“The Matrix Resurrections” (2021) is the fourth installment in the franchise. It starts sixty years after the events of the last movie. Bugs (Iron Fist’s and Game of Thrones’ Jessica Henwick) stumbles on a scene familiar to fans of the first movie, but it is also different in fundamental ways. Is it a draft of Thomas Anderson’s video game or proof that there is still a Matrix imprisoning people and a real world? Or is it proof that Neo (Keanu Reeves) is still alive even though he and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) died heroes?
If you want to enjoy “The Matrix Resurrections,” it is probably best if you watched “The Matrix” (1999), “The Matrix Reloaded” (2003), and “The Matrix Revolutions” (2003) in theaters when they originally came out and never revisited them before seeing this film so the details are hazy, and you can just go with it without getting frustrated over details. If you come too prepared, I could imagine having a “Lost” series finale experience where you are frustrated that the creators are patronizing you that it is really about the relationships when you were invested in the story and were just left hanging. I gave up on the story eighteen years ago when they ruined Reeves’ face in the third movie. First rule of filmmaking: don’t draw audiences in with a pretty face then ruin it at the eleventh hour. Not all of us have infinite patience for college philosophizing with our action.
My bar is low. “The Matrix Resurrections” gives us the face again, and it does not matter if Thomas Anderson/Neo is bald and clean-shaven or looks like John Wick, I am here for it, and my patience is back. I was willing to extend “Avengers: Endgame” (2019) levels of suspension of disbelief with every plot twist, and not going to look too closely at the plausibility. Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and Smith (Hamilton’s King George, Jonathan Groff) are back and appear differently. Cool, makes sense. Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith), a black woman, aged as if she was Mother Abigail in “The Stand,” but Neo and Trinity are fresh as daisies in any incarnation. Absolutely. What are the new rules of the Matrix? How come we can see the operator of a ship in the Matrix? Because we can. Did it matter when it should have? No! So who cares? Stop quibbling. If your bar is not as low as mine, then you may have issues, but the new Big Bad, recasting characters and changing the rules are fine because for me, the old ones stopped working and left me angry, so I am not loyal.
“The Matrix Resurrections” embraces a meta perspective about the sequel by making Anderson into a famous video game developer who made a video game trilogy with the film trilogy as video games. Anderson becomes a proxy for the Wachowskis. Fans of Anderson’s work or history buffs who admire Neo act as audience surrogates who loved the films. Regardless of which side they are on, this choice makes the new characters endearing. Seeing Anderson struggle with people fangirling over his trauma just increases our empathy for Anderson/Neo. If The Matrix trilogy was fun, this recent installment feels more autobiographical for Reeves and Lana Wachowski as creators who pour their souls into art and watch it become commercialized.
I normally hate the way that Hollywood demonizes prescription medicine to address mental health struggles and encourages viewers to think of the person as different and special, but “The Matrix Resurrections” does not oversimplify it. Even without the mental health struggle, Anderson/Neo are destroyed after the high of success and revolution. In addition, Anderson/Neo experience trauma and do not easily recover it from it. They are incapable of returning to their old self. They will never be as good as their old self. I have not seen a Hollywood movie grapple with these concepts as well as “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” People do not just shake off death or trauma. They are forever changed. Similarly though counterintuitively, success is a curse. Anderson/Neo feel inadequate to their past legendary selves, and they do not measure up. Instead they are stuck in a horrible routine, dissatisfied and alone.
Reeves’ take on Anderson is universally relatable even though he plays a famous and successful developer. He plays a man that got defeated by the numbness of daily life. in “The Matrix Resurrections” feels like it is speaking to its now aging fan base. There is no better way to explain the inertia of age and settling into a less than ideal routine, “Quietly yearning for what you don’t have, while dreading losing what you do. Desire and fear.” Paralysis and inaction are not just features of life in the Matrix, but life for the resistance. Doesn’t this sound like life during the pandemic? “The worse we treat you, the more we manipulate you, the more energy you produce. It’s nuts. I’ve been setting productivity records every year since I took over. And the best part, zero resistance.”
If “The Matrix Resurrections” works, the goal is simple. We want Anderson/Neo to emerge from his funk, to find love, to be happy inside or outside the Matrix. We do not need him to be a savior for humanity. By saving himself, he saves us. “It is so much simpler to bury reality than it is to dispose of dreams.” We want him to find himself, hope. We want him to stop his soul from dying. And he does that by reconnecting with
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
Trinity. So Trinity’s story is the nightmare of normalcy, and I love that American movies seem to be exploring how domesticity, especially motherhood, destroys identity instead of an idealized role or fulfillment. Chad Stahelski, who plays her Matrix husband, was the stunt double for Neo in The Matrix, so she is still married to Neo, but the best-case scenario is the nightmare version of a happy ending for Trinity and Neo where they turn into quotidian versions of themselves, and the worst-case scenario is rape, forced impregnation and daily life as a helpless hostage. She says, “How do you know if you want something yourself or if your upbringing programmed you to want it?” Her Matrix story is the usual damsel in distress, but out of nowhere, a facet of her true self remains—motorcycles. Her family ridicule the idea that she could ever be considered desirable and dangerous. They do everything in their power, including endanger themselves, to divert her focus from herself and onto them because they can sense that if she compares life with them and other possibilities, they will not win. “The Matrix Resurrections” and “The Lost Daughter” (2021) have a lot in common, “you better take your hands off of me.”
“The Matrix Resurrections” feels like an apology to fans of the original who took issue with the fact that Neo, not Trinity, was The One when Trinity seemed to be a better choice. Why does Trinity get to fly instead of Neo? Two trans sisters directed The Matrix Trilogy when they presented as men. Now that the Wachowskis sisters present as they are, did that help Lana embrace Trinity in a way that she could not imagine before? Also Neo reciprocates for Trinity in this movie what Trinity did for Neo in the trilogy. This movie may be the mirror image of the trilogy, and I adore the idea that together, they are explosive, but it is her turn to take the lead.
The Exiles did not make sense to me and felt like the equivalent of old men screaming, “Get off my lawn.” Perhaps surrogates for the filmmaker to complain about the state of cinema. Abdul-Mateen and Groff’s acting skills sell their roles more than the story. The bots are just zombies, which I am fine with, but is so prepandemic and overdone. Unexpectedly I was less into the action scenes than the story.
If I must give a side-eye, tell me in what world are old black women not the ones saving the world instead of reactionaries. I did love that Niobe was giving me General Leia Organa.
I may rewatch the trilogy and “The Matrix Resurrections,” then write another review when I can feel more critical. I enjoyed “The Matrix Resurrections” more than the other sequels, but it does not touch the hem of the original’s garment. I would watch the Catrix.