Six months after the events of the first film, Neo and the rebel leaders estimate they have 72 hours until 250,000 sentinels tunnel down to Zion to destroy the last human city. While Morpheus believes the Prophecy is nearing fulfillment, Neo is plagued by visions of Trinity's death and must navigate a treacherous path to the Source of the Matrix to save humanity.
Information |
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Language |
English |
Country |
United States Australia |
Premiere date |
May 15, 2003 |
Running time |
138 minutes |
Genre |
Sci-Fi Action |
Budget |
$150,000,000 |
Box Office |
$741,847,937 |
Crew |
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Directed by |
The Wachowskis |
Produced by |
Joel Silver |
Written by |
The Wachowskis |
Music by |
Don Davis |
Cinematography |
Bill Pope |
Edited by |
Zach Staenberg |
Production Co. |
Warner Bros. Village Roadshow Pictures Silver Pictures |
Distributed by |
Warner Bros. |
Top Cast |
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Official Trailer |
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Movie Collection |
Movie Order: #02 in The Matrix Collection
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The Plot
The Warning and the Ambush
Six months after Neo’s awakening, the war against the machines has reached a critical turning point. Captain Niobe of the Logos calls an emergency meeting for all of Zion's hovercraft fleet within the Matrix. She reveals that she has successfully recovered a data drop left by Captain Thadeus before his death—information that paints a grim picture for the human resistance. The machines have deployed an army of 250,000 Sentinels, tunneling steadily toward the underground city of Zion. Based on their trajectory and speed, the armada will breach the city's defenses in exactly 72 hours.
Commander Lock, Zion’s ranking military officer, views this as a defensive imperative. He orders all ships and their crews—including Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, and their new operator, Link—to return to Zion immediately to fortify the docks and prepare for the onslaught. The strategic meeting, however, is violently interrupted by the arrival of Agents Johnson, Thompson, and Jackson. As panic ensues, Neo steps forward, engaging the three upgraded Agents simultaneously. He defeats them with relative ease, buying time for the other "redpills" to reach their hard-line exits and escape. Following the skirmish, Neo flies to the Oracle’s apartment seeking guidance for the coming war, but he finds the residence abandoned.
Infiltration and Infection
Despite Commander Lock’s strict orders to return to base, Morpheus asks one ship, the Caduceus, to remain at broadcast depth to await contact from the Oracle. When the Caduceus receives a message, the Nebuchadnezzar also defies Lock’s recall order, venturing out to allow Neo to re-enter the Matrix. During this clandestine operation, a crew member of the Caduceus named Bane finds himself cornered by Agent Smith. However, Smith is no longer operating within the system's parameters. He attacks Bane, forcing a piece of his own code into the human's avatar. This assimilation overrides Bane's consciousness, allowing Smith to hijack Bane’s physical body in the real world as he disconnects via the hard line.
The Prophecy and the Program
Upon returning to Zion, the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar attends a massive gathering in the temple. Morpheus addresses the frightened populace, breaking the news of the advancing machine army. Yet, rather than despair, his stirring speech about survival and freedom ignites a frenzy of hope and celebration among the people. The following morning, Neo receives the message he had been waiting for and enters the Matrix to meet the Oracle. He finds her in a park, guarded by Seraph. During their conversation, the Oracle reveals a startling truth: she is not human, but an exiled computer program designed to investigate the human psyche. When Neo asks how he can trust her, she tells him that the choice is his alone.
She directs Neo to his next objective: reaching the Source of the Matrix. To do this, he must find the Keymaker, a specialized program being held prisoner by a dangerous and ancient program known as the Merovingian. The Keymaker possesses the unique ability to forge keys that can bypass any digital barrier, transporting users anywhere in the world. As the Oracle departs, leaving Neo to contemplate his path, Agent Smith appears. He reveals that after his defeat by Neo, he refused to return to the Source for deletion. He is now "unplugged," a rogue anomaly no longer bound by the Matrix's rules.
The Burly Brawl
Smith demonstrates his terrifying new capability: the power to copy himself onto any software or human avatar in the Matrix. He attempts to assimilate Neo, claiming that they are now connected by a shared purpose. When Neo resists, a massive battle erupts. Smith clones himself dozens of times, swarming the courtyard with identical copies. Neo utilizes his martial arts mastery and a steel pole to fend off the horde, but the sheer numbers eventually overwhelm him. Buried under a mountain of Smiths, Neo uses his explosive strength to throw them off and takes flight, leaving the frustrated clones to disperse.
