Wachowskiworld
By Danny Chihdo
The Matrix Reloaded broke box-office records on its opening weekend (I myself scored tickets to a 10:00 P.M. Wednesday night screening ... HA-ha!) and has given the creators behind The Matrix universe carte blanche in Hollywood. With another Matrix movie on the way in November, the Wachowski brothers—writer-directors of The Matrix, its pair of sequels, and the dazzling Xbox® game Enter the Matrix™—look set to remake both action movies and video games in their own image.
"I said I wanted to talk to my agent!"
The Animatrix
On top of three movies and two video games (including the massively multiplayer roleplayer The Matrix Online, which might be coming to Xbox Live), the brothers W bridge the gap between 1999's The Matrix and the new twenty-first century material with The Animatrix, a collection of animated (get it?) short films, each with a unique animation style that fill in the events that precede Reloaded and leave humanity teetering on the brink of total annihilation.
The Second Renaissance, for example, is a stylish two-part anime interpretation of humanity's last days in control of Earth, man's increased reliance on intelligent machines, and the eventual revolt of those machines that leads to mankind's status as living batteries in The Matrix movies. The Final Flight of the Osiris, on the other hand, is darn near photo-realistic (the animation was done by the folks responsible for the Final Fantasy movie) and tells the tale of a human hovership crew, which makes a fatal discovery that might just mean an end to the war between man and machine once and for all—events that lead directly into The Matrix Reloaded. In Enter the Matrix, you'll see some footage from the Osiris movie used for background and footage in the exclusive FMV cut scenes.
Ghost does a little recon.
Enter the Matrix
You have to hand it the Wachowskis—their story may be big, but they're going to tell it if they have to take over every entertainment medium on Earth. Enter the Matrix fills in the missing parts of The Matrix Reloaded and gives you the chance to guide either Niobe (Jada Pinkett-Smith) or her right-hand man Ghost (Anthony Wong) on an adventure that covers the flip side of the Reloaded story. Depending on which one you choose to play, you'll get even more sides of the story—each one is essentially its own game, and Ghost even gets two exclusive levels, the Aqueduct and the Zen Garden.
As it turns out, Niobe and Ghost have got a tale to tell that belies their relatively short on-screen film appearances in Reloaded. The pair were responsible for retrieving the Osiris' data drop and bring news to the Council of Zion that the machines have started to dig for Zion. Niobe and Ghost also find time to disobey orders and help some rebellious allies trapped in the Matrix, receive a special key that must be delivered to Neo, and as moviegoers know, show up just in the nick of time during Morpheus's big freeway fistfight. Simply put, you haven't seen The Matrix Reloaded in its entirety until you've played Enter the Matrix.
Wachowskiology
Andy and Larry Wachowski have become quite reclusive since the 1999 release of The Matrix made them overnight Hollywood phenoms, but their pre-Reloaded feature filmography speaks for itself.
Niobe speaks with her feet and fists.
Assassins (1995)
The Wachowskis wrote the original screenplay (and received story credit on the final, rewritten script) for this generational hitman action-adventure that eventually became a Stallone vehicle co-starring Antoniao Banderas and Julianne Moore. The final result turned out to be one of Superman and Lethal Weapon director Richard Donner's less memorable efforts, but some elements of the Wachowskis' original vision still shine through.
Bound (1996)
The Wachowskis' directorial debut couldn't be more different in story and scope than The Matrix, but both movies are textbook examples of effectively using a small budget for big-time thrills. (It also marked the first time they worked with Joe Pantaliano, who played Cypher in the first Matrix picture.) In Bound, Gina Gershon (of Showgirls fame) plays Corky, who discovers her neighbor Joey Pants is a Mafioso hiding tons of cash in his apartment.
She also learns she's got a lot in common (on many levels I can't really go into it on a family Web site) with the Mafioso's moll, played by Jennifer Tilly. Together, they plan to leave Joey holding the pants and take off with the loot. No Matrix fan, or movie fan, really, should miss this one.
The Matrix (1999)
Shot on a relatively light budget of $63 million, this is the movie that truly turned Andy and Larry Wachowski into "The Wachowski Brothers." The Matrix came from out of nowhere, turned Carrie-Ann Moss into a household name, and employed more Australian actors than all four seasons of Farscape, thanks to the filmmakers' decision to keep costs down by filming in and around Syndey.
The story initially seems to be a hacker-versus-the-government conspiracy film, but quickly takes a turn for the bizarre and then never looks back. In the last four years, the movie's style and story have been ripped off in everything from Gap commercials to video games, made enough at the box office to guarantee the creators would never have to worry about budgets again, and perhaps most amazing of all, made millions of people say, "I hate Keanu Reeves, but he's perfect in this."
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