Premier Magazine's Exclusive on the Super Brawl


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Keanu Reeves is primal-screaming. Standing at the bottom of a crater set some 20 feet deep?all that remains of a sidewalk that?s been torn apart by two superpowerful entities doing battle in the skies overhead before crashing to the ground?and drenched by four massive sprinklers that, during the wide shots, dump between seven and ten tons of water per minute on him, the star of this year?s most anticipated sequels lets out the kind of deep, disturbing, bowel-loosening cry that would terrify small children, nervous animals, and any visiting journalist. Lasting no more than two seconds, it echoes around Stage 2 at Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia, for what seems like an eternity and, give or take afew consonants, can be transcribed thus: AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

Today?s scene (number 764) forms part of the Superbrawl, a thunderous fight at the climax of Revolutions in which the enemies duke it out in and above the megacity that is the Matrix, before reducing an intersection (the same one Neo took off from at the end of the original) to rubble."

For now, however, Reeves is required simply to come up into frame and utter four words??Because I choose to??his attitude implacable, his face impassive. And chiseled: Months of training and a special diet (including red meat if he would be fighting; fish, rice, and vegetables if not) have left him ultralean, giving the impression that he is several inches taller than his six feet. Time and time again he delivers the line with differing intonation, until writer-director siblings Larry Wachowski, 37, and Andy, 35, are satisfied not only with his performance but with the way the rain and lightning effects combine with it.

As the day proceeds, Reeves gets wetter still. Gallons of water continue to rain down (filtered out of the set through an elaborate drainage system in the floor, it will be treated and used again by the production), and he is pelted by a jet of thick orange liquid and chunks of gray foam, which simulate the effect of Smith coming up out of the ground. It?s while shooting this particularly sticky session that Reeves?s primal scream erupts, and to be honest, who can blame him? They?ve been filming this sequence for the past couple of weeks and still have a week or so to go. Every nuance, every emotion, every drop of water must be to the Wachowskis? liking. The sprinklers have even been fitted with special nozzles to produce ?chubby rain,? fatter than normal drops, which, when photographed in a certain way, will look like the dripping code of the Matrix. ?There?s no extraneous movement, gesture, behavior,? Reeves says. ?It?s very pure. What they do in their films is like a samurai strike with a sword?one perfect gesture all concentrated in that one moment. I got very familiar with what super-perfect meant.?

Then there?s Agent Smith, who has managed to multiply himself in the Matrix, much like a virulent computer virus. ?He?s a free agent, if you like,? says Weaving. ?He?s unplugged himself and is hiding in the Matrix the same way the Oracle is. His ego?s growing, and with that comes the ability to multiply. I think by the end of the third film, he is meant to have populated the whole of the Matrix with himself.?

?It?s like she?s a vampire,? says Bellucci, who also appears in the Enter the Matrix video game sharing a kiss with Niobe. (?A very sexy one, I must admit,? says Pinkett Smith.) ?She doesn?t have feelings anymore because she comes from an old Matrix, but as soon as she touches someone she can feel everything you have inside. That?s why she?s very dangerous. It?s impossible to lie to her because as soon as she touches you, she feels exactly what you feel.? All of which causes problems for Neo. ?There?s a scene where she asks of him something very personal,? Reeves says. ?I don?t want to give anything away, but she has a desire to experience a feeling she hasn?t had, which involves the aspect of love or affection.?

For one component of the Superbrawl, the climactic fight in Revolutions, Reeves and Weaving kicked, punched, and blocked their way through 72 takes before the Wachowskis were satisfied. ?On ?action? we would start this sequence that for me was, like, 12 moves,? recalls Reeves, reenacting all 12 as he talks. ?By the time I finished with my last movement?a punch to Smith?it had to be at the same time as a lightning strike. With all those elements, you?re trying to catch lightning in a bottle. So we kept trying to get it.? When the brothers saw the dailies the next day, the angle on the shutter wasn?t to their liking, meaning the rain didn?t look right. ?Another 19 takes,? Reeves says. ?Which was great for me because I got better at it.? So good that Pinkett Smith speculates, ?I wonder if Keanu thinks he can fight on the street now. You really think about that when you see this cat fight, ?cause he can kick some ***. And I?ve seen him without the special effects. Without the bells and whistles. That?s the difference. That takes talent.?

