The Matrix Resurrections Review

It has been 18 years since The Matrix trilogy concluded. The franchise has been resurrected for a fourth entry despite the trilogy’s conclusive end.

Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is a successful video game designer in San Francisco. His most successful game is ‘The Matrix Trilogy.’ But Thomas suffers from visions and dreams from the games and his therapist (Neil Patrick Harris) gives him blue pills to help Thomas keep his sense of reality. However, Thomas gets visitors who tell him his dreams are real and attempt to wake him from the new iteration of The Matrix.

The Matrix is one of my favourite films. It was a perfect mix of action, special effects, characters, and philosophical ideas and told in a traditional hero’s journey narrative. It was the film that made The Wachowskis’ name as A-list filmmakers, brought Hugo Weaving to an international audience, and gave the world bullet time. It was a film that mixed Western and Eastern ideas and style of action to great effect.

The Matrix spawn two sequels, a series of anime shorts, and a few video games. The third film seemed to end the series because Neo and Trinity died, Smith was defeated, The Matrix was rebooted, and Humans and the Machines were at peace. So, I was worried that The Matrix Resurrections would be a forced film, especially with the reappearance of Neo and Trinity. However, the final lines by The Architect and Oracle in Revolutions did leave the door open a tiny bit to justify a continuation.

Hollywood has a history of not letting a franchise lay to rest. Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Bourne were great trilogy that Hollywood has rammed into the ground. Pop culture has been going through a nostalgia boom with franchises banking on their past. Plus, The Wachowskis were in desperate need of a hit because their directional efforts since The Matrix Revolutions have bombed at the box office, and Speed Racer and Jupiter Ascending were disliked by audiences and critics.

The Matrix Resurrections was self-referential and meta. Resurrections opened just like The Matrix with a phone and the character of Bugs (Jessica Henwick) viewing Trinity being chased by the agents. Specific moments were copied like the arrival of The Agents, but the events were distorted. It sets up one of the key themes of this film and the franchise as a whole: the cyclical nature of The Matrix. But the drawback of this opening felt similar to Terminator: Genisys which tried to recreate and recontextualise key scenes from its franchise.

In the original trilogy it was revealed that there have been mentions that there were previous versions of The Matrix. When integrating Morpheus, Agent Smith said the original Matrix was made as a utopia, but humanity rejected it and in Reloaded The Architect told Neo there were previous versions of The Matrix and he used the anomaly of The One as a method of control. Resurrections showed this cycle continue. The fourth film replicated scenes from the trilogy, partly to awaken characters from the new Matrix, other times just to show events repeating themselves.

The Matrix Resurrections set out its meta-commentary early on. An early scene in the film was Thomas’ boss (Jonathan Groff) said Warner Brothers demanded a sequel to The Matrix and they were going to do it with or without the original creators. A self-referential moment was when a brain squad was formed to dissect why The Matrix trilogy was loved, from its originality, the themes and philosophy, and the awesome action sequences. This was when The Matrix Resurrections was at its most frustrating because Lana Wachowski and the writers were thinking they were really clever, but it came across that the creatives were getting high sniffing their own farts.

This self-referential approach also appeared when a character from the original trilogy reappeared. This character ranted about the lack of originality and the constant need for sequels and reboots. This moment should have been really annoying but the actor made it hilarious because of his over-the-top performance.

Despite Resurrections’ self-referential nature it was still a reset that undermined the original trilogy. It was like the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Return of the Jedi showed the Emperor being defeated, the Republic being restored and Anakin Skywalker being redeemed. But The Force Awakens was pretty much a remake of A New Hope which showed a new oppressive organisation in control of the universe.

At best Resurrections could be compared to The Legend of Korra, the sequel series to Avatar: The Last Airbender. The Legend of Korra was set 70 years after the events of Avatar: The Last Airbender which saw big changes to that world, like politics and technology. Resurrections saw advancements in technology and one of the most interesting ideas the film introduced was a conflict between the Machines. However, this idea was fleeting.

The Matrix franchise has always been one that flashes its themes. There were religious themes, ideas about free will, destiny and control, constant equilibrium, and so much more. The Matrix Resurrections carried on with the ideas of free will and destiny. Many of the characters were given the option of the red and blue pills, but it’s often stated that the person who gets offered the choice already knows the answer.

Another recurring theme in the franchise was love. In The Matrix Trinity realised Neo was The One because she was in love with a dead man, Neo broke The Architect’s system in Reloaded because he chose to save Trinity instead of Zion, and Trinity was willing to go on a rampage in Revolutions to save Neo from Mobil.

Love remained a theme because there was an unspoken connection between Thomas and Tiffany (Carrie-Anne Moss) when they meet and when Neo’s out of The Matrix he wanted to free Trinity because of his love. Their love changed the paradigm of The Matrix in extraordinary ways.

Psychology was a major theme of Resurrections. Thomas’ therapist constantly told Thomas that his dreams and visions were just an illusion. The therapist was keeping Thomas tied to The Matrix through his conversations and medicated with blue pills. It was like the film was written by a Scientologist who was exposing the evils of psychiatry. The use of pills as a method of control gave me flashbacks to Equilibrium. The original Matrix was based on equations and Eastern philosophy, the new Matrix was based on emotion and the people who plugged into it were more connected to the program.

Resurrection saw notable changes to the cast and crew. Only one of the Wachowskis directed this film and she worked with the novelists David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon on the screenplay. New crew members took over roles like camera, editing, and action choreography. And these changes were noticeable. A lot of the original trilogy’s personality came from the work of Bill Pope, Don Davis, and Yuen Woo-ping as well as the Wachowskis. They were a dream team.

The grimy world of The Matrix was replaced with a more sunlit look. This was understandable because it was a new version of the Matrix and John Toll and Daniele Massaccesi are talented cinematographers in their own right. But they did look like they were trying to replicate their work on Jupiter Ascending.

The big let-down was the action. There were no standout action sequences like there were in the original trilogy. The Matrix had the lobby shootout and the fight between Neo and Smith, Reloaded had the freeway chase, and Revolutions highlight was the Battle of Zion. Resurrections’ action was limp in comparison. There were no big martial arts fights, car chases, or shootouts like in the trilogy. The most interesting idea introduced in Resurrections was swarming which made the action in the climax more like a zombie film. The best sequence was when Trinity and Neo were avoiding the swarm when driving around San Francisco.

The Matrix Resurrections was sadly a case of needless continuation. It undermined the conclusion of Revolutions and despite the meta-commentary it was a rehash. It took a while for me to appreciate Revolutions so I might like Resurrections more on a revisit, but as a first impression it underwhelmed.