Matrix: Resurrections
A movie that fundamentally comes off as bland, derivative and boring; all the more cutting given the inventive, cutting and wildly strong start.
Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is a famous game designer, working for his boss Smith (Jonathan Groff). Fame and success don’t seem to be enough for him though; he can’t shake the belief that the trio of games he is most known for, a series called The Matrix, isn’t actually something he made up but rather something he remembers. This despite his Analyst (Neil Patrick Harris) trying to convince him that he is having a psychotic break, and needs to take prescription medication - blue pills - to stay sane. Then you add the coffee shop mum Tiffany (Carrie-Anne Moss), who Thomas feels like he knows somehow. All this ‘peace’ is disrupted when a version of Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) appears to Thomas, alongside the blue haired visitor Bugs (Jessica Henwick), to convince him to leave the constructs of this reality and once again take up the mantle of The One; Neo.
The first Matrix movie is a bonafide, no two ways about it classic. Even rewatching it today, it holds up incredibly well. Largely, this can come down to two things; the truly original premise and story, and the incredible practical action. The second and third movies in the original trilogy fare less well on repeat (or even original) viewings. The combination of bloated story, impregnable preachy dialogue and an overreliance on fledgling, now outdated, CGI causes one undeniable conclusion; those second and third movies, unlike the first, just aren’t cool.
This new remake/retread/reimagining/reboot of the franchise crams the overall feel of those three films into the three acts of its own self; an incredibly strong first act, followed by two bland, middling ones.
Let’s focus on the first act of this new film, Matrix Resurrections. Director Lana Wachowski seems to pour all her heart and soul into eviscerating the cinema-making machine in the first third of the film. She sets Neo up as a man who is at the whim, once again, of forces beyond his control. In a pointed jab at Warner Bros, who insisted on making a Matrix sequel despite her unwillingness to do so, she has Neo and Smith call out that same company in their world. The first act is so meta, and so biting, it feels incredibly fresh and new.
Visually, this first section is also stunning. Wachowski blends the old with the new, working grabs from the original trilogy into this piece to tremendous and disorienting effect. It works so well, that you almost start to feel like Neo himself; disoriented, and not sure what to think. Couple that with Bugs and the new Morpheus, both of whom are incredibly cool, and a number of little fun things like the Analyst’s cat being named Deja Vu, and you start to get really excited about the film; if it is starting so strong, surely it can only get better from here?
Alas, that is not the case. Once Neo breaks free of this new Matrix, and the plot starts in earnest as he tries to free Trinity, the movie goes wildly and boringly off the rails. Or perhaps more accurately, given how crazy the first act is, the movie goes back on to the rails of predictability.
Instead of something new and fresh, the final two thirds of the movie deliver us bland, nondescript action that barely rivals a straight to Netflix film in the modern era, let alone the genre and physics defying content of the first film. This is coupled with a relatively disinteresting, seen before plot that plays out in the most predictable of ways. While the first third is full of fun callbacks, the callbacks in the back two thirds feel morose, disinteresting and forced; a hobbling around, aged Niobe (Jada Pinkett-Smith), a statue of the OG Morpheus, and the like. Couple that with a droning expositional performance from Priyanka Chopra Jones, and Neo never really getting a heroic finale, and the final act of this film becomes nearly unwatchably bland.
The only thing that helps ease this bitter pill is the strength of the first act, and in the final act the performance of Jonathan Groff as the new Agent Smith. Groff brings a real energy and vivacity to his character, and it feels electrically new in a finale that too often makes us feel like we are in the Matrix, watching a black cat pass the doorway a second time; or in our case, watching the failures of the previous two films repeat.
