Mark Reviews Movies: THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | December 21, 2021

We return to the Matrix in The Matrix Resurrections, or do we really? On a plot level, that's the main question presented in the first act of co-writer/director Lana Wachowski's new installment in the science-fiction series, which seemed to come to a definitive, if anticlimactic and thoroughly disappointing, conclusion 18 years ago.

Wachowski, who originated the series with her sister and filmmaking partner Lilly Wachowski, is completely aware of the impact the series, especially its first and best entry, has had on popular culture. She's also aware that there's probably not a need for a new installment, and that's one of the better running jokes in the new movie's clever opening act.

In it, we're re-introduced to Neo (Keanu Reeves), the sort-of savior of humankind in its fight against machines that imprisoned human beings in an artificial reality known as the Matrix, while, in reality, reducing the sleeping species to a source of energy. One had better know all of that before watching this new installment. That seems like a given, except that so much of the movie's opening hour or so re-tools everything that has happened in the series so far. It almost feels like a somewhat separate entity.

See, Neo is now, once again, Thomas Anderson—or maybe he always has been that office worker filled with ennui and a feeling that there's something more. In this reality, he's a game designer, whose claim to fame is a trilogy of games about a sort-of savior of humankind in its fight against machines that imprisoned human beings in an artificial reality known as the Matrix.

If there's a sense of déjà vu to all of this, that's intentional. The opening sequence here is essentially a copy of the first film's opening. That's because Thomas is testing a theory within the programming of his own game, creating a new Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) to see what happens in the artificial world. Obviously, if he is still in the Matrix and actually Neo, all of what we see is a program within a program, which is exactly what we might expect from a follow-up to the previous, mind-bending trilogy.

Maybe, though, Thomas is simply suffering from mental health issues. That's the argument of his analyst (Neil Patrick Harris), who notes the many similarities between the real world and his games. He has a crush on Tiffany (Carrie-Anne Moss), who looks suspiciously like Neo's comrade and love interest Trinity in the video games. His boss (played by Jonathan Groff) certainly has a similar demeanor to, if a completely different look from, Neo's foe Agent Smith.

Anyway, the mind games here are enjoyable. Additionally, Wachowski, along with co-screenwriters David Mitchell and Aleksander Hemon, has a playful sense of humor about the belated and seemingly unnecessary existence of this entry (Thomas is ordered to make a new game in his series by the game studio's parent company—the one with the logo that starts this movie), as well as the impact of the original trilogy (Some guy confesses his obsession with the games' philosophical musings ruined his life). It all comes to a head with a winking and lengthy debate about what the world and mythology of the Matrix actually mean, as well as what defines them.

Alas, the fun and self-referential inspiration of all of this, which genuinely does create the sort of reality-bending-and-shattering sense of uncertainty that were the highlights of the original movies, does come to an end. If the first act plays with the very idea of déjà vu as way of opening up this story to a new way of looking at this world, the rest of the plot, which brings Thomas/Neo exactly where we suspect he needs to go in order to maintain and continue the first movies' narrative, has an unfortunate and far less engaging sense of the familiar.

Not much can be said about the specifics, of course—not only because it would give away the mysterious toying of the first act, but also because the game itself is too enjoyable to ruin (The movie demolishes it enough, as is). Let's just say, though, that the screenwriters indulge in a lot of the mythology-making that made the second two movies feel a bit too much like homework.

We're re-introduced to a couple of returning characters—in their own skin or in the form of new avatars—and meet a few new ones, who fit into the archetypes of previous characters and not much else. In terms of the visual effects spectacle that also defined the first movies, there's nothing particularly revolutionary here—whether that be a character moving faster than the series' trademarked slow-down of the world, a program exiting its virtual world by way of nimble metallic beads, or the extended climax, which involves a lot of shooting, leaping, and driving through dimly lit passages of a city, making much of the action look and feel sloppy.

Basically, The Matrix Resurrections exists in a state of being pulled by its past and the series' potential future. That tension forces us to consider what has come before it in some new ways and speculate about what's to come, but this movie's in-between status does it few favors.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products