10 Movie Fight Scenes That Set The Bar For Slo-Mo

10. The Lobby - The Matrix (1999)

The Scene

A Lobby. Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) enter the building that their leader, Morpheus, (Laurence Fishbourne) is being held in. Neo's plan to bring him back Morpheus hits a few bumps in the road. Beautiful violence ensues.

How It Sets The Bar

The scene itself is pretty straight forward: Arrive. Kill guards. Enter next stage of mission. But it's the execution that sets this scene apart. Neo's initial hit on the first guard being the first use of slo-mo - a flat-handed beat to the chest - executed with both instinct and ease.

Everything in this scene is performed with a nonchalance that exudes cool and a level of skill that we get even more of a chance of appreciating due to the higher frame rates. The one-handed cartwheel semi-automatic kill looking as awesome as it does effective.

What makes this slo-mo so special is that it is used in a way to demonstrate the level of destruction that Neo and Trinity are avoiding - the exploding pillars that are obliterated by the guards make it seem as though Neo could be torn to shreds by any number of the bullets but he somehow styles his way through the barrage.

It's an education in selling the qualities of your hero without downplaying your faceless goobers, too much.