Synopsis:
Mr. Anderson, aka Neo, will have to choose to follow the white rabbit once more to find out if his reality is a physical or mental construct. If he’s learned anything, it’s that, while illusionary, choice is still the only way out of – or into – the Matrix. Neo already knows what he must do, but he is unaware that the Matrix is stronger, more secure, and far more dangerous than ever before.
Cast & Crew:
Lana wachowski| Director/Story
Aleksandar Hemon| Story
David Mitchell| Story
Keanu Reeves| Actor
Carrie-Anna moss| Actor
Yahya Abdul Mateen II | Actor
Jonathan Groff| Actor
Jada Pinkett Smith|Actor
Priyanka Chopra Jones| Actor
Christina Ricci| Actor
Lambert Wilson| Actor
Joshua Grothe| Actor
Story:
To its credit, The Matrix Resurrections is a strange film — but one that is often more concerned with being self-aware than with being good or enjoyable. Resurrections, directed by Lana Wachowski rather than the usual Wachowski-sister duo, begins with an intriguing bit of metatextual loopiness before devolving into a tepid sequel. It’s a gratingly uncool and reactive cut-up of effortlessly cool and timeless work, albeit one that appears to be done on purpose. It aims to dissect the adoration and mythos that have grown up around The Matrix over the course of 22 years, but without the masterful craftsmanship that inspired that adoration in the first place. Worse yet, kung fu isn’t very good.
Resurrections is a direct sequel to The Matrix Revolutions, which was released in 2003, and it continues the story of Neo, Trinity, and a few other well-known characters from The Matrix trilogy. (If you don’t know who these people are or haven’t thought about them in a long time, I strongly advise you to do so.) However, it is a spiritual sequel to the entire Matrix cultural phenomenon that began in 1999. And, without going into specifics, I don’t mean this in an abstract thematic sense. The narrative of Resurrections is a direct response to decades of people deconstructing everything from The Matrix’s bullet-time sequences to its transgender subtext.
It’s a promising premise for a new installment in the series, and the execution so far has been fantastic. The opening of Resurrections references an iconic Matrix scene while stylishly introducing new characters and teasing a compellingly trippy plot, complete with a new palette that adds patches of slick color to the series’ classic monochrome. It’s followed by a truly cringe-worthy parody of a specific media industry that will go unnamed. It’s a story about losing track of the line between reality and fantasy, similar to Matrix contemporary The Thirteenth Floor and its predecessor, Rainer Fassbinder’s World on a Wire but updated for a world where that philosophical quandary has permeated pop culture.
You can skip this paragraph if you want to know as few plot points as possible about The Matrix Resurrections. However, if some background information is helpful, the film begins with Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie Anne-Moss) being reinserted into a version of the Matrix simulation. The two don’t know each other and have no recollection of their previous selves; the former has achieved lonely fame within the simulation, while the latter has a family and a quiet life.
In the first act, Reeves plays a world-weary man who is tired of being lauded as a visionary for creating something he now finds fundamentally silly, despite the fact that it nearly destroyed his life. (A shot of him lying in a bathtub with a rubber duck on his head works just as well in context as it does in the trailer.) Moss gets to experience a less austere and more human Trinity, and her story raises intriguing questions about what attachment means in a virtual world. The original Matrix was about a young, alienated loner, but Resurrections takes more seriously the idea that you can find meaning with other people in a largely fictitious activity.
However, the writing frequently feels disposable from the start. Resurrections is a series of burns on techbros, obsessive fans, the media industry, people who think quoting movies makes them cool, and other lesser contemporary villains, whereas The Matrix yearned to discuss big ideas like free will and the nature of reality.
The original film was clearly a product of its time, riffing on tropes such as corporate cubicle workers, virtual reality utopianism, and twentieth-century ennui. However, it used these specifics as the foundation for a world that remained self-contained and compelling long after the underlying cultural moment had passed. These elements are tangential commentary in The Matrix Resurrections that never anchors itself in a larger plot — especially because when that larger plot does barge in, it’s flat at best and vicariously embarrassing at worst.
Resurrections, like the original Matrix trilogy, eventually revolves around the question of Neo being “the One,” a figure with the power to control the Matrix. However, unlike those films, Resurrections does not explain why it matters.
The Matrix raised the stakes by depicting a terrifying future in which humanity was perpetually on the verge of total enslavement, its few free members lived in constant fear, and the One was a weapon that resistance fighters had spent their entire lives searching for. Its infamous sequels toned down the grimness, but in exchange, the films introduced characters with homes and families and raucous dance parties — most of whom cared about Neo not out of some idol-like affection, but because he could save those things. (The key exception was a character introduced in The Animatrix dubbed “The Kid,” whose hero-worship was played as a poignant joke.) Morpheus, played by Laurence Fishburne, who built his life around finding and protecting Neo, was motivated as much by the concept of faith as by a personal attachment to the man.
