The Matrix Resurrections - Review

 

If recent reports are to be believed, apparently a fourth Matrix film was going to happen with or without the involvement of any of the Wachowski’s. Given the Keanu-ssance that’s currently going on and the resurgence of many big name sci-fi franchises like “Blade Runner” and “Dune,” it seems like an obvious fit to bring back the neon-green computer world of the Matrix.

Yet, make no mistake, “The Matrix Resurrections” is not a reboot, and while it is a sequel, it has absolutely zero interest in playing nice with the typical nostalgic dreams most have when their favorite franchises return after years of slumber. A film like “Jurassic World” is the absolute antithesis to what “Resurrections” brings to the table, and it's clear that this is not a film for everyone, nor is it concerned with pleasing anyone but itself.

Picking up sixty years after the events of “Revolutions,” “Resurrections” has a lot going on. There are time loops, new characters, old characters, dreams, and visions, and therapy, and it would be a disservice to spoil what’s going on here in a review summary. Let’s just use a line from the film’s opening, “why use old code to make something new?” and leave it at that.

Because that one line speaks to not just the way co-writer/director Lana Wachowski (“Speed Racer,” “Sense8”) has approached returning to her and her sister’s original series, but how she and her co-writers, novelists David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon, view these homogenized years later studio sequels as a whole. It’s easy to get the impression that “Resurrections” hates that it has to exist, but that if it's going to exist, it's going to be in the most bizarre and original way it possibly can.

General audiences will likely be appalled by what they’re watching. Not that the film is grotesque or upsetting, but that it is so clearly and apparently putting a middle finger up at everything that they likely either expected or wanted from a Matrix sequel this long in the making. If a film like “No Way Home” thrives off of bringing back beloved characters and celebrating a character, “Resurrections” takes any potential of that and crushes it with its leather boot heel.

Its all both extremely subtle and not subtle at all. For better or worse Wachowski is taking as much budget and time as this opportunity allows her to make the biggest, messiest, and more sincerely honest film she possibly can. Those trans allegories that were in the first film? They’re on big full gay display here. The love story between Neo and Trinity that the first trilogy had in the background? It’s the lifeblood, nay the fuel that carries along this entire film.

Keanu Reeves (“Bill and Ted Face the Music,” “John Wick”) still shows that he knows how to bring his bizarre mixture of action movie badassery and sincere sweet guy charm to great effect. Carrie-Anne Moss (“Memento,” “Jessica Jones”) matches Reeves’s excellence, and the pair have chemistry and charm that hasn’t aged a day. Of the new cast members, all are fantastic, with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (“Candyman (2021),” “The Trial of the Chicago 7”) and Jessica Henwick (“Iron Fist,” “Blade Runner: Black Lotus”) completely stealing the show. Abdul-Mateen II plays his new Morpheus with a big toothed grin and layer of charm and flamboyance that’s a delight to see, and Henwick’s Bugs proves to be an instant fan favorite, both embodying the pure badass energy the series has always had and as a surrogate for the young fans raised on the Wachowski’s action packed and empathetic works.

Yet, not enough can be said about Jonathan Groff (“Mindhunter,” “Hamilton”) and Neil Patrick Harris’s (“How I Met Your Mother,” “Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog”) performances. The pair are positively electric, committing to the admittedly insane world of sci-fi seriousness that this franchise exists in. For all its grand talking points about philosophy and media and identity, “The Matrix” is still inherently silly, and Groff and Patrick Harris know this and use it to their full advantage. While this cast does a lot to bring these characters to life, it helps that Wachowski has such a clear love for this world and characters that she helped create two decades ago. This is not a film by a work-for-hire director, this is clearly the mother of these characters putting her soul into their portrayals, with love and empathy for everything that happens to them.

A great way to think of what “Resurrections” is, not just in this series but in the film making landscape as a whole, is that it lacks that big innovative thing that each of the previous “Matrix” films had. There is no bullet-time equivalent here, no grand use of technology to change the game. The fact that there isn’t, or that people will expect there to be, is even brought up and lampooned to great effect throughout the movie. Even the end credits scene wants to disparage the name of end credit scenes. Yet, don’t hear this and think of a Deadpool kind of snark, poking fun at media tropes whilst embracing them. This is a movie that wants to burn it all to the ground on its own terms, making no concessions for studio executives or decade long fans. After all, Warner Bros., the real company and not some weird pseudo stand in, exists within this film and not in a shiny nice way à la “Space Jam: A New Legacy.”

This is, after all, a grand romance focusing on two middle aged action stars disguised as “the next chapter” in a big budget series. What Lana Wachowski has made here is a film that must be seen to be believed and will likely be hated by a large majority of those who do see it. Maybe that was the point, to use this new film as a weapon of self-sabotage? That’s a pretty cynical way to look at it, and Lana is clearly far smarter than that. It’s a movie that uses the frustration that it has to exist to tell its story. It asks why, if it must exist, does it have to exist in this way. Why can’t it be brighter and bolder and bizarrer?

Whereas most other series will return with cold and calculated films that seek to simply churn out merchandise (and I say this as someone who has seen “No Way Home” four times and has loved it), “Resurrections” is an entirely different beast. It dares to be something human, something unapologetic. It’s packed with great performances and takes everything that ran under the surface of the original films and makes it unapologetically integral to its DNA. Even if you hate it, the best and clearest thing about “Resurrections” is that it was made by an artist with a goal in mind and no one to please but herself. 4.5/5