Hugo Weaving, Matrix Reloaded, Agent Smith,

n.  Hugo Weaving ~ The Matrix Reloaded 

US Movie 2003     Hugo Weaving content: approx  11%   (132 mins )
Character: Agent Smith ~ driven nemesis, droll sadist, multiple bad guy
Cast: Keanu Reeves   Neo, Laurence Fishburne Morpheus,  Carrie-Anne Moss   Trinity, Hugo Weaving  Agent Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith   Niobe,Gloria Foster    Oracle, Harold Perrineau Jr.    Link , Lambert Wilson    Merovingian, Monica Bellucci    Persephone, Adrian Rayment    Twin #1, Neil Rayment   Twin #2, Sing Ngai (as Collin Chou)    Seraph ,  Ian Bliss    Bane, Randall Duk Kim    The Keymaker, Helmut Bakaitis    The Architect, Anthony Zerbe    Councillor Hamann, Harry J. Lennix    Commander Lock, Robyn Nevin    Councillor Dillard, Nona M. Gaye    Zee, Clayton Watson    Kid, Roy Jones Jr.    Ballard, Anthony Wong   Ghost 
Dir and Wri: Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski 
Availablity: DVD available worldwide. Expect a box set with far better features than are available on the meagre (and overpriced) current set within the year.

Hugo Weaving: The Matrix Reloaded: Plot/Comments:

This is a highly ambitious, flawed epic. On super-hyped release, the heavy bouts of philosophy and the open ending massively disappointed regular action fans. It also alienated critics, who found it either ponderous and retentive or shallow and action-happy.
The Matrix Reloaded Galleries
Matrix Reloaded Premieres 
Matrix Reloaded Classic Scenes
The Matrix
The Matrix Revisited
Web Weaving
 

Hugo Weaving Agent Smith Quotes

  •  Bane: "Oh  God..."             Smith: "Smith will suffice"
  • "Surprised to see me?"
  • "I killed you, Mister Anderson, I watched you die... With a certain satisfaction, I might add"
  • "...because of you I'm no longer an agent of the system, because of you I've changed - I'm unplugged - a new man, so to speak, like you, apparently free."
  • "There's no escaping reason, no denying purpose...We're here because of you, Mister Anderson, we're here to take from you what you tried to take from us. Purpose."
  • "Still using all the muscles except the one that matters. I want exactly what you want. I want everything."
  • "Go ahead, shoot. The best thing about being me - there's so many me."
  • See Classic Scenes for more
Reloaded itself is a large-scale superhero/messiah film shot through with philosophical debate. 
    Zion, last city of the Free has 72 hours before it is swarmed and destroyed by the Machines.
    Neo (Keanu Reeves) is coming to terms with his destiny while being continually manipulated by outside powers. 
     His nemesis Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) ~ now a rogue virus, seemingly operating outside the control of the Matrix mainframe ~ has developed the ability to replicate himself and has become consumed with his need to fulfill his purpose: that of destroying Neo.
Hugo Weaving, Matrix Reloaded, Agent Smith, fist
    Although some of the technology used in the famous 'Burly Brawl' between Neo and hundreds of Smiths is unconvincing (particularly Keanu Reeves' figure during the pipe fight), Reloaded is packed full of exhilarating action sequences: none more so than the jaw-dropping freeway chase between Trinity, Morpheus and an Agent. 
     And therein lies one of its many flaws: the Agents during both the chase and the later shooting of Trinity -- though bigger and blander than the original's Smith, Jones and Brown -- offer no dramatic grit. How much more meaningful if a Smith was responsible for destroying Trinity?
      One of the strengths of The Matrix was that Agent Smith was a believable adversary. The aggression between him and the heroic figures was as much psychological as physical: this enabled the actors, served well with a tense script and plenty of good lines,  to give a sense of real urgency and danger. However, in Reloaded, Smith is barely present. When he does make an appearance,  it lifts the film tremendously, yet for the most part, he is there as a multi-figure punchbag. A pity: his entrance scene, takeover of Bane and speeches confronting Neo are stamped with the strange mix of  iconic coolness, irony and urgency which made the original so riveting. 
Reloaded has a huge cast of characters, a dilution of  the more intense and character-driven original. 
    Many of them are embarrassingly superfluous (the toilet roll-clad Perspephone in particular), adding nothing to the plot or to the excitement of the film. Characters which showed promise in the Enter the Matrix game such as Niobe and Ghost (who gets no lines at all in the film) are largely AWOL.
     As Agent Smith only makes rare appearances, Reloaded suffers from the  lack of a villain offering any real threat: the 'ghost' twins are enjoyably tongue-in-cheek and gimmicky, though ultimately no intellectual challenge to Neo and co. Meanwhile, although Lambert Wilson's Merovingian is promisingly grey, he is wholly an undeveloped caricature and the chocolate cake/orgasm scene smacks of self-gratification and fanboy fantasy on the part of the Wachowskis. 
    Surprisingly, Laurence Fishburne's performance is incredibly one-note, with his Big Speech in Zion ending up as a high-volume tonsil test and failing to carry any real grip or emotion.
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Hugo Weaving, Matrix Reloaded, Agent Smith, double
Reloaded is by no means the disaster that it has sometimes been held up to be. However, it suffers massively from bad editing and the negative can sometimes overwhelm the much that is positive. It is massively exciting, often beautifully shot, and raises the stakes of the original with provoking 'what if?' hints about Matrixes-within Matrixes and the true nature of both the Matrix construct and Zion (Zero-One being the first city of the exploited and rebellious AI in the Wachowski-written The Second Renaissance film for the Animatrix).
    Reloaded raises questions about reality, self-determinism and free choice in a way never seen before in a major Hollywood movie. Admittedly, it does so in a repetitive way: numbing the confused and uninterested; and wearing down those who understand. That said, what other major film has had people discussing the multitude of possibilities offered by  the clues left like crumbs of Plato-dust in the moonlight?
    With tighter editing to bring down the running time and increase the tension, Reloaded would have been a sequel to match the original. As it is, it still has more in common with the original than with Revolutions. 
    Much like the script in its overlong, flawed, yet often brilliant final form, Reloaded ultimately makes you ask 'what if?' and wonder what could have been with a few slightly different choices.

