullet and restart her heart.
Morpheus is dismayed when he hears that the Prophecy has been unfulfilled. Neo tells Morpheus that the Prophecy was just a lie and "another system of control." Morpheus refuses to believe it and, echoing the words of his mentor in the first film, Neo says "I know it isn't easy to hear, but I swear to you it's the truth."
The Nebuchadnezzar comes under attack by Sentinels outside the range of their EMP and the crew must abandon ship. As the ship goes down, Morpheus references the story of Nebuchadnezzar from the Bible: "I have dreamed a dream, but now that dream is gone from me" (Daniel 2:3&5). Neo then drops the Sentinels to the ground via a bio EMP (showing for the first time his super-powers in real life, outside the program) and immediately loses consciousness. Morpheus and Trinity proceed to pick up the unconscious Neo and return to Zion. The Hammer then rescues them and brings them aboard. The crew of the Hammer talk to Morpheus and Link, explaining they are the last remnants of a counter-attack organized by Lock in an effort to try driving back the machines in order to buy more time. However, an EMP was detonated, crippling most of the ships in the attack, and the Sentinels slaughtered them in their vulnerable state. Following the battle, the Hammer made a sweep of the battlefield and found a single survivor: Bane. This "chapter" ends with the revelation of Neo laying unconscious on the Hammer next to the now "human" Agent Smith, who has taken control of Bane in order to Kill Neo. The story is concluded in the last film of the trilogy, The Matrix RevolutionsThe Matrix Revolutions
The film's events immediately follow those of The Matrix Reloaded and assume familiarity with the story of the last two films.
Bane and Neo are both in an unconscious state. The former is said to be merely asleep, whereas Neo's neural patterns are identical to those of people who are jacked in to the Matrix. Morpheus, dispirited after the destruction of the Nebuchadnezzar and discovering the true nature of the Prophecy at the end of the last film, starts a search for Neo within the Matrix despite his not being jacked in. Neo is in fact trapped in a limbo: a subway station named "Mobil Avenue" that is a transition zone between the Matrix and the Source (the Machine mainframe). At this station, Neo meets a 'family' of programs, who tell him that Mobil Avenue is controlled by a program called The Trainman who, in turn, is an exile loyal only to The Merovingian. An interesting note is that Mobil is an anagram for limbo.
Seraph contacts Morpheus on behalf of the Oracle, who now resides in a different "shell" (see Cast, above). The Oracle informs Morpheus and Trinity of Neo being trapped in Mobil Avenue. Seraph, Morpheus and Trinity pursue the Trainman to secure Neo's release, but he escapes. The trio enter Club Hel to confront the Merovingian for Neo's freedom. The Merovingian demands "the eyes of the Oracle" in exchange for Neo's release, and Trinity responds by provoking a Mexican standoff, forcing the Merovingian to release Neo at gun point.
Troubled by new visions of the Machine City, Neo decides to visit the Oracle before returning to the real world. She informs him that, as the One, he has a connection with the Source (the Machine mainframe). The Matrix, and the rest of the Machine world, are derived from the Source as well. Thus we learn that all of Neo's abilities - both in and out of the Matrix - exist because of this connection (although the exact nature of this connection is never explained). This is how Neo was able to stop the machines giving pursuit after the Nebuchadnezzar was destroyed in The Matrix Reloaded, although the end result of his lack of preparation was temporary confinement in Mobil Avenue. She characterizes Agent Smith (who is also growing in power) as his exact "opposite", his "negative" and elaborates on the relationship between herself and the Architect (Tellingly, each of them ejects an exasperated "Please!" when Neo asks them about the other). She also tells Neo cryptically that "everything that has a beginning has an end" and warns that Smith's power threatens not only the Matrix but also the Source and eventually the Machine City. The Oracle states that the war is about to end "one way or another".
