The Matrix Makers

To date, the Wachowskis have worked meticulously to keep "Reloaded" and "Revolutions" shrouded in secrecy. Even its stars say they've seen just a few scraps of film. So how about we spill a few beans? The first "Matrix" told the story of a hacker named Neo, who learns that his reality is simply a computer simulation created by machines to enslave the human race. Once jolted from his lifelong slumber, Neo discovers that he's a messianic figure known as the One, and that it's his destiny to save the world. "Reloaded" begins right where the original left off. (If you want to enjoy the sequels blissfully uninformed, better skip the rest of this paragraph.) The machines have made a terrifying breakthrough: they've learned the location of Zion, the last human city, hidden near the Earth's core. Their plan is to tunnel down to the city and use thousands of sentinels--the squidlike kamikazes from part one--to obliterate it. Tracking down the Keymaker is the humans' only hope. But he's being guarded by a pair of new villains known as the Twins, a dreadlocked duo who wield switchblades and can vanish and reappear like ghosts. Along the way, we'll meet Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith), a former lover of Morpheus', and Persephone (Monica Bellucci), a shady temptress who tries to seduce Neo. We'll see that the Matrix is actually a megacity, more than 10 times the size of New York. We'll discover that the machine world isn't entirely evil, that there are powerful machines that have been surpassed by newer, more ruthless models--and aren't happy about it. And, of course, we'll catch up with our favorite machine, Agent Smith, who's learned to replicate himself like a virus. In one bravura kung fu sequence, shown to NEWSWEEK in rough form, Neo faces off against one hundred Agent Smiths.

And that's just the first sequel. (Come to think of it, better skip this paragraph, too.) The plot of "Revolutions" depends heavily on the outcome of "Reloaded," so we can't reveal much just yet. Suffice it to say that "Revolutions" is essentially, from start to finish, one all-out war between the humans and the machines. Unlike "Reloaded," most of which is set inside the Matrix, "Revolutions" unfolds largely in the smoking ruins of the futuristic real world. Silver is promising a climactic battle like we've never seen before: a 17-minute sequence that alone cost about two thirds of the budget of the first "Matrix." (That film, in case you're wondering, cost $65 million.)

Maybe four or five other directors on the planet could persuade a studio to give them that kind of money--and they've all made far more movies than the Wachowskis. Outside of the "Matrix" trilogy, Larry, 37, and Andy, 35, have made just one other film: the clever, 1996 lesbian noir "Bound," which they did simply to prove to Warner Bros. that they were fit to direct "The Matrix." The brothers always had sequels in mind--"The Matrix" was conceived as a trilogy--but they still played hardball about coming back. Warner Brothers agreed to an unusual clause in their contract excusing them from doing any publicity whatsoever, including this story. Silver insists it's because the brothers want the movies to speak for them. Perhaps. But the Wachowskis clearly get a kick out of cultivating a wizards-behind-the-curtain persona. Their bio on the "Matrix" Web site reveals only that the two "have been working together for 30 years" and ends: "Little else is known about them."

Silver has been deputized to speak for the brothers, and he's a good choice. The producer, the Hollywood titan behind the "Lethal Weapon" series, is a world-champion talker, teased by his employees for his verbal uneconomy. He answered one NEWSWEEK question with a 1,840-word reply. (The question was, "Can you give me an example?" Never ask Joel Silver this.) But even he has trouble articulating how Larry and Andy, whom he calls "the boys," are different. The cast and crew all insist that the brothers are not a two-headed monster. When pressed to elaborate, however, they all pause for a while and end up noting how eerie it is that the siblings never seem to disagree. Both men consume books like air, but Larry, it's said, prefers philosophy while Andy reads science fiction. Larry likes wine; Andy likes beer. Andy is the more accommodating of the two; "Larry," says Pope, "is like a jihad warrior."

If there's one lingering criticism of the Wachowskis' work, it's that "The Matrix" isn't nearly as original as it seems--that it's really just a pastiche of more obscure texts. This is both true and a load of hooey. Yes, "The Matrix" borrowed heavily from several sources, mostly comic books, Japanese anime and Asian kung fu movies (graphic). "But I think people misunderstand art when they say things like that," says Pope. "Once you filter an influence through yourself, it's not the same thing anymore--if you really filter it. There's a film vocabulary out there, and it's for everybody to use."

Now, of course, "The Matrix" is the source material that everyone else is ripping off. Ad agencies know that even a whiff of the film--the music, the camerawork, the sunglasses--can still, four years later, sell anything from cars to sneakers. Costume artist Kym Barrett remembers watching a recent interview with a fashion designer, during which the reporter asked the designer what his influences were for the season. "He said, 'The Matrix,' and I just screamed," Barrett recalls proudly. "Usually film follows fashion, not the other way around." Nothing from the movie has been swiped as often as "bullet time," the dazzling FX trick in which the camera appears to whiz 360 degrees around a central image. It was jammed into "Charlie's Angels" and parodied in "Shrek" and "Scary Movie." If you watched the Super Bowl last year, you saw a crude version of it on Fox, which used the technology (cleverly, for a change) to show big plays from numerous angles. At first, Silver says, the Wachowskis were tickled by the copycatting, but soon they began noticing fight scenes--like the one in "Charlie's Angels"--that were shot exactly like theirs. "So they decided to create images that no one could copy," says the producer. "There's only two ways to do that: time and money."