The Matrix (Synopsis) The Wachowskis (Ft. Carrie Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano, Keanu Reeves & Laurence Fishburne)

A phone rings and text appears on the screen: As a conversation takes place between Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Cypher (Joe Pantoliano) discuss an unknown person, citing that he may be 'the One'. As the sound of a number being selected alerts Trinity that someone may be tracing their call, and she ends it.

Armed policemen move down a darkened, decrepit hallway in the Heart O' the City Hotel. They come to room 303, kick down the door and find Trinity on a laptop, facing away from them.

Outside the hotel a car drives up and three agents appear in neatly pressed black suits. Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) admonishes the policeman that they were given specific orders to contact the agents first. The lieutenant dismisses this and says that they can handle "one little girl". Agent Smith replies: "No, Lieutenant. Your men are already dead."

Inside, Trinity easily defeats the six policemen sent to apprehend her with gravity defying fighting techniques, shown in what is now known as bullet time. She calls Morpheus, letting him know that the line has been traced, though she doesn't know how. Morpheus informs her that she will have to "make it to another exit," and that there are agents.

A fierce rooftop chase ensues with Trinity and an Agent making an astonishing leap from one building to the next. She momentarily loses her pursuers and makes it to a public phone booth on the street level. The phone begins to ring. As she approaches it a garbage truck (driven by Agent Smith) suddenly turns off the road and drives directly at the phone booth. Trinity makes a desperate dash to the phone, picking it up just moments before the truck smashes the booth into a brick wall. The three Agents investigate the phone booth and find no body, remarking that she 'got out'. They then note -- "The informant is real." "We have the name of their next target," says the other, "His name is Neo."

Neo (Keanu Reeves), a hacker with thick black hair and a sallow appearance, is asleep at his monitor. Suddenly Neo's screen goes blank and a series of text messages appear: "Wake up, Neo." "The Matrix has you." "Follow the White Rabbit." Then, the text says "Knock, knock, Neo..." just as he reads it, a knock comes at the door of his apartment, 101. It's a group of ravers and Neo gives them a contraband disc he has secreted in a copy of Simulacra and Simulation. The lead raver asks him to join them and Neo demurs until he sees the tattoo of a small white rabbit on the shoulder of a seductive girl in the group. He follows her.

At a rave bar Neo stands alone and aloof as the group he's with continue partying. Trinity approaches him and introduces herself. Neo recognizes her name; she was a famous hacker. She tells him that he is in great danger, and that she is trying to warn him. The pulsing music of the bar gives way to the repetitious blare of Neo's alarm clock; it's 9:18 and he's late for work.

At his job at Metacortex, a software company, Neo is berated by his boss for having a problem with authority. Back at his cubicle, Neo receives a delivery as "Thomas Anderson." Inside he finds a cellphone which immediately rings. On the other end is Morpheus, who informs Neo that they've both run out of time and that "they" are coming for him. Morpheus tells him to slowly look up, toward the elevator. Agents Smith, Jones, and Brown are there, as a woman points towards Neo's cube. Morpheus tries to guide Neo out of the building but when Neo is instructed to climb out of a window on the high rise and take to the roof, he can't get himself to do it. He is discovered and taken by the agents.

The camera pans in from a series of televsision screens and we see Neo in an interrogation room with the agents. They've had their eye on him for some time. He lives a dual existence: one life as Thomas A. Anderson, a software engineer for a Metacortex, the other life as Neo, a computer hacker "guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for." Agent Smith asks him to help them capture Morpheus, a dangerous terrorist, in exchange for amnesty. Neo gives them the finger and asks for his phone call. Mr. Smith asks what good is a phone call if he's unable to speak. Neo finds that his lips have fused together. Panicked, he is thrown on the interrogation table by the Agents and they implant a shrimp-like probe, a bug, in his stomach, entering through his belly-button.

Neo awakens with a start in his own bed, assuming it has all been a bad dream. His phone rings and Morpheus is on the other line. He tells Neo that the line is tapped but they've underestimated his importance -- they need to meet. He is picked up by Trinity & others. They pull a gun on him and tell him to take off his shirt -- they strap on a large device on his stomach and suck out the mechanical bug in his body -- Neo is shocked that it's real. Trinity drops the bug out into the road where it slowly goes dark in the rain.

Trinity takes Neo to Morpheus. Morpheus explains that he's been searching for Neo his entire life & he explains to Neo that they exist in the Matrix, a false reality that has been constructed for humans to hide the truth. Morpheus holds out two pills, a red and a blue. The blue pill will take Neo back to his apartment to "believe whatever you want to believe." But if he takes the red pill, then Morpheus will show him the truth. Neo takes the red pill.

They go into the next room and the rest of Morpheus's crew straps him into a chair. Neo looks at a shattered mirror placed next to him which miraculously reforms itself. Neo touches the surface and the silver begins to creep over his skin, engulfing him as he blacks out.

He awakens inside a pinkish/purple embryonic pod, extending from the side of a circular building, a massive power plant. He is hairless and naked, with thick black tubes snaking down his throat, plugged into the back of his skull, his spine, and invading most of the rest of his body. He finds his pod is open and that he is surrounded by tower after tower of pods just like his, all filled with bodies. Suddenly a menacing, hovering nurse robot grabs him by the throat. The tubes detach and Neo is flushed down a tube into an underground pool of filthy water. A hovercraft then appears above him, snags him and hauls him into its cargo bay. Neo finds himself surrounded by Morpheus's crew. Just before Neo passes out Morpheus says to him, "Welcome to the real world."