After Neo takes leave of the Oracle, an army of Smiths arrive at her home. They successfully assimilate the unresisting Oracle. Having gained her powers of precognition, the new Smith cackles maniacally at whatever future he is seeing.
In the real world, the remaining crew of the Nebuchadnezzar and the Mjolnir (referred to by the characters as "the Hammer") encounter Niobe's ship, the Logos and its crew. They successfully reactivate the deactivated ship and begin to interrogate the now awakened Bane, who claims he has no memory of the events of the earlier battle. After contemplating his visions, Neo announces that he needs a ship to travel to the Machine City, although he cannot explain why at the moment. Roland, the Mjolnir's captain, refuses him, but Niobe - who was told by the Oracle that she would have to make a choice to help Neo or not - lets him take the Logos. Trinity decides to accompany Neo. The two remaining crews plan to return to Zion and avoid the Sentinel army by piloting the Mjolnir through a series of service tunnels through which it is nearly impossible to navigate. Shortly after departing, the Mjolnir's crew discover that Bane has murdered a crewmember and has hidden aboard the Logos, but they are unable to return to warn Trinity and Neo. Before the ship can depart, Bane ambushes Trinity and takes her hostage. Neo fights with Bane, who reveals himself as a manifestation of Agent Smith. During the struggle, Bane/Smith blinds Neo by cauterizing his eyes with a severed electric cable. As Bane/Smith appears to have the upper hand he closes in on Neo - only to have his attack thwarted and reversed. Neo can see Smith, the program, in Bane as a fiery form in spite of his blindness. Neo then smashes Bane/Smith's head with a lead pipe and releases Trinity, who pilots them towards the Machine City (presumably 01 described in The Second Renaissance).
In Zion, the defenders deploy infantry armed with rocket launchers and Armored Personnel Units in order to protect the dock from assault. The dock is invaded by a massive horde of Sentinels, as well as two giant drilling machines, igniting The Battle of Zion. APU's fail and the humans are pushed back into the temple. Captain Mifune fails to get the gate open; with his last breath he tells Kid (who was renewing his ammunition supply at the time) to open the gate for the Mjolnir. Kid is reluctant at first, stating he did not complete the combat training needed, only for Mifune to tell him, "Neither did I," giving Kid the courage to do what is needed. Meanwhile, as the Hammer speeds toward Zion it is pursued by a large number of sentinels. Just as the remaining humans are about to be overwhelmed, the Hammer arrives at Zion and breaks through the gates, setting off an EMP and disabling all electronic equipment in the area. While this finishes off the Sentinels, it also disables the remainder of Zion's defenses. The humans are forced to fall back to the temple entrance and wait for the next swarm that will almost certainly kill them all.
Nearing the Machine City, Neo and Trinity are attacked by the city's defense system, hurling massive numbers of mobile bombs and Sentinels at the Logos. Neo uses his powers to destroy the incoming bombs, but the Sentinels are too numerous. To evade them, Trinity flies the ship up into the permanent electrical storm cloud cover, disabling the Sentinels but also the Logos' engines. As the ship glides to a verticle stop, it emerges above the cloud layer for only a split second, allowing Trinity her first, only, and last glimpse of real sunlight and blue sky. The ship then stalls and plummets back into the storm cloud as it free-falls towards the Machine City. The Logos then comes back out of the storm cloud directly over the machine city. Trinity attempts to ignite the engines but it is too late and the ship crashes into a machine tower. The impact of the collision fatally wounds Trinity, and she dies in Neo's arms.
Neo emerges into the Machine City to strike a bargain with the machines, personified by the Deus Ex Machina. Neo warns the machines that Smith (who has by now assimilated almost all of The Matrix) is beyond the machines' control, and will soon assault the Source to which the Matrix is connected. He offers to help stop Smith in exchange for a ceasefire on Zion. The second wave of Sentinels attacking Zion instantly responds by standing down while the Machines provide a connection for Neo to enter the Matrix and confront Smith. The world is now wholly populated by Smiths - the one with the Oracle's powers steps forth, asserting that he has already foreseen his own victory.
