Hugo Weaving, Web Weaving: The Matrix, Review
 

n.  Hugo Weaving ~ The Matrix 

US Movie 1999     Hugo content: approx  33%   (125 mins )
Character: Agent Smith ~ softly-spoken G-man/Sentient Program Assassin
Cast: Keanu ReevesThomas A. Anderson/Neo, Laurence Fishburne Morpheus,  Carrie-Anne Moss   Trinity, Hugo Weaving  Agent Smith, Gloria Foster  Oracle, Joe Pantoliano  Cypher/Mr. Reagan, Marcus Chong   Tank, Julian Arahanga   Apoc, Matt Doran   Mouse, Belinda McClory .... Switch,  Anthony Ray Parker  Dozer, Paul Goddard    Agent Brown, Robert Taylor Agent Jones 
Dir and Wri: Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski 
Availablity: DVD and video available worldwide. The Matrix Revisited double-pack is the definitive version as of 6 March 2003 (retrospective documentary, Weaving easter egg, others)
Hugo Weaving,The Matrix, Agent Smith, earpiece

Hugo Weaving: The Matrix:  Plot/Comments:

A Hong Kong movie/Manga comic geek's paradise; a Friday night booze-and-curry crowdpleaser; a  thoughtful  philosophical political brainstormer: The Matrix is a paradox. And then there's  the plot…
      How do you know reality is not a dream? Can you even trust your senses to tell you the truth? How do you know you are experiencing what your senses tell you?  Are memories and personality the sole product of truthful experience? What if it was all just a dream? Or somebody else's? Or some thing else's?

In the 'real' world, hacker Neo is contacted  by guerilla cybergod Morpheus, who promises to reveal the 'truth'. He is also hunted by 50s-style anonymous G-Men/Feds out to protect 'the system' from actual or potential cyber-terrorists. But things are not as they seem...
    Neo finds out that he lives in a computer shadow 'reality', designed to keep the unconscious factory-farmed populace docile while machines rule the Earth and sentient software rules the real/dream world , known as the 'Matrix' (at least this is the truth according to Morpheus: if the audience learns something from the film, it's to always mistrust what you are told).
    The only hope of freedom is by fighting the machines on their own unreal turf: but every person who has ever stood their ground  against an Agent (sentient program, such as Weaving's fearsome Agent Smith) has been killed ~ usually brutally.
Hugo Weaving,The Matrix, Agent Smith, questioning

       Heavily influenced by comics such as The Invisibles, Hong Kong kung fu movies,  and Chow Yun-Fat/John Woo hard-boiled gun cool, The Matrix is visually stunning in terms of direction, cinematography, design and stunts. However, a large part of its ongoing success is also due to the excellent acting, ~ notably from Weaving and Fishburne and also Joe Pantoliano and Carrie-Anne Moss ~ who grip the audience in scenes with little or no action. 
  The film is at its best when the Agents are facing off against the human characters: they are not evil, merely efficient; they do their jobs without emotion and with all the best dialogue. 
    There is a huge amount of intense one-one-one dialogue which Hugo Weaving  (as laconically menacing Agent Smith) delivers with immense variation of his voice: hushed, smoothly arrogant, monotone, or filled with barely-controlled loathing. The scenes between him, Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne are full of eyeball-to-eyeball magnetism and  bristle with tension.

Typical Hugo Weaving Quotes:

  • "Mr Anderson, you disappoint me...what good is a phone call if you are unable to...speak"
  • For the full human disease/Morpheus interrogation monologue, click here 
  • "Evolution, Morpheus, evolution. You've had your time. The future is our time"
  • "Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet; a disease and we...are...the..cure"
  • "I'm going to enjoy watching you die Mr Anderson"


Comments and Queries:

  • Smith's voice partially influenced by the Wachowski bros
  • Weaving originally received the script while shooting Bedrooms and Hallways in London while the Wachowskis were in Sydney. Unimpressed, he rejected it, thinking it "wasn't really my sort of thing" and was only later convinced by his agent to send a screen test.
  • The cast underwent four months of daily LA training with Hong Kong's finest fight choreographers: an injury revealed that Weaving had an oedema in his bone marrow, leading to the possibility of him losing the part. See The Matrix Revisited for more information on the making of.
  • Filmed in Sydney.