A 'Phantom Edit' for the Matrix sequels? What if...

Hugo Weaving Comments

  • Fight Club: Hugo Weaving noted in an interview that scenes were shot where Smith was fighting himself but that they were all cut out. He also commented that the fight scenes were arranged so that  he could avoid using his dodgy, wandering left hook as much as possible. 
  • Medical Matters: in addition to the operation-friendly hip injury sustained during early training for the original Matrix, a serious whiplash injury occurred while shooting the sequels when he forgot to tuck his head in as he was pulled back on a wire during one of the fights. When he subsequently began to have tingling and numb sensations in his fingers, he was advised to drop certain moves from his fight choreography.
  • During shooting in California, Weaving and Carrie-Anne Moss were involved in a film for Matrix stunt coordinators David Leitch and Brad Martin: Sledge ~ A Documentary is a 'mockumentary' on  a forgotten 80s action star. Robyn Nevin acted opposite a very young Weaving in The Perfectionist and later directed him in 2003's The Real Thing. She has a small part as Counsillor Dillard in Reloaded and Revolutions. See The Usual Suspects for a huge list of recurring Weaving co-workers.
Hugo Weaving, Matrix Reloaded, Agent Smith, gunpoint

Hugo Weaving content: 

Although Reloaded gave Hugo Weaving far less screen time than he had in the original, his  repeated performance as the sarcastic, sadistic, dry and driven Agent Smith sealed the character's status as one of the most iconic, imitated and infamous movie villains.
    Weaving's incredible ability to make dense language accessible was shown well in his first confrontation with Neo (the crow scene), with his rhythmic delivery and emphasis on rhyme breaking down the philosophical essay on free will for the multiplexes.

   An initial 7 months of martial arts training/shooting/digitisation in California was followed by 18 months of shooting in Sydney: this involved long periods of downtime and training; shooting the same scene repeatedly to act 'with himself' for the multiple Smiths; or weeks of shooting minute amounts of the same scene for the big fights. 
    It is no wonder that Weaving commented how boring it could be. Combined with additional annual reshoots for The Lord of the Rings, an intensive mega-hyped publicity tour for Reloaded, and having to put up with obsessive Rings and Matrix fans, the experience seems to have put him off ever appearing in major blockbusters again: "In a way, I've had enough of those two films" he said during interviews for The Real Thing, claiming that the only reason he did them was "because I wanted to get the little dolls of myself so I could play at battles" .
Hugo Weaving, Matrix Reloaded, Agent Smith, international poster
Hugo Weaving, Matrix Reloaded, Agent Smith, Keanu Reeves, Neo