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And this is thier exlusive on thier fight in the sky

The sign on the door of Stage 1 reads: KEEP CLOSED. WIND + EGG = NO GOOD. Inside is a massive blue screen measuring 120 feet high, 150 feet across, of a blue so intense it?s hard to look at for long, crisscrossed by positioning lines and fluorescent orange balls used to triangulate the position of the camera in relation to what?s being filmed. This is the Egg, the result of much R&D by the visual-effects, stunt, and martial arts departments, designed to produce the Holy Grail of visual effects: believable flying.

?It?s the hardest thing ever,? says Gaeta, who is supervising six effects houses that are producing more than 2,000 shots for both movies (the first Matrix had just over 400), and who says they?re spending less money per shot than before, despite the massively increased visual-effects budget. ?There?s a couple of scenes in Mary Poppins that are about as good as some of the flying you may have seen in a film in the last five years. That?s how much it?s advanced.? Yet with more than two years? prep time, Gaeta was up to the challenge, even hiring a zero-gravity NASA aircraft (the infamous Vomit Comet) and taking to the air with Yuen Wo-ping?s martial arts team and a camera crew to see what weightless kung fu looked like. ?The Hong Kong dudes were up there trying to kick each other to death, but it was a little difficult to fight,? he says. Still, ?we based the look of one climactic scene off of the material we shot up there.? They also created a special harness, like a ring inside of a ring worn around the waist, which allows for more natural body motion and near-total movement, in terms of turning and spinning. This harness is connected both to wires and to a 30-foot pole with which an operator can raise or lower the person wearing it.

For the past couple of days, it?s been Reeves?s and Weaving?s stunt doubles (Chad Stahelski and Dave Leitch)?raised up 20 feet in front of the blue screen, which is itself well above the soundstage floor?who have been put through their superhero paces. The Wachowskis, who have supervised every detail of the fight, are relaying their instructions via microphone and loudspeaker. ?Can we have more of a downer on the uppercut there?? Andy calls out after Smith flies toward Neo and connects with a punch, causing Neo to spin out of control and away from him. The brothers want more punch to the punch. ?Hit him,? Larry calls to Leitch. ?It?s your birthday. What?s he going to do??

They go again.

?Yeah, the hit looks good,? says Larry. ?But don?t spin,? adds Andy. ?You guys are pretty small in the frame. It?s all about body language.?

Off to one side, Gaeta and part of his effects crew are producing a rough edit of the sequence as it?s being shot, which is fed through to the brothers and all the monitors around the set. As Gaeta explains, the stuntmen?s movements will be used to drive the actions of computer-generated versions of Neo and Smith, which will zoom away from the virtual camera at speeds of up to 500 miles per hour before coming back into the shot. After two days of this, it?s time for the real Neo and Smith to be brought on. As soon as Reeves and Weaving take their positions in front of the blue screen, the sprinklers are turned on. Another downpour. (The crew all wear rain protection?macs or the Australian equivalent, Driza-bone.) Take after take, Smith and Neo run through their practiced moves, Weaving blocking four of Reeves?s punches before landing an uppercut that sends him shooting off into the distance.

?Go just a little smoother and easier,? Andy tells Reeves.

?Not the attitude,? Larry clarifies.

One problem with the Egg harness is that it constricts the blood to the legs; the actors must flip themselves upside down once in a while to get the flow and the feeling back. ?It would collect in your legs because of the binding,? Reeves says. ?Hugo and I would hang upside down and then, when we would come together, we?d fix each other?s hair. We?d watch out for each other after putting the blood back into our heads.?

For one flying sequence, he recalls being strapped into a harness, suspended 20 to 30 feet in the air, before being propelled forward, just like Superman. ?It was about a 40-foot travel, horizontal, into a 15- to 20-foot descent at a 35-degree angle, traveling probably about five miles an hour into a dead stop, with a camera dollying in to a close-up. Yeeeeaaahhh!!!? He grins wildly. ?It was a ****ing good day!? In the moment before they called action, Reeves says, he would look down from his perch and remember what it was like to be a kid ?jumping off of garage roofs with umbrellas to see if I could float, jumping from roof to roof across alleyways, that weightlessness, that physical joy.?

But every superhero must come down to earth?and in the Matrix sequels, that point usually came sooner rather than later. ?Do I think I had a bit of that physical joy? Yeah, I did,? says Reeves. ?Then, of course??he affects the Wachowski brothers? singular voice?? ?You didn?t land quite right.? I would wake up from my dream and come to the harsh realities of the demands of flying in a movie.?

Super-perfection may have always been the demand, but for Reeves and everyone else involved in making these movies, it was a price well worth paying.

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