"The Matrix Resurrections" review — Lana Wachowski's personal, thoughtful legacy sequel
“After all these years, to be going back to where it started . . . back to the Matrix.”
This film is featured in my Best Films of 2021 list.
It’s hard to put into words the cultural phenomena that was the original Matrix film. The Matrix, directed by sisters Lana and Lilly Wachowski, arrived in early 1999 to an unsuspecting world built on an ambiguous marketing campaign. The visual effects were revolutionary, the action, borrowing from a lot of Asian filmmaking, was unprecedented in the west, and the iconic leather trenchcoats were the height of fashion. The Matrix remains a true masterpiece of both action and sci-fi filmmaking. The series has been in stasis since the release of back-to-back sequels Reloaded and Revolutions in 2003 that concluded the saga of Neo, his love interest Trinity, and mentor Morpheus with neither of the Wachowskis expressing a desire to return to the story.
And now, eighteen years later after the trilogy came to a close, Mr. Anderson is back in the Matrix.
Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is a big-shot video game designer working for Warner Bros. famous for his Matrix video game trilogy. When he receives news that the studio is going ahead with Matrix 4 with or without Anderson’s involvement (most certainly not based on true events), Anderson reluctantly agrees to the project but is soon haunted by dreams and hallucinations of his fictional world. His therapist (Neil Patrick Harris) says it’s the result of mental illness, an overactive imagination, and Thomas’ connection to his famous story — it’s apparent to everyone who knows him that The Matrix takes more than a few inspirations from Anderson’s real life. The phantom memories of his days as Neo are the result of a mind that’s rapidly imploding.
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| Carrie-Anne Moss and Keanu Reeves in The Matrix Resurrections. © 2021 Warner Bros. |
The Matrix Resurrections, directed by Lana sans Lilly, begins right back where the original began: the falling green text, the two mysterious voices over the phone, a hotel late at night, a woman in black, and Agent Smith. However, things are different now. There’s a woman in black, but she’s not Trinity. There’s a new Agent Smith. The man and the woman on the phone are new faces watching the action from afar. Resurrections, the “legacy sequel” to the original trilogy, is based on the audience’s familiarity with and nostalgia for the original story. It recuts old beats and familiar characters but makes changes to the film’s world that highlight that this isn’t the same Matrix that we once knew. The green-tinted colouring is replaced by highly saturated, brightly coloured images.
Even Neo is a remix and reinvention of his original self. Gone is the ambiguity of place of employment: he works for Warner Bros. now. Gone is the ambiguity of where he lives: the vaguely 20th century America is exchanged for San Francisco. Gone is the dingy apartment: now he lives in a spacious apartment with large windows. Neo has a beard and long, shaggy hair.
Resurrections lives and breathes the original films. It features intercut flashbacks to previous events and dialogue lifted from the original. The film knows what it’s doing and makes it clear that these moments serve as a narrative point. This new Matrix developed by the Analyst, the successor to the Architect, is clever as it cannibalizes reality into something artificial to sedate Anderson into a state of unease. But Anderson’s hallucinations only become stronger and he is once again presented with the familiar red pill and a chance to see “just how far the rabbit hole goes.”
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| Neo in the real world. © Warner Bros. |
Resurrections is a case of déjà vu. It’s a reboot of itself with echoes of the past resounding throughout the runtime. Morpheus (once played by Laurence Fishburne and now by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) says that déjà vu is experienced when “they” change something. It’s a sign of danger. Everything Neo experiences feels like déjà vu. Are they changing everything? The film comes from Lana Wachowski’s reservations about doing a fourth Matrix installment. The Wachowskis have a career defined by original stories and were both hesitant to return to The Matrix because they didn’t want to be a part of the endless train of sequels and reboots. In its meta-narrative that pulls heavily from Wachowski’s real-life experience, Resurrections is about these same reservations.
But the film does not resign itself to a cynical rejection of its former glory but loves where it comes from. Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss return as Neo and Trinity despite being both presumed dead at the finale of Revolutions. The two, now both along in years, are the film’s connection to the past and their romance is the heart and soul of the story. Perhaps the “love saves all” ethos of the film may be too trite for some, but this love grounds the film in something tactile. The return of Neo and Trinity comes from a place of grief in Wachowski’s life. It’s her form of grieving through the most famous characters she and her sister ever created. The film is as much about being critical of nostalgia as it is about reconnecting with the past that defined you all the while being pushed into the future.
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| Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in The Matrix Resurrections. © Warner Bros. |
The future is made flesh through a wonderful cast of new faces in the Matrix-verse. Jessica Henwick is energetic and exciting as the punkish, blue-haired Bugs. Neil Patrick Harris’ smug Analyst is a sick, villainous joy in every scene. Jonathan Groff and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II join the cast as another example of remixed characters from the previous films. Groff picks up from the legacy of Hugo Weaving as a reskinned version of Agent Smith. Perhaps only an echo of Agent Smith. Groff’s version of the familiar character is radically different from Weaving but just as enjoyable. Abdul-Mateen is a younger, rebooted version of Morpheus whose multicoloured, eccentric suits might just be the best part of the film’s already phenomenal wardrobe.
Resurrections shouldn’t be the film that it is, but it’s made all the better by it. It’s goofy and clunky, but none of that seems to matter in the grand scope of things. It’s fiercely political as Wachowski aims to take back the misused “red pill.” The sequel is refreshingly self-aware but uses that position not just to mock itself, but to say something interesting about its own existence. It’s a beautiful epilogue to the films that have come before. It’s the final will and testament on behalf of the Matrix and the war between man and machine.
Most of all, Resurrections is a therapy session expertly penned by Wachowski and her co-writers David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon. It’s a work of love and it’s a work of grief. It’s a fiercely personal blockbuster as Wachowski brings her thoughts and feelings into the film. “It’s what artists do,” says the Analyst. The Matrix Resurrections is a massive gamble and it pays off. It’s not what most will expect from a Matrix outing — something that, I think, will turn many off from the film — but it is the sequel that the series and the characters deserve.
Score: 4.5
The Matrix Resurrections is now playing in theatres.
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