That’s not to say the sequel is simply “The Matrix Recycled” - although the title is every bit as apt as the more biblical-sounding one they went with, teasing (but never directly addressing) the messianic dimension of Neo’s earlier arc. “The Matrix” may have made 1982’s “Tron” look primitive by comparison, but even that franchise has evolved, leaving this one in the dust. It would’ve been much edgier to present Reeves as an aging incel with receding hair and a dandruff-speckled turtleneck - or better yet, as a self-deprecating version of himself, like the one he played in Netflix rom-com “Always Be My Maybe.” Storytelling has evolved by quantum leaps since 1999, and as futuristic as the “Matrix” franchise once felt, it all seems rather quaint today, what with the advent of “reality TV” (consider Paris Hilton’s recent claim that she’s been playing a character all along) and such ontological series as “The Good Place” and “The OA” (the latter ended with the characters crossing into a new dimension, where they’re all actors on the show we’ve been watching). Neo has reverted to his Thomas Anderson identity, only now, he’s head designer for WB-owned game company Deus Machina and described as a “balding nerd,” though it’s still Keanu that audiences see, sporting rock-star bangs and a surfer-guru beard. So what are you doing chained to whatever career/family/hobby numbs you to what really matters? Like fanboy audiences - who passively watch heroes disrupt the system, watching, rather than participating in, social reform - the humans in this latest simulation stay blind. It’s been more than two decades since “The Matrix” issued the wake-up call. The difference, compared with “Matrix 1.0”: The “sheeple” in the movie’s brave new world have that potentially liberating information, and still they choose to sleepwalk through their lives. In short, Wachowski doesn’t add much to the rich mythology she and sister Lilly have established, but she’s careful not to mess it up either.īy reviving Neo ( Keanu Reeves), Trinity ( Carrie-Anne Moss) and a handful of other key characters (some, like Agent Smith and Morpheus, requiring new actors to step in), “Resurrections” tethers its latest iteration to the “simulation hypothesis” - the theory, given oxygen by Elon Musk, that video game technology is advancing at such a clip that odds are good you’re already living in one. Rather, “Resurrections” takes comfort in the familiar, fleshing out the emotional core of a world that always felt a little hollow. Where those films set out to break sound barriers in our brains - the way “bullet time,” the highway sequence and Neo’s final battle against an apparently infinite number of Agents Smith did - this one largely eschews innovation. Sadly, that’s about as wild and/or meta as “The Matrix Resurrections” gets, while the rest could fairly be described as more of the same: more time- and gravity-defying action, more Goth-geek fashion pointers, more “free your mind” mumbo-jumbo.Įssentially a greatest hits concert and a cover version rolled into one (complete with flashback clips to high points from past installments), the new movie is slick but considerably less ambitious in scope than the two previous sequels. Well, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, or so director Lana Wachowski seems to be telling us, slyly stepping back from the dazzling infinity mirror presented in the earlier films to reveal one more layer: the real world in which we the audience reside. “Our beloved parent company, Warner Bros., has decided they will make a sequel to the trilogy,” one says, explaining that the studio is planning to do it “with or without” the creators. In said scene, employees of a San Francisco video game company sit around a corporate conference table, brainstorming how to build upon the Matrix saga. That explains a clever moment of self-awareness early in “ The Matrix Resurrections,” a welcome but undeniably extraneous fourth installment - more of a patch than an upgrade on the franchise that came before, reframing déjà vu not as a bug but as a feature of the brand. Let’s not forget: By the end of the trilogy, Trinity died, Neo sacrificed himself and the humans were freed from their virtual shackles, which means anyone hoping to continue that story had their work cut out for them. has dreamed of making another “Matrix” movie, but the Wachowski siblings - architects of a cyberpunk classic whose appeal rests largely on bending rules and questioning authority - resisted the pressure, insisting they’d said everything they wanted to with the original three films.
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