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Friday March 29th 2024

The Matrix Reloaded | 2003

Despite upping the ante in the FX department, the novelty of the original is lost. It’s made in Sydney, like the first film; but also in Oakland, across the Oakland Bay Bridge from San Francisco.

This is where the spectacular freeway chase takes place, beginning at the parking garage underneath the 16th Street entrance to the Latham Square Building, 1611 Telegraph Avenue in downtown Oakland, not far from City Hall.

The bizarre twins chase Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) west on 16th Street, between Telegraph and Clay Streets (though there’s a bit of sneaking back and forth to eke out the relatively short stretch of road available).

Link directs them to the ‘Winslow Overpass”, which is the Nimitz Freeway (I-880), over Fifth Street and Broadway, where the car drops into the Webster Tube, an underwater tunnel running beneath Oakland Inner Harbour Channel to Alameda.

It would have been impossible to shut down a road long enough for the complex stunts needed for the movie’s big set piece, so the ‘101 Freeway’ was built on an abandoned airstrip at Alameda Naval Air Station (you can glimpse the double-decker Oakland Bay Bridge briefly, behind Morpheus).

Interior sets were also built at Alameda, in the aircraft hangar including the huge ’Zion’ rave.

The power station which has to be destroyed to avoid triggering the bomb, “No electricity. No alarms.”, is the old White Bay Power Station, at Rozelle, back in Sydney.