None of this is present in Resurrections. For one thing, the film barely bothers to explain what happened after The Matrix Revolutions ended, when Neo’s powers finally assisted him in brokering peace between humans and machines. Rather than ignoring the sequels, it incorporates footage from them directly and features some returning characters. However, it also subtly reverses large portions of them for no apparent reason, making the significance of everything Neo and Trinity did in those films unclear.
For another thing, the film’s new characters have almost no motivations other than a fandom-like obsession with Neo. Except for the blue-haired Matrix escapee Bugs (Jessica Henwick), the heroes think he’s an awesome guy and wants — as a literally stated mission — to help him regain his “mojo.” The villains are obsessed with tormenting him for unknown reasons, even if it interferes with their theoretical actual job.
Meanwhile, Neo is solely concerned with rekindling his relationship with Trinity. The story between the two became an increasingly important part of the Matrix trilogy as the trilogy progressed, and it’s clear that’s what Wachowski wants to focus on here. However, it is written in such a way that Neo comes across as either selectively amnesiac or chillingly unconcerned about the fate of humanity. His lack of interest in anything other than Trinity also wastes opportunities to help explain foundational plot points, which are instead brought up and almost immediately dropped. And, despite being the supposed heart of the film, the pair’s interactions are oddly disjointed. Wachowski has undoubtedly read all of the essays on Trinity Syndrome, but Trinity’s character arc remains patchy and weak, with moments that describe the existence of conflicts rather than allowing them to unfold.
The sequels to The Matrix had numerous flaws, but they demonstrated the Wachowski sisters’ straightforward talent for visually memorable set pieces and elaborate choreography. Resurrections have only one sequence that comes close to matching the excitement of The Matrix Reloaded’s sprawling car chase or The Matrix Revolution’s massive mech battle, and it’s over far too quickly. It also makes no attempt to recreate the magic of the original Matrix’s gunplay and wire-fu. Its fight scenes lean more heavily on the post-Bourne Identity school of choppy pragmatic combat, and they become increasingly perfunctory, pointlessly derivative, and difficult to follow as the film’s equivalent of zombies appears in crowd scenes.
Most frustratingly, Resurrections appears to be intent on shooting itself in the foot — rather than dodging the bullet — with Matrix callbacks that undercut its own strengths.
The film introduces Watchmen’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as a new iteration of Morpheus and Mindhunter’s Jonathan Groff as a new version of the villain Agent Smith in a couple of casting decisions that are technically spoilers but have already been confirmed online. In theory, it fits with the film’s stated theme of evolution and repetition, but in practice, it puts both men in the position of rehashing past iconic performances — in Abdul-case, Mateen’s from one of Hollywood’s most powerfully charismatic actors. He ends up playing little more than a collection of glib quips in an admittedly great suit, while Groff’s shot at a uniquely hateful performance is smothered by intercuts to Smith’s original actor, Hugo Weaving, is smothered.
There is no compelling reason to do so. Narrative continuity does not necessitate the appearance of either man: Smith’s destruction was a central element of The Matrix Revolutions, and Morpheus was canonically murdered by flies in a video game. Both roles could have been written more compellingly as original characters. The film is too chaotic for the reincarnated Smith and Morpheus to spend time grappling with their evolution; they retain almost none of their original motivations, and Neo is too preoccupied with Trinity to engage with either. (This is made even more tragic by the fact that Fishburne and Reeves had by far the most chemistry and the best-shared arc of any two Matrix cast members.)
Smith’s presence is especially unnecessary given that he isn’t even the main antagonist. That dubious honor goes to a new character written in the style of a chatbot trained on the comments in a “high-IQ rationalist skeptics” subreddit, except that this description at least implies some kind of explanation for why he would exist.
Instead, the recasting comes across as a frustrated act of cynicism, the logical conclusion of Marvel-style storytelling in which viewers can only care about a new character if they’re a reincarnation of an old one. Given the film’s explicit narrative, I’d even say the awkwardness is on purpose. The first act of Resurrections is spent telling audiences that a new Matrix installment would be a hollow byproduct of corporate coercion disguised as an innovative reworking of a classic. Like almost any recent major franchise film or game that ostensibly “deconstructs” its predecessors, it is given the freedom to pretend to be subversive before delivering exactly what is expected of it.
As someone who was profoundly influenced by The Matrix, it’s a little disappointing to walk away from The Matrix Resurrections with the impression that fandom and franchise-based media have tainted Wachowski’s legacy. When it first came out, I was a tween, and it’s the first film I remember processing as a kind of overwhelming aesthetic experience rather than a story that happened to involve moving pictures. Watching it now, it’s a perfect melding of memorable dialogue, alluring conspiracism, kinetic camera work, and stylish violence. The Matrix is ripe for a self-aware joke, but not one designed for a machine that won’t let it have the decency of a punchline.