The city's population of Smiths stands by and watches while Neo and Smith square off. Fighting on the streets, through buildings and into the sky, they finally brawl in a flooded crater. Neo is eventually outmatched by Smith, who pauses to gloat that he has "seen this [the details of his victory] before," remembering the details aloud: he was supposed to say something. To both Smith and Neo's surprise, he announces "everything that has a beginning has an end," the Oracle's parting advice to Neo earlier in the movie. Neo understands this to mean that Smith's assimilation is not total, and baits the scared Smith into assimilating him, repeating Smith's refrain from their fights in The Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded: "It was inevitable."
Smith's assimilation of Neo is apparently successful. The Oracle-Smith asks his nemesis: "is it over?" to which the answer is a smile and a nod. Back in the physical world, Neo's body spasms as a surge of energy enters his body from the Matrix connection. Starting with the Neo copy of Smith, a white light begins to rip the agents apart from the inside out, one by one. This is similar to the deletion of Agent Smith at the end of The Matrix.
With the Smiths destroyed, all the programs and humans that have been possessed by Smith return to normal, including the Oracle. The Sentinels that were about to attack the humans withdraw from Zion; the human resistance cheers in victory, while Link and Zee share a moment of intimate happiness together. Neo, having sacrificed himself to save both the Machines and humans, is unplugged from the Matrix and his body is respectfully carried away by the Machines.
The Architect appears and tells the Oracle that she "played a very dangerous game" by attempting to change the way in which the Matrix functioned, to which the Oracle responds, saying that she understood the risk and knew it was worth taking. She asks the Architect what will become of any humans who want to be unplugged from the Matrix, and the Architect replies that "they will be freed". The closing shot of the film depicts a new dawn on the world of the Matrix, created by Sati. Plant life is shown in the Matrix, and for the first (and last) time the ever-present green tint is absent.
According to the game The Matrix Online, Neo's body, along with Trinity's, although not recycled, were never returned from Machine City, a plot point of the game that has yet to be resolved.
[edit] Reception
The budget of the movie was an estimated $110USD million, grossing over $139USD million in the United States and approximately $424,988,211 million worldwide,[1] roughly only half of The Matrix Reloaded box-office total.The Matrix Revolutions was released on DVD& VHS on April 6th,2004. The film grossed $116 million USD in DVD sales, which made it a major hit.
The movie was met with generally mixed reviews from critics. Revolutions scored only 36% on movie review aggregation site RottenTomatoes. [2] Metacritic's average critic score was 48/100 with a user score of 5.2/10 based on 268 votes. [3]
The Matrix Revolutions grossed $83.8 million in its first five days of release in the US [4]. It had a weaker opening than its predecessor that some have attributed to a more subdued marketing campaign in comparison to the summer blockbuster event, The Matrix Reloaded.
Praise of the movie generally focused on the strength of the movie's action sequences and special effects [5][6]. Some considered it "a better movie" than The Matrix Reloaded [7], which some said "raises the bar a notch or two" since the original movie, The Matrix [8].
Common criticisms of the film were that it was anti-climactic [9] [10] and self-indulgent (in one scene, the heroes run in front of three giant banners sporting the PowerAde logo, a sponsor of the films) [11]. Nevertheless, critics regard the movie as less philosophically obtuse than its predecessor [12] [13], Reloaded. Many critics had difficulty finding closure pertaining to events from Reloaded, and were generally dissatisfied[14][15]. Its earnings dropped 66% in its second week [16].
The films were received in high praise of its conceptual complexity by some scholars and philosophers, as seen in the video The Roots of the Matrix. Philosopher Ken Wilber stated that The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions had expanded on the "simple dualism" of the first film - The Matrix - thus transforming the trilogy into a piece of "complex literature" with the second two installments of the trilogy
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