THE GUNS OF THE MATRIX

I'm not going to lecture about the details and philosophy of the Matrix universe.  What I'm going to do instead is an attempt to examine the firearms used in the movies and why the characters would use them.   So, let us begin at the beginning.

As the movie opens, we see Trinity sitting at a desk in front of a laptop when a bunch of cops bust in.  These cops are armed with Glock 17 automatic pistols chambered for the standard 9mm Parabellum cartridge.  This is a good choice as these guns are about as generic as you can get.  They are also probably one of if not the most common police sidearm.  Glock holds 50% of the US Police market while all other makers are fighting for the rest.  SIG, S&W, and Beretta are the other biggies in the Law Enforcement market, but Glock is king... an average King, but king none the less.  Even if I didn't vote for them.  High capacity magazines, high level of reliability, and acceptable accuracy make it a perfect choice for these cops.  Also note the use of the "Harries Technique" with the flashlights.  The Harries Technique is most often taught in your average police academies to your police recruit.  To sum it up, these guys walk into the scene as little more than cannon fodder.  We see Glocks again after these street cops chase Trinity up to the roof, but they are not fired.  I may be wrong about the Glock model number, but all Glocks look the same and the only differences are the lengths of the slides and grip-frames.  Internally you can also have different calibers, but based upon the illustrated capacity of the magazines I'm making an educated guess on the 9mm variant making the gun the model 17.  The Glock 17 was also the first commercially available Glock for US buyers.  This makes the 17 the most common Glock model to be found.

Accompanied by the street cops is an Agent.  They are the movie's super villains.   They of course are armed with a much more sinister pistol than the Glock.  The Desert Eagle is perhaps one of the most over played handguns in Hollywood.  I'm not sure why that is exactly, but I guess it's because the D.E. looks good on film in the mind of a gun ignorant Director.  It is a very large and heavy pistol designed to fire some of the most powerful cartridges available.  From a scene later in the film we see a cartridge being fed into the chamber and it looks like the relatively new .50AE cartridge.  Given unlimited resources of these Agents, I guess the .50AE would be the caliber of choice for your Desert Eagle.  However I doubt the D.E. would be the gun of choice.  These guns have a number of good points... Weight perhaps is number one.  They are so heavy that they absorb so much recoil energy as to tame even the hottest loads.  This makes firing powerful .44 magnum loads actually enjoyable instead of just painful.  The design also uses a fixed barrel giving the pistol enhanced accuracy.  This makes it popular among folks who like the challenge of handgun hunting.  The downsides of the D.E. is that the pistol is ammo sensitive and has questionable reliability.  Accuracy and power are both good, but reliability is a much more critical for a fighting gun.  This is why the Desert Eagle pistols are actually rare on the firing ranges, and are never used by any fighting force... police, military or special ops.  Yet you'll see it in movies about all the above.  Go figure.  Some folks have them and think highly of them,  but I'm not one who does.  At best the D.E. is a curiosity... an interesting pistol to play with, but impractical in any real world setting.  If you like yours, more power to you.  However for this movie, I think virtually any other pistol would have been a better choice for an agent's sidearm... but perhaps virtually no other pistol would have had the commanding visual authority that Desert Eagle pistol brings to the screen.  If I was to second guess the Director here, I would have selected the H&K Mk-23 SOCOM pistol.

