Agent Smith Moment: Encyclopedia - Agent Smith Moment

Agent Smith Moment

The "Agent Smith Moment", occasionally shortened to ASM, is a term coined to describe a certain type of event in a movie, especially big-budget action movies; specifically, an Agent Smith Moment is when a character notices and recognizes their own imminent death and becomes aware that there is nothing they can do to stop it.

Agent Smith Moment - Origin of the Term

The name comes from a scene in the 1999 film, The Matrix, in which the character Agent Smith is interrogating Morpheus in a high level of an office tower, when a helicopter rises to the window, and Neo takes aim with a mounted vulcan cannon. A mere second passes between Smith realizing Neo is about to open fire, and Neo actually firing. Even with his literally superhuman abilities, there is nothing he can do to stop Neo before he fires the gun. Rather than waste effort trying anyway, Smith merely stands there and mutters "No."

Since then, the term has been applied to many films with moments such as these. Another example can be found near the end of The Last Starfighter, as a disabled starship crashes into a moon.

Category: Matrix series

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Agent Smith Moment", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki