The Matrix Resurrections – Review

The Matrix Resurrections – Review

Directed by: Lana Wachowski

Runtime: 148 minutes

It’s fitting that a film like The Matrix Resurrections—the long-rumoured sequel to the groundbreaking film trilogy written and directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski—begins and ends in a simulation. This is, after all, the same franchise that mainstreamed a pop philosophy approach to the Simulation Hypothesis, and firmly cemented the notion of being “red-pilled” into the parlance of our (increasingly troubled) times. It’s also a move already perfected by the Wachowski’s original 1999 film entry, now a much-revered cult classic of sci-fi and action cinema in its own right.

Some might argue then that there’s no harm in entertaining such willful acts of artistic déjà vu. It’s only a little sentimental yearning for the familiar delivered through affectionate gestures to the past. Unless that is, this sensation of the “already seen” becomes an anomaly unto itself; the narrative instantiation of choice pathologized; a fatal cascade of third-order simulacra manifested as late-capitalism’s grotesque funhouse mirror. Ergo, watching The Matrix Resurrections in 2021 feels more akin to a perverse sense of déjà vécu: a glitch in the lived experience of The Matrix as The Matrix; the sudden awareness of a hapless ghost caught in the all-consuming algorithmic machine. But more on that in a second.

Much like its ponderous precursors, Resurrections centres on the exploits of Thomas A. Anderson (Keanu Reeves), aka the hacker Neo, aka “The One.” After an introductory digression, we’re shown that Neo is once more in a simulated dream world. He’s a little older now and mostly confused, wandering through a comfortable fugue state in San Francisco as a famous game designer, where’s he responsible for creating a video game trilogy based on the events of The Matrix film franchise—yes, that’s right, all the way down to the title, characters, and action figures. As to be expected, however, Neo is still the same existentially curious hacker we know and root for, daring to question the validity of this strange un-reality by running “modal loops” of his own “fictional” creations, caught between drunken fits of suicidal ideation and therapy sessions with the unnerving Analyst (Neil Patrick Harris) that end in prescriptions for familiar blue pills, pushing his visions of extraordinary past lives back down into the foggy recesses of his clouded consciousness.

After Neo’s corporate overlords demand a hastily workshopped sequel to his beloved game series, this seemingly idyllic reality begins to crumble in ways that cannot be denied. Neo encounters a woman named Tiffany (Carrie-Anne Moss) at a coffee shop called “Simulatte,” who resembles the Trinity of his game/dreams and shares in his visions of past lives without any true understanding of their meaning. His politely nefarious boss (Jonathan Groff) begins to channel the prickly persona of the once-vanquished Agent Smith, and he has a bloody run-in with a simulated version of Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) that ultimately leads to his rescue and eventual unplugging at the hands of rebel captain Bugs (Jessica Henwick) and her crew of freed-humans. With the dreamer awake once more, Neo must venture back into the Matrix and rescue Tiffany/Trinity before their prophesied love slips away forever.

If all of this sounds aggressively on-the-nose in a very wink-wink, nudge-nudge, achingly metafictional, “Deadpool self-awareness” kind of way, well, that’s because it is. And yet, despite the earnest intentions of writer and solo director Lana Wachowski, alongside co-writers and longtime collaborators David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon, that perception is both the point and the problem with Resurrections.

Rumours of a fourth Matrix film have been floating around Hollywood circles for well over a decade now. And while they both vehemently denied interest in returning to the franchise, the Wachowskis soon found that their position with studio executives at Warner Bros. was gradually becoming tenuous throughout the 2010s, as they faced mixed critical reception and commercial success with their follow-up efforts: Speed Racer (2008), Cloud Atlas (2012), and the box-office flop of Jupiter Ascending (2015). Warner Bros. reportedly pushed forward with a new Matrix instalment without their direct involvement and a finished screenplay from Zak Penn was eventually developed.

It wasn’t until 2019 when Resurrections was officially announced with Lana Wachowski set to direct (sans Lilly this time around) and filming began in early 2020, just in time for the global pandemic which very nearly killed the film altogether. And yet, what’s particularly interesting about these Hollywood tidbits is how they feature directly in the film’s tonally off-kilter first act. In a baffling Kaufman-esque turn, Wachowski has Neo sit through meeting after meeting of eager twenty-somethings at his game company, as they vociferously dissect The Matrix franchise as text and cultural touchstone—“Philosophy! Crypto-fascism! Bullet-time!”—in the desperate hopes of sparking a new story for their much-needed next chapter. It’s a painfully self-referential moment and one where it feels like Wachowski all but throws herself through the fourth wall and onto the screen.

Ultimately, one still wonders what the point of this exercise really is? If it’s to draw attention to our cultural fixation on reboots and rehashing established media products through the entanglement of artistic creativity with late-capitalist imperatives, Resurrections does so in the most brazenly ironic yet narratively toothless way possible. Naked acknowledgement is not a pointed accusation, cheap references are not forms of refutation, and oblique commentary is not sufficient critique.

Say what you will about the original Matrix and its slightly lesser follow-up sequels, Reloaded and Revolutions (2003) respectively, but at least they combined narrative depth with cinematic spectacle. If one wanted to enjoy a purely aesthetic experience, then the VFX display on offer was a marvel of its time with few rivals. If technical skill was the core desire, each film pushed the envelope for action choreography, practical stunt work, and genuinely thrilling directorial choices. And if all that shoot-out nonsense and leather jacket bonanza bored you to tears, there was always weighty cyberpunk lore and dense, philosophically rigorous worldbuilding to push the nerd set into overdrive. It’s incredibly telling then that Resurrections fails to hit even one of these core markers and seems completely non-plussed by its own internal failings.