We see the agent firing his Desert Eagle at Trinity who performs a spectacular jump through a window.  Inside the window she rolls out and draws a pair of Beretta Cheetahs.  Specifically they are the Model 84FS. The 84 and 85 are very similar, but the 84 has a double stacked magazine while the 85 is a single.  These are seriously cool little guns.  They look just like the Beretta 92 series of pistols but are much smaller.  This gives you the visual impact of the Beretta 92, but is more "to scale" in the lovely and petite hands of Trinity.  This was a perfect choice for the film makers because the Beretta 92's are one of the sexiest pistols ever designed... Yet they would have looked grossly over sized in Trinity's hands.  If you are interested in the Cheetah in real life, they are good pistols indeed and make a respectable little sister to the big bad 92 series.  Accurate and reliable... they are just not very powerful.  The Cheetah is chambered for the .380 cartridge, also called the 9mm Kurtz.  Kurtz meaning "short" and it is just what it sounds... A shorter 9mm cartridge.  Shorter means less case volume for the gun powder. Less powder = less power.  If you like these little Berettas, you can load them up with the hot Pro-Load  ammunition which is about as hot as you could get or want in a blow back pistol design.  This would make a good backup piece to a full sized 92FS or similar. 

It seems like Neo’s preferred handgun is the Beretta 92FS.  This is a solid choice due to the guns inherent accuracy and reliability.  It also holds a potent stash of full power 9MM ammunition.  This is the perfect choice for emptying whole clips at agents.   He uses a pair of 92FS pistols in the lobby battle, then one in the elevator shaft, and then a pair up on the roof top.  If I was to face an armed adversary, a 92FS would be my choice as well.  

After Apoch says "I hope the Oracle gave you some good news" he hands Neo his personal backup gun, a SIG SAUER pistol of some sort.  A P228.  This is another high capacity 9mm that is one of the best handguns you can get.  Some have said that this looks like a SIG P226, which is the 9MM version of the classic SIG P220 pistol.  The P228 is much the same, but it's shorter in barrel/slide length.  You can see a good glimpse of this when he is inside the wall and fires some shots to drive back the SWAT guy that discovers them.  I had a P228 for a couple weeks and liked it, but I decided that it wasn't the pistol for me at that time.  (I traded it in for an HK USP .40)   

Micro Uzi.  Neo and Trinity both use Micro Uzis when they are doing the Lobby Scene.  Trinity walks in to lobby and hoses the security guard calling for help with a Micro.  You will note the gun’s extreme high rate of fire.  This makes the gun very hard to control one handed.  It’s meant to be used either as a regular handgun, or to be attached to a folding stock providing a more stable support for automatic fire.  Good thing Trinity is really firing blanks or her gun would have been pointing at the ceiling before she let off the trigger.  You can fire one full auto, but it takes a great deal of strength to control it that way, and even then it takes both hands.  Neo uses a pair of them at the end of the lobby scene, just before he kicks the last guard to death with a boot to the head.

During the Lobby scene, and before Neo does his “Pick up the M-16 Cartwheel” he pulls out a pair of Czech made Skorpions.  These are small, compact SMGs originally chambered for the even smaller .32ACP cartridge.  The smallest caliber used in the film.  They can be had in a couple other small calibers, but we can see the empty casing from the blanks ejecting and they look like .32 brass not .380... hence my assumption.  I might be wrong.  Hey, there is nothing wrong with them being .32ACP, but you wouldn’t know it what with all the .223 brass dropping to the floor making it look like the gun is firing .223. (same as the 5.56MM Nato for you military types)  I've had fools tell me that these guns really do fire .223 and can easily be converted.  I'm not kidding... I've personally had 2 guys try to sell me that.  I was forced to set them straight in prompt, blunt and profane Ogre fashion.  Such a conversion is not possible.  If you look at the profile of the magazines, you will see that they are short in the front to back dimensions.  This is because they are for short pistol cartridges and not long rifle length cartridges.  To make such a conversion, you would have ot make the Skorp's receiver more than twice as long and convert it to use 5.56MM mags.  Such a conversion would be so extremely problematic that your expending more effort than the resulting value would be worth.  Moving one, please note that almost all automatic guns eject casings away from the shooter... they don't drop the casings at your feet.  Small complaint, because all that brass hitting the floor looked sweet.  Neo's Skorpions are wearing a barrel shroud of some sort... perhaps they are suppressors that have been burnt out.  Hard to tell.  But the guns look great on film, didn't they?  The Skorpion is a favored firearm around the world for terrorists.  In fact, in some places in Central America, you shoot on sight anyone even holding a Skorpion.  Just because it’s small, doesn’t mean it can’t put out a good volume of fire.  As underpowered as the cartridges are, it makes up in quantity what it lacks in quality.  They have large magazine capacities with a high rate of fire, yet they are very controllable and you can fire a mag full in sustained fire and easily keep all the shots in a man’s chest sized target at reasonable SMG ranges.  I had the chance to shoot one at Ft Benning and had a blast with it.  One of the most "fun" guns I have ever had the pleasure of shooting.  You can buy these legally in a semi auto version today.  Look around the online gun auction sites and everyone once in awhile one will pop up.   