The success of an action film is largely due to the merits of the hero and villain. Reeves (never smiling) is ideally suited to his role precisely because he seems so at odds with it, but it is Smith who really fills both roles: with a  huge cult following, it is this character which has become emulated by students the world over.

The Matrix's combination of 'wow factor', thinking smarts, and serious actors given huge chunks of quotable dialogue (see Smith's Classic Scene) has turned it from being merely slick and clever to a real Generation Benchmark film (see also Tarantino, Fight Club, Trainspotting , and LOTR).
Hugo Weaving,The Matrix, Agent Smith, shoot

Hugo Weaving Content


Probably the most famous of Hugo Weaving's roles, the most commented-on feature of his performance as Agent Smith is his voice, which has been muted into a multi-national MacDonalds/Microsoft/Starbucks sterile  drawl (with more than a few mid-Canadian overtones). The smoothed-out, slowed-down, generic tones have made it become one of the most recognised and emulated character voices of recent cinema, with the seemingly simple "Mr An-der-son" becoming something of a catchphrase.
     Weaving portrays Smith as somewhere between human and machine. As he loses control of the situation and himself (developing an ego-driven grudge match against Neo), he also develops more emotive qualities, reflected in his voice, body language and attitude. 
      By turns, he is controlled, unblinking, disdainful, long-suffering, patient, obsessed, arrogant, vengeful and sickened; his face becomes warped with emotion, his voice betrays his feelings, and he receives pleasure/comfort from inflicting pain: in short he becomes all too human. Smith becomes obsessed to the point of 'self'-consciousness (self vs group is a big theme in the film), risking resources and reputation to conquer his own personal demons and put an end to the contamination he 'feels' and 'smells' in the human-infested Matrix (see the Classic Scene ).
     However, Smith does not have the programming to deal with this unwelcome humanisation: he is becoming the thing that he detests more than anything else and this facet of self-loathing makes Smith a surprisingly typical Weaving character.
Hugo Weaving,The Matrix, Agent Smith, desert eagle

The Matrix Gallery
The Matrix Reloaded
Classic Scene: Agent Smith
The Making of The Matrix
The Matrix Revisited
Next: Strange Planet 
Back: Bedrooms and Hallways
Web Weaving

Probably his two standout scenes are the two interrogation scenes (first of Neo, then Morpheus) as these give Weaving the opportunity to deliver huge monologues with subtle yet theatrical intensity. 
     The Morpheus interrogation (originally shot as a continuous scene up to the point where Agent Smith is called out) is particularly impressive as Weaving shows Smith at his most human ~ vulnerability and loathing in equal measure ~ and completely dominates the scene, giving the film one of its most memorable speeches.
     However, this scene is also something of a letdown in that the Wachowskis never frame a shot of Smith and Morpheus looking into each others eyes and some of the dramatic impact between the two characters is unfulfilled as a result.
 

Glimpses of Future Smith from the Revisited disc:

  • "(Smith) doesn't like feeling emotions and he doesn't like feeling weak. To all intents and purposes he is partly human, partly real"
  • "Smith starts to develop some very human qualities and that ultimately brings him down"
Hugo Weaving,The Matrix, Agent Smith, Morpheus virus

  • The Matrix Revisited disc Easter Egg: 2 mins on Weaving and his leg injury: find menu screen with Morpheus in crowd. Click sideways until Smith appears in the crowd (f the Red Dress woman appears, click sideways again). Press Enter.
  • Although they have no scenes together in Babe, Paul Goddard also co-starred with Weaving  in Arcadia.   See The Usual Suspects for a huge list of regularly recurring Weaving workers.


n. This is the first of at least two monologues on the failings of humans (see The Lord of the Rings). Producer Barrie Osborne recommended Weaving to Peter Jackson on his next big production, The Lord of the Rings. See The Usual Suspects for a huge list of frequent Weaving co-workers.
Hatsukioji plushie details here

Hugo Weaving,The Matrix, Agent Smith, plush, plushie