Should you plug back into the Matrix for the fourth time?
This was a movie that I didn’t believe needed to be made. That was my first thought when I heard about the film. What could a new Matrix movie say or do that the first three didn’t? The last one had a definitive ending. So it wasn’t even a simple case of picking up from where we left off
Matrix: Resurrection seemed to be asking these same questions of itself and wastes no time in setting itself up as a deliberately self-referential, self-aware examination of, “What does the Matrix even mean anymore?”.
As one of two key cast members returning, Keanu Reeves is once again Thomas Anderson / Neo, a successful video game designer who decades ago created a successful video game trilogy called the Matrix. Now Warner Bros is demanding he create a sequel – Matrix IV. However, this is causing a great deal of stress for Anderson and he starts to question whether any of this is real. There is no question for the audience, as it’s made very clear right from the start that Anderson is a prisoner inside another Matrix. Yet that doesn’t take anything away from the early parts of the film.
As Anderson struggles with understanding and then escaping his new reality, the movie feels like it has something it wants to say about art, fame, media and peoples’ personal relationships all being used and exploited by corporations. The movie is at its best when dealing and grappling with these themes. It is also when it reintroduces the other major returning cast member, Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity, who is also somehow trapped in this new Matrix. The scenes between Reeves and Moss are some of the early highlights, as these trapped people struggle to reconnect.
After Anderson escapes and is once again in the real world, the movie drastically slows down and becomes just another Matrix movie. It isn’t necessarily a bad movie. It’s still pretty good in parts, but it certainly loses the drive and energy of the meta self-aware questioning of its early parts. The story goes on to play out like a remake of the previous Matrix Trilogy, but without any of the wow factors that made those movies stand out.
Resurrections was in between a rock and hard place. The Matrix had developed its look and style that many would have been looking for again. However, that has been so endlessly copied in the last 20 years, going back to it would just look old and worn. Any attempt to be as groundbreaking as it once was would result in a movie that is so unlike what came before it would not look or feel like the Matrix. And then what would have been the point of making a Matrix that doesn’t feel like the Matrix.
Unfortunately, it feels like the movie settled for the boring middle ground, which feels like a warmed up serving of what used to be great. This is best exemplified by the famous bullet-time effect of Neo dodging the bullets in slow-motion. It is impossible to count how often it has been copied and parodied. So, Resurrections uses it once or twice in an almost blasé way. Its attempts to one-up in a climactic moment is kinda interesting, but many other films have been doing it too, and better, for years now.
The wonderful martial arts fights are no longer present. Sure, there is hand to hand fighting, but it is shown in quick cuts with lots of camera motion, so it’s all lost on screen. This is in stark contrast to the wonderful long shots of the original, which clearly showed action and reaction, and didn’t hide the actors so you could clearly see them doing it. Apparently, Keanu Reeves once again did a lot of his own fighting, but you wouldn’t be able to tell just from watching it.
Resurrections goes on to show what has changed in the real world since Neo’s sacrifice at the end of Revelations and to assure him and the audience that, even though things look the same, changes have been made for the better. At this point some new ideas are introduced, such as conflict between the machines themselves. And even some machines who are allied with the humans. It would be nice if the movie explored this idea more.
It was around this point in the movie an actor reprised their role – but in what’s my greatest dislike in film and tv – now in a huge amount of old-age makeup. Sure, what they were saying might have been interesting, but having an actor adopt a cliched old person’s walk and talk is incredibly distracting and never, ever looks good or convincing.
Most of the cast are new characters, with the big standouts being Jessica Henwick as Bugs and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Morpheus (a new program created by Neo). Henwick continues to impress in her body of work and is one of the only newly introduced characters to have any actual character or agency.
Abdul-Mateen is a delight to watch, obviously having a ton of fun in the role. Unfortunately, once his purpose of helping Neo escape this new Matrix is complete the movie mostly loses sight of him and gives him nothing of real note to do.
Many other new characters are just bodies to flesh out scenes. They are not even killed off to show danger or tension, and all make it through just fine.
Jonathan Groff has the most thankless task, as a resurrected program version of Hugo Weaving’s character, Agent Smith. Groff, while a fine actor in his own right, keeps trying to actively imitate Hugo Weaving’s performance, which is in stark contrast to Abdul-Mateen’s complete reinterpretation of Morpheus.
Neil Patrick Harris is perfectly fine as Thomas Anderson’s therapist and can switch to evil program and new big bad, the Analyst, very easily. He gets given an unfortunately long villain monologue laying out all his convoluted plans. While Harris tries gamely to inject it with life, it does feel like it raises more questions than answers.
Resurrections does end in a hopeful manner, very reminiscent of the original’s ending. While it has been left open for future movies with its new cast and status quo, everything Resurrections talks about and shows indicates absolutely no desire to do another one. And it frequently and directly asks the audience why it would want another one.
While watching Resurrections, the movie it most echoed was Star Wars: The Force Awakens. While there have recently been many sequels to long finished franchises, it was Star Wars big return to the cinema that felt the most apt comparison. Both films brought back older characters alongside new ones who felt like expys of other older ones. Both involve a conflict with a technically new enemy (in all respects the same one); end with some very similar climaxes to their earlier films; and promise more stories with a younger cast.
But the biggest point of comparison is where the movies are starkly different. The Force Awakens goes through the motions of A New Hope so thoroughly that some people say it was a remake in the guise of a sequel; at best a loving homage; and at worst an uninspired retread of what came before it.
And while Resurrections does the same thing, it is constantly self-aware about it and calls attention to it so much that it flashes moments of past movies on screen as characters remember and relive it. So much so that when Anderson is once again given a choice between taking a red or blue pill, the same scene from the first film is being projected onto a giant wall for him to watch. Perhaps this complete lack of subtlety is too much for some viewers, but it certainly gets its point across.
In the end, Resurrections feels like a movie that was forced into existence by outside desires and then uses that origin as a premise to tell a short movie exploring whether it should be made or why someone would want to watch it. Once it leaves that short film, it reminds the viewer that you would probably be better off just watching the original again.