Switch (the character that wears all white) uses a slicked up Browning Hi-Power that seems to be in .40 caliber based on the look from the muzzle end when she calls Neo "copper top".  It looks like a satin nickel finish.  This gun is an updated version of the classical P35 that John Moses Browning designed before he died. Some would argue that this was JMB's best or most advanced design.  Probably is.  But that's not the point of my correspondence here.  This shows Switch isn't just a gunslinger, but also uniquely endowed with a good sense of taste when it comes to her guns.  She is different from the others in this regard...she wears all white when everyone else is in black.  The Hi-Power (or HP from now on) was designed by Browning per request from FN for a high capacity 9mm.  It's a single action design similar to the 1911 in some ways such as it being a single action trigger and uses a similar barrel tilting action, but from there I guess the similarities end.  Most noticeable difference is the lack of a grip safety, but Browning still wanted an additional level of safety so he make something called a "magazine safety".  This locks the trigger to prevent firing should the magazine be removed.  Personally, I'd rather have a Grip Safety.  Many people have a gunsmith remove the mag safety because doing so not only removes an annoyance, but  improves the trigger pull as well.  This Browning is a contrast to the other guns in this film... A contrast that works well for Switch's character and a good choice all around.  The Hi-Power is one of the – if not the most prolific handgun the world over.  There are more Hi Powers out there then any other automatic pistol.  Classic pistol.  Love it.

Let's move on to Mouse.  Mouse breaks out an odd pair of guns when the Agents cut the hard line after Neo sees the same cat twice.  These guns are in a crate filled with .50BMG rounds... making some believe these guns are .50 calibers.  This isn't true as that would be impossible.  CORRECTION:  I said that these guns are Manville Gas Guns.  This is incorrect, and I admit my wrong here.  Email from John Bowring, Key Armourer of THE MATRIX corrects me here:

"I made & supplied the guns for the Matrix 

1) Mouses guns are custom made electrically driven 12g that run at 900RPM
2) I chose Beretta 84's for Trinity as you said good little sister to Nios
92's.
3) Larry & Andy the directors of the matrix asked me who uses a 50AE desert
eagle I Said " A Wanka" there reply no who are they maid for I said "
Wankers" there reply are wankers in this film want Desert eagles My reply
your film.
4) Wardrobe mistress wonted to change Switches pistol as she had and "I
quote her designed the pistols for Romeo & Juliet" my reply stick to
designing wardrobes. (Beside the funding for Romeo & Juliet was got by
doing a small section of it to show what it would be like for which "I"
suppled Stainless steel Beretta and that is what set the tone for the guns
in Romeo & Juliet)
You never know whose out there

John Bowring" 

NOTE:  Do not ask me for John's email address.  I don't care what your story is, I wont care and I wont give it out.  So don't even ask.  I will not even respond to such emails.  So sod off.

I was given a couple of screen captures from the DVD:

Those are awesome... Electric drive 12 guages... BADASS!