The Chateau and the Freeway Chase
Neo, Morpheus, and Trinity seek an audience with the Merovingian at his upscale restaurant to demand the Keymaker. The Frenchman, arrogant and obsessed with causality, refuses their request, dismissing the prophecy. However, his wife Persephone, embittered by her husband's infidelity, betrays him. She leads the trio to the Keymaker's dungeon in exchange for a kiss from Neo that makes her feel love again. The Merovingian discovers the theft, and a chaotic fight ensues in the chateau’s great hall, where Neo holds off the Frenchman’s supernatural guards while Morpheus and Trinity escape with the Keymaker.
The escape spills onto the freeway, resulting in a high-speed pursuit. The ghostly Twins—henchmen of the Merovingian who can phase through matter—chase the heroes, joined by Agents and police forces. Morpheus manages to destroy the Twins' vehicle and bravely battles an Agent atop a speeding tractor-trailer to save the Keymaker. Just as the truck collides with another vehicle in a fiery explosion, Neo flies in at supersonic speed, snatching Morpheus and the Keymaker from the air before the impact.
The Door to the Source
In the real world, the captains of the Nebuchadnezzar, Vigilant, and Logos coordinate a synchronized strike to help Neo access the Source. The Keymaker explains that a specific building houses a hidden floor filled with doors, one of which leads to the Source. To bypass the security system, the Logos crew must destroy a power plant, while the Vigilant crew destroys the backup power station. Disaster strikes the Vigilant when a Sentinel bombs the ship, killing everyone on board instantly. Seeing the mission failing, Trinity defies Neo’s plea to stay safe and enters the Matrix to destroy the backup grid herself. She succeeds but is cornered by an Agent, engaging in a duel that mirrors a tragic vision Neo has been having of her death.
Meanwhile, inside the hallway of doors, Neo, Morpheus, and the Keymaker are ambushed by multiple Smith clones. The Keymaker rushes to unlock the final door but is riddled with bullets by the Smiths. He manages to open the door before collapsing, sacrificing his life to allow Neo entry into the heart of the system.
The Architect's Revelation
Neo enters the Source and finds himself in a room covered in screens, facing a white-suited man known as the Architect, the creator of the Matrix. The Architect coldly dismantles the mythology of "The One." He reveals that Neo is not a savior, but a systemic anomaly—the sixth of his kind—designed to balance the equation of the Matrix. The prophecy is a lie, a mechanism of control to lead the anomaly to the Source to reboot the system. Neo is told his function is to select 23 individuals to rebuild Zion after the machines destroy it, continuing the cycle of control.
The Architect presents a binary choice: enter the door to the Source to save humanity from total extinction at the cost of Zion, or enter the door leading back to the Matrix to save Trinity, which will result in a system crash that kills everyone connected to the Matrix, coupled with the annihilation of Zion in the real world. Driven by love rather than logic, Neo rejects the cycle. He chooses the door to the Matrix.
Resurrection and Ruin
Neo rockets through the city skyline, creating a sonic boom as he races to catch Trinity, who has been shot by an Agent and is falling from a skyscraper. He catches her moments before impact, but she is already dying. Refusing to accept this fate, Neo reaches into her code, physically removing the digital bullet and restarting her heart with a surge of energy, reviving her. They return to the real world, where Neo reveals the horrific truth to Morpheus: the prophecy was a fabrication, and Zion’s destruction is imminent.
Suddenly, the Nebuchadnezzar is ambushed by Sentinels. The crew barely escapes before their ship is blown apart. As the machines close in on the defenseless humans, Neo steps forward. He feels a connection to the machines even in the real world and, channeling a mysterious new power, forces the Sentinels to shut down instantly. The exertion sends him into a deep coma.
The Sole Survivor
The crew is rescued by the hovercraft Hammer. The Hammer's captain explains a catastrophic failure in the defensive line: an EMP was detonated prematurely by the Caduceus, leaving five ships defenseless against the machine onslaught. It was a slaughter. When the Hammer investigated the wreckage, they found only one survivor amidst the carnage: Bane. The film concludes with Neo lying unconscious in the medical bay, while on the table opposite him lies Bane—now the vessel for Agent Smith in the real world.
