Featured Image Credit: Warner Brothers / Channel 5
Topics: The Matrix, Film and TV
Michael Slavin
There are few things in film that get viewers going more than a good chase sequence.
Whether it be Baby Driver, Terminator 2, or one of the Mad Max films – seeing the good guys zooming through streets, narrowly avoiding disaster, and complete death defying stunts is an all-time type of movie experience.
Fans think there is a ‘best chase sequence’ ever filmed though, and it isn’t one of the above films. Take a look:
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Pretty cool right? Well, wait till you hear the kicker – it was made on a $2.5 million highway that they built just for this scene.
The scene in question is from The Matrix Reloaded, the Wachowski’s less-loved sequel to the 1999 classic that had a generation draped in leather coats and tiny sunglasses for years.
The mile-and-a-half-long freeway was custom built for the scene on an old disused naval base in California, and the more you read the wilder it gets.
To cut costs, the 19-foot-tall sides of the freeway were made with plywood, and were instead designed and painted to look as much like concrete as possible.
General Motors also donated 100 cars to the production for filming of the scene, with every single one being trashed in the process.
The longer five-minute-long scene has even more insanity, however, with one scene involving Agent Johnson jumping onto a speeding car being filmed without CGI.
All of this was done for a five-minute-long segment of a film, and yet we’d say it’s all worth it, even if they just destroyed the highway afterwards.
This is a sentiment shared by fans, who widely agree the chase scene is an incredible part of an underrated sequel.
The page @PhysicalMedia_ posted the scene on X, saying: “20 years later and the Highway Scene in The Matrix Reloaded is still the best chase scene in cinematic history.”
Another fan agreed, tweeting: “The highway scene in The Matrix Reloaded is the best ‘car chase’ scene in the history of cinema and you Bullitt people need to stop being Boomers about the whole thing.”
One Matrix fan posted on the subreddit r/matrix to say: “I'm currently re-watching the trilogy after a few years and I am still blown away by the Highway Chase scene in Reloaded.
“The music, atmosphere, action sequences... pure perfection.”
Watching the scene again, we couldn’t agree more – it’s well worth the millions spent on it!