I asked him a couple questions, and this is what he sent back:

"I'm not allowed to let out anything about Revolution till after the
premier. In Australia this Sunday, my ticket is sitting on the desk next to
me. I can, say that you won't see to much in the way of real firearms that
you have not seen already. Unfortunately the two later Matrixes we started
in the US so an American armour got his foot in the door and convinced the
directors to bring him with the film to Australia. This left me in the
rather nasty position of being totally in control of the weapons legally
but the directors listening to him. A consequence of this is Trinity using
2 micro Uzis instead of H&K MP7's I even got guns number 15 and 16 from the
prototype production run from Germany to Australia to use in the film. Just
to wet your appetite H&K gave me 2 H&K 21's, 3 G36's, 2 MP7( they are
actually marked PDW), 2 9mm UMP's & an AG36 in 40mm so that I could use
them in the film. For light entertainment when Revolutions comes out on DVD
you can always still frame the coat check.
I'll take a picture of Mouses guns next time I have the safe open and send
it. Back to my costing, I'm costing a Bob Cohen( the director from XXX )
project called Stealth. - John Bowring"

Thanks for the emails John... I appreciate the correction & good luck!

Still, it would have been most impressive if Mouse's fire had blown apart a couple of the bad guys just for visual effect.  Leave like one or two SWAT guys left.  But no, instead Mouse didn't even injure one bad guy.  Oh well... poor Mouse.  (I love his expression in the top two frames... it's like he is saying "BRING IT!")

HK MP5K These guns appear all over this flick.  “What do you need?”  “Guns.  Lots of guns.”  The huge weapon racks slide in and Neo picks up an MP5K and does the classic “HK Slap”.  Then in the lobby scene, when the guard sees all the guns and says “Holy…” and Neo punches him into next week, he then pulls out a pair of MP5K’s and goes to work.  HK came up with a brilliant design in the MP5.  It’s universally recognized as The SMG.  It’s used around the world by police and military units… and those that fight them.  The Matrix seems to prefer the short MP5K variant, but any of them are fine guns.

What are all those guns on the racks when Neo says “Guns, lots of guns”?  Well, good question.  Well, I haven’t been able to get a real good look, but I can make out most of them.  Behind Neo I can identify a few Ingram MAC-10 SMGs, and AK-47s, and of course the usually Matrix Mix of Beretta 92FS pistols, HK MP5Ks, and Micro Uzi SMGs.  The same guns are behind Trinity… MP5Ks. Beretta pistols (unsure if these are 92 models or her personal favorites, the Beretta Cheetahs) are on the racks too.  And interestingly enough are a number of Tommy Guns.  We don't see them in use in this film, but one makes an appearance in Reloaded.  To the left of her on the screen are a few guns I can’t ID from the bad angle.  Sorry folks.  I'm good, but not that good.

I am not sure what gun Apoch carries, but it's an SMG for sure...  I tried to ID that one, but you only see it for a second from the muzzle end while it’s firing.  I am not sure, but it’s either a Mini Uzi or an Ingram.  I’m leaning towards the Uzi, but I can’t confirm it.  I need to get this on DVD, then perhaps I could catch a better view of it - Update:  I was sent by a member of The Horde several screen captures that show in detail that his gun is an Ingram MAC-10 with a barrel shroud.  This, like most other guns in The Matrix, is a 9MM.  It has a super high rate of fire that is most impressive.  Oddly enough, for an SMG of this type, it's very controllable, reliable and even surprisingly accurate in burst fire.  A perfect choice for spraying fire at Agents while your buddies get away.  For some reason when I think MAC-10, I think Chuck Norris's flick "Invasion USA" where he uses a pair of them.  Well, really he is using the .380 MAC-11 version with a much higher rate of fire... but still.  Anyways, I digress.  Apoch is a MAC Man.