There’s not one remarkable fight scene in the entire film, and when gunfights or hand-to-hand combat are shown, the camera work is unsure and shaky beyond recognition. It’s clear that Reeves’ late-career success with the John Wick franchise sold Warner Bros. on the idea of more Matrix mayhem, but this version of Neo is a far cry from “The One” who fought off an entire pile of Smiths without breaking a sweat. Larger scale set-pieces also suffer from weird directorial choices, such as the third act finale where a motorcycle chase and the arrival of agent “swarms” occurs in near darkness, making their dispatch feel like the perfunctory headshot reflex of a third-rate zombie flick. The members of Bugs crew are indistinguishable from one another, they suffer no fatal injuries, and the entire thing feels devoid of stakes or narrative tension.

Visually, the film easily meets the standard set by today’s premiere blockbusters (i.e. every multi-million-dollar superhero feature of the last fifteen years). While shots of the new human city Io with its digital replica sky and the inclusion of various cute, anthropomorphized machine sidekicks to the world of freed-human society (known as “synthients”) allow for some CGI razzle-dazzle, there’s nothing as memorable as Neo and Trinity’s elevator lobby murder spree, the Agent Smith boss-fights, or the gritty realism of Zion’s subterranean rave den. Resurrections also relies far too heavily on the use of archival footage from the previous film trilogy, gratuitously inserting scenes into the film’s narrative for cheap dramatic effect, often paired with emotional needle drop cues, with or without complementary character beats. It’s very telling when footage taken from the turn of the millennium looks more compelling and “real” than the product of a modern $200 million budget.

Lastly, the story of Resurrections is entirely superfluous to the grander narrative of the film franchise and, in many ways, severely undercuts the already established film canon. Take, for example, the film’s characters. While the love story between Neo and Trinity drives the main plot, it leaves its peripheral characters with little else to do but move from scene to scene while stuff happens around them. Why go to the lengths of writing in iconic characters like Morpheus and Smith, recast them with fresh faces, and then have them shoved aside for much of the film? Why bring back Jada Pinkett Smith as General Niobe, only to cover her in pounds of make-up and use her for little more than exposition dumps and a few long stares? It truly boggles the mind.

Zooming out then, the presence of a film like Resurrections calls into question everything that came before it. The original film trilogy ended on questions of peace and rebirth, whether the symbiosis between man and machine was possible, and if the connection between reality and the dreamworld of the Matrix might finally unlock what it means to truly be human. As Matt Colquhoun writes in “Real Simulations: Notes on the Matrix Trilogy”:

Are we supposed to believe that the real world is the real world simply because it is the worse of the two? And how does this explain Neo’s emergent ability to use his superhuman powers in the real world as well as the Matrix? If the real world is as much of a simulation as the Matrix is, then isn’t the Matrix just as real as the world in itself? If that’s the case, then what is anyone fighting for?

Resurrections, however, is thoroughly uninterested in exploring or subverting these larger ontological questions. Instead, the anxiety at the heart of the film is rooted in questions of fear and desire, where memory can be weaponised and exploited. When The Analyst finally has his big villain moment, he expounds about the frailty of human weakness, how all that was really needed was a way to maximise fear and desire in the system, and humans-as-batteries began to produce more energy for their machine overlords. It’s also not an accident that this speech is couched in the language of corporate bureaucracy and edgy meme slogans, with talk of “productivity” and “efficiency” mixed in with jabs about “feelings” over “facts” and humans as literal “sheeple.”

And truthfully, it’s this transformation of a dangerous enemy known for violence, ruthless force and cold rationality into a snivelling, office space, middle management dork with soy banter quips that truly represents the nadir of Resurrections. The film’s resolution feels like a speed run of Terminator Genisys with the heist shenanigans of a cosplaying Ocean’s 11 (or, if you will, Terminator Genisynthient and Ocean’s 001011). But, if the hogs want their slop, then slop they shall get. As Morpheus utters to Neo during their first meeting: “Nothing comforts anxiety like a little nostalgia.”

In The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006), Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek declares that “Cinema is the art of appearances, tells us something about reality itself. It tells us something about how reality constitutes itself.” Viewed this way, impressions of Resurrections are sure to be as polarizing and multi-valent as the waking world we find ourselves in, the tiresome product of our own hastily workshopped, consumer curated modal loops.

For some, it will be the audacious, big-swing love story Lana Wachowski so earnestly intended it to be and that will be enough. For others, it will be a winking indictment on our culture’s rapacious appetite for endless iterations of recycled IP as ideological comfort food, shameless profit motive, and the Marvel-fication of cinema. And, for a select few—this reviewer included—it will remain an object of beguiling indifference. A stain on the legacy of a once-cherished, era-defining spectacle reduced to mere artifice and a collection of empty signs, where any richer subtext has been insidiously flattened into pure text.

As Bugs remarks in the film’s early moments: “So déjà vu, and yet it’s obviously all wrong. Maybe this isn’t the story we think it is.” Truthfully, that may be the case. Or perhaps it is that story. In the end, the most damning thing one can say about Resurrections is that it exists at all.