Back in the lobby scene we see these guards come rushing out wearing armor, helmets and packing some big guns.  Most buildings always have the stupid guards out front and visible with a squad of heavily armed goons just around the corner.  Just look in any downtown building.  Okay, maybe not.  But this was a “Military Controlled Building” right?  Anyways, the first guy that yells “FREEZE” is packing a SPAS-12.  This is a unique 12 gauge shotgun that allows the user to select pump action or semi-auto action.  It’s a good solid shotgun that offers high capacity, good reliability, a folding stock, and respectable accuracy when throwing slugs.  The downside is that it’s a rather clunky and heavy and a just plain clumsy design.  This is perhaps my least favorite tactical shotgun, but it’s popular with wannabe SWAT-pups and collectors... and evidently movie makers.  The better gun for these guards to have used would have been the faster cycling Benelli M1.  Of course the SPAS looks much cooler.  Had the guards have been using them in Semi Mode instead of Pump… Trinity might have been blasted to bits.   No, maybe not.  But the Chink-Ker-Chunk sound effect was a cooler effect for the screen.   If they wanted to use just a pump gun… in my opinion the Benelli Nova Special Purpose would have looked cooler and would have been faster handling.  I think the SPAS-12 is a bit too much.  This gun was also used in Jurassic Park to pathetic effect.  I think a couple of SPAS-12’s loaded with the right shells would have handily cleared the island of pesky hungry dinos.  These guards in the Matrix didn’t do any better with them… but Trinity did when she kicked one away from a guard and blasted him in half with it.  

Some other guards use the M-16A1.  You can easily tell they are A1, because they are fully automatic.  Looking closer you can see the handgrips and rear sight are of the A1 style. A2’s fire semi or 3 round bursts and have different hand guards and rear sight, but I wont go into obvious details..  This rifle is everywhere in one variation or another.  It’s been the standard issued rifle for over 33 years now making it one the oldest continuously used military rifles since Britain’s Brown Bess musket.  It’s even older than the AK-47 because the Soviets kept changing the AK to the AKM and then the AK-74 and now the AN-94… Us?  We make a slight change to the M-16 and just rename it. A2, A3, M-4, whatever… they are all just M-16’s to me.  In my opinion, the M-16 is a piece of shiat.  It is self polluting, defecates where it eats, under powered, too delicate, and way too complicated.  Developed initially as a target rifle for the US Air Force, was picked up by the Air Farce’s security teams.  Some Air Force General convinced everyone that the Army needed it… despite the Army’s objections. Then they morph it into a battle rifle by giving it a heavier barrel?  The M-16 makes no sense.  It didn’t then, it doesn’t now.  Like 7-Up, the M-16 “Never had it, never will.”  As to why the civilian version of the M-16, the AR-15 remains so popular today, is mind boggling.  Unlike the military, civilians can have and use anything they want.  So why do they chose the AR-15?  Much better weapon would be the AR-180, the civilian version of the AR-18, what Armalite developed after fixing all the problems with the AR-15/M-16.  You can buy a new AR-180B for about ½ the price or less than an AR-15.  In my opinion the AR-180B is a much better rifle all around.  It’s action is used in other guns, such as HK’s new G36 for example.   Or better yet, there is always the sleek and sexy AR-70 that gets little notice today.  The AR-70 makes the 15 and the 18 look like ugly step sisters, at least to me.  If I was working on The Matrix, I would have had the last guard holding an M-16 pointing it at Neo’s chest and it go “CLICK” before Neo kicks the shit out of his head.  Then have a close up of the gun with a jammed cartridge in there.  The M-16 isn’t one of my choices.  I think a FAMAS would have looked cooler in these scenes, but since the Federal Government practically gave away A1 rifles to police departments and various agencies… Most likely these guys would have had them.  Poor saps.    

GE Mini-Gun. The Big Dog.  This is the huge gun mounted on the helicopter.  Yes, it really is that badass and it really can fire that fast.  It’s that good.  Scary isn’t it?  It can fire 6,000 rounds per minute.  That means it is spitting 100 rounds a second.  Hellacious firepower.  These guns are electric powered gatling guns used by the US Military on Helicopters as shown.  We used them back in Viet Nam and we have used them ever since.  The gatling concept goes all the way back to the Wild West days, when these guns were mounted on small wagons or caissons and fired by turning a hand crank that spun the barrels.  The gun fires only one barrel at a time.  The spinning cycles barrels around the action allowing the gun to load, fire, and extract each shell and give the barrels some airflow to help cool them between shots.  Larger versions of this gun in 20MM are used by the US Navy as close in defensive weapons.  Aimed by radar they are capable of detecting, tracking, and engaging multiple incoming anti-ship missiles.  The one notable failure of this system was the unfortunate incident with the USS Stark.  This proved one very critical shortcoming of this system... it only works when it is turned on.  Had this system been on, that missile would never have hit the Stark.  At worse you would have some startled sailors with no injury worse than ringing ears.   Similar electric driven gatling guns are also used on some of fighter aircraft, most notably is the A-10 Warthog.  The A-10 boasts the biggest version of the gatling that I know of, a 30MM.  I have witnessed A-10 use it's gun to good effect.  Some say that it sounds like a motorcycle when it fires.   That's not quite right... it sounds like a really evil fucking motorcycle when it fires.  The A-10 actually looses airspeed when it fires it's gun due to the recoil forces pushing against the aircraft.  It's truly amazing.  Gatling guns can also be had in much smaller sizes.  I have seen one in 5.56MM, .22LR, and even in BB powered my compressed air or CO2.  I think BB is the way to go with these things.  You really couldn't afford to fire it with even .22LR ammo.  Think about it.  100 shots in a second, with .22 ammo costing as much as 5 bucks for a hundred for some loads.  So your throwing out about 5 bucks every time you pull the trigger for even a short burst.   That's like 5 bucks a shot and that is about the same as some large caliber rifles that few can afford to go shooting with regularly.   20 rounds and you just spent a hundred bucks.  It would be best to buy the cheap bulk pack .22 loads I guess... the 500 rounds for 10 bucks.  Still, your talking a lot of cash for an afternoon of plinking with one of these.

Matrix  Reloaded:

Micro Uzi – Trinity uses a pair of these in her big fall.  See above.

Neo is again packing his favorite handguns. The Beretta 92FS.   Trinity packs her Cheetahs as well, but also a pair of Micro Uzis.  This is good.  This shows the characters are the same as before.  Continuity is a good thing to have in a "part 2" and having them use the same guns gives us that.  It would have been odd for them to have been using different guns.  Besides, Berettas look so good, there is no reason to change.  Is it just me, or is Trinity smoking hot with her littler Berettas?  

Glock 18 – Morpheus fights “The Twins” with this.  The Glock 18 is based on the Glock 17 (see above) in all characteristics with the addition of a selector switch that allows it to fire fully auto.  This little machine pistol is actually quite controllable and in skilled hands can be very effective.  In the US it’s a specialized and very rare gun.  In fact there are none in civilian collections.  And few in any Agency armory.  Unless you’re the Federal Government or police chief, you will probably not even see one let alone actually touch one.  Getting one for yourself?  Not going to happen.  Ever.  If you think you see one… it’s an “Air Soft” replica.  Now, there are some kits out there that allow full auto selected fire from a Glock pistol... but you still have a Glock of the same model and not a real Glock 18.  I don't get the elitism surrounding this gun.  It's not warranted. It's a fine gun, but nothing that special.

Walther P99 – Morpheus is using James Bond’s new pistol?  This surprised me.  It’s a pretty good gun, but not one of my personal favorites.  I don’t like the decocking lever on it. These guns can be had in 9mm, .357 SIG, .40 caliber.  S&W now makes a version of it in .45ACP.  Agent Smith meets the Walther when he says he wants everything and Morpheus says “Does that include a bullet from this gun?” and puts his Walther to Agent Smith’s head.  Wait a second.  If he is no longer Agent Smith, does that mean he is just Smith?  This is the pistol that “Q” gives to 007 as an upgrade from his worn out Walther PPK.  Funny how after that happened Bond uses more 1911’s than anything else.  Go figure.  The P99 is actually a very good design.  It’s grip angle, balance, and low barrel geometry make it an easy pistol to shoot well with.  Given the choice, I would prefer it over a Glock of the same caliber, but I don’t see why Morpheus would select it over the Glock 18 he was using previously.  I guess because an 18 would have cleared that hallway of all the Smiths in short order.  Morph slaps in a long stick mag into the Glock and just mowed a swath through the Smiths while they run to the door leaving piles of Smiths moaning and groaning in pain and pools of blood.  That would have made for a very short, very violent, but very cool scene.  It would have been a riot. 

COP .357 – Monica Bellucci’s character (she is also in Tears of the Sun - GREAT FLICK!) pops some guy in the head with this little 4 shot pistol.  This pistol is also the gun used by the character Leon in the movie Blade Runner… It really is a poor design that faced a recall do to safety issues.  While the Blade Runner team fixed the gun to fire 2 barrels at once, any gun that didn’t get sent in for repair due to the recall could possibly fire all 4 barrels at once if dropped.  Great.  Sign me up for 4 shots of .357 Magnum into my nut sack because of a critical fumble and a poor gun design.  Once the gun was repaired however, it was just fine.  I know of one fellow who loves his example and carries it as his CCW weapon.  I guess you could call it just fine… if you don’t mind a 4 shot Derringer type pistol that is categorically ineffective and inaccurate.  The fact that Monica actually hit the guy is testament to her being one of the Matrix’s programs and not a real person… just like the Agent’s Desert Eagles not jamming up.  Chalk it up to Hollywood Magic and the fact that she is too freaking hot to miss.

The Twins unleashed an HK UMP topped with a C-More optical gun site and a 25 round mag that seems to hold about 500 rounds during the Freeway chase.   This is HK’s replacement of the MP5 series.  It is a simple and robust design that works very well.  They were made chambered for .45 ACP initially but you can now get them in .40 cal or 9MM as well.  I wouldn't mind one in .357SIG or 9mm myself.  These guns are not used in very many movies... but are popping up in SWAT arms lockers all over the place.  My local SWAT team has a bunch of them.  Solid gun.  Solid selection for the movie.  It looks sinister indeed.     

The French cat that wipes his ass with silk… he seems to go unarmed.  But he has a squad of thugs that all use different guns… We see an HK G36K, a standard model Uzi SMG, a Thompson Submachinegun aka “Tommy Gun”, a couple variants of the MP5, and a Colt SMG.  The Colt is simply an M-16 shortened with a 10 inch barrel chambered for a pistol cartridge.  They can be had in any autopistol cartridge you like.  The interesting thing is that they are much more reliable than the original configuration of the M-16.  This is due to a lack of the standard M-16’s gas system and bolt system.  These guns are accurate, controllable, and easy to use.  Not a bad choice.  I’m loving the Tommy gun here and was surprised to see this classic in the movie.  Shortly after it was made, the Thompson was given this quote “Pound for pound the most deadly device every made by man.”  Whether or not this statement is true, the Tommygun was/is notoriously deadly.  It was the gun that made the Roaring 1920’s roar.   There was a time you could buy one of these from a hardware store for just a couple hundred bucks.  At the same time you could buy a silencer for less than 5 bucks too.  If I could go back in time buy up a stockpile and put them in a vault for safe keeping. *sigh* A real Thompson from back then would be worth a fortune today.  If you are of normal means financially you can buy one brand new today.  They are still being made in semi-auto only versions.  One day I’ll buy one, but I’ll take mine in the USGI configuration.  These guns are much heavier than they look.  This gives them excellent controllability during sustained fire.  Watch the movie Road To Perdition for some good Tommy Gun action.   “Cursing in French is like wiping your ass with silk”… best line ever.  

Zion’s Gate Control used a battle-mech for security.  They didn’t show any real details of it, but it looked to be very heavily armed.  I hope we see these guys rock and roll in part 3, Matrix Revolutions.

MATRIX REVOLUTIONS:

This part might be a little sparse in comparison to the other movies, but that is because there were only guns in the first part of the movie, and after that, only the battlemechs.  That's not saying that there are few guns it it... actually, there were probably just as many guns in as in the others, its just that they were all packed in the same frame for a few minutes and then they were gone.  Too many to even look at really.  But I did notice a few things:

When three heroes go to see Merv, they go well armed.  These three are Morpheus, Trinity and the Asian cat with the white shirt and sunglasses... I don't know his name, but he is very cool.  They go in through the elevator, after taking down two thugs, one of which is armed with a Beretta Inox.  This is a regular Beretta 92FS as I have mentioned before, but in stainless.  Good gun.  Maybe a little high brow for these two thugs, but a dang good gun and if your going to chose a full sized handgun, it's one of the best you could get.  Berettas are in many movies because they look great on the screen, they really do.  They look even better in the hand and they feel as good as they look.  I have 2 words for Beretta guns, and that means all of them in general: Love Them.

In the elevator on the way up to the club where Merv hangs out now, the Asian guy leading Trinity and Morpheus is talking and while talking breaks out two automatics and does a one hand press check on each to verify that they are ready to rock.   These guns are the Browning BDM.   I was grinning when I saw those, because these guns are absolutely perfect for his character... Let me tell you why.  In The Matrix, when you have to shoot, you are going to have to shoot a lot.  That means automatics with high capacity magazines, like the Beretta.  But here we have a guy with a little different taste.  Remember the other person all in white?  Switch?  She had a Browning too, a High Power.  This cat goes with the "updated" version of the High Power, or at least that was what Browning was trying to market it as.  This gun fits with his character very well.  He mostly uses his hand to hand skills, but carries guns concealed.  The BDM is a very slim gun.  When I say slim, I mean you pick it up and it surprises you just how slim it is. It's especially surprising when you take into account that it is a high capacity handgun with a double stack magazine.  This slimness makes it easy to carry concealed, even if your a ninja like this cat, who likes to lay down some thrashing before he has to slap leather.  15 round magazines of 9MM, it can deliver as much firepower as the larger and considerably thicker Berettas.  This is one gun that I have always wanted, but have never had the chance to get.  Kudos to the Key Armourer who selected this gun... absolutely the perfect choice. 

Morpheus breaks out his guns, and he is using what looked like two MP5Ks with long magazines. These are Matrix world standards... but they could also be SP89s.  It's hard to tell because they were wearing Red Dot optical gunsights and were getting flung around a lot so I could really make them out.   The SP89 is a good 9MM handgun, but it's a big gangly one with limited use as a sidearm.  This doesn't stop people from wanting them.  I have seen one sell for 5 thousand bucks cash.  I don't think I'd buy one even if I had the money. 

Trinity is still using her favorites... her Beretta model 84 Cheetahs.  And these remain good choices for her for all the same reasons as before. Here is a discussion on the gun.

The battlemechs in The Docks are very cool.  Mix 2 parts Battletech, with 2 parts Warhammer 40,000, add in 2 parts of crème of John Woo and you have it.   I thought they were great.   I looked forward to seeing these in action when I first saw them in film #2 and they didn’t disappoint. The load and feed like how real military hardware does with the ammo cans and the long feed belts.  The way the moved was interesting... the biomechanics of the upper torso worked for me.  Overly complicated and what not, but it made for good eye candy.  I had thought that these guys used rifle like weapons, but they don't.  Or at least I didn't see any.  I saw them using giant automatics with nearly endless ammunition supplies.  I but if we could look really close at the robots guns, they would say "Beretta" on the side.  Not that this is a bad thing... I liked how they shot like Chow Yun Fat from The Replacement Killer.   Very entertaining...  and that is the whole point of it all, isn't it?

Please take the time to check out my other "Guns Of" discussions:

The Guns of HEAT

The Guns of RONIN

Guns of Star Wars (article I wrote many many years ago)

Copyright G H Hill 1998-2055

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