Return to a world of two realities: one, everyday life; the other, what lies behind it. To find out if his reality is a construct, to truly know himself, Mr. Anderson will have to choose to follow the white rabbit once more.
While I’m sure this new entry into The Matrix universe will be embraced by some, it will not be accepted by many of the original film’s die-hard fans, myself included. I love The Matrix universe, there are so many untold stories and not just with our heroes, Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus, there are literally billions of people living within its digital construct and billions of stories just waiting to be conveyed. Just to prove my point about how much I love the series, the first movie is now ranked in my top five favorite movies of all time, and that is no easy feat but I remember coming out of the theater back in 1999 after seeing it for the very first time, and with my mind having being blown, all I could think of was … “Whoa!”
The Wachowskis created a new world filled with endless possibilities and after the conclusion of “The Matrix Revolutions” in 2003, with Neo and Trinity both having been killed off, I always felt they should have continued the series on TV, creating new storylines with the door left open for surviving characters, such as Morpheus and Niobe, to make an appearance. While “Revolutions” was my least favorite of the original trilogy, having now seen “Resurrections,” it makes its immediate predecessor more likable and engaging.
“The Matrix Resurrections” takes place in the same world that the previous three outings transpired in and we are introduced to Thomas A. Anderson (Keanu Reeves), a software engineer who works for a video game company in San Francisco. He lives a very mundane life but feels like there is something going on in the world that nobody else but him appears to notice, beneath the surface, and while he yearns for an explanation to help put his mind at ease, and to know he is not going crazy, his emotional state continues to perturb him. When he meets the mysterious Bugs (Jessica Henwick), who claims to be a rebel fighting against The Matrix, Thomas, once again, is faced with a choice: take the blue pill and live in the blissful ignorance of illusion, or take the red pill and embrace the sometimes painful truth of reality.
While director Lana Wachowski (who co-directed the original trilogy with her sister Lilly) manages to deliver a plausible explanation in regards to reestablishing Neo and Trinity, the rest of the film succumbs to the same pretentious ideologies its two predecessors fell victim to, an exorbitant amount of unnecessary expository dialogue and an overabundance of convoluted philosophical narratives that eventually went nowhere. When “The Matrix” was released in 1999, its special effects were groundbreaking for its time, especially the creation of “Bullet Time,” which was used to mind-blowing effect several times throughout the movie. By the time we got to the two lackluster sequels, the Bullet Time effect had pretty much become redundant as it had been used in countless other films in the years since, a lot of them parodying the special effect itself. While “Reloaded” and “Revolutions” did add some nifty CGI to their respective storylines, they never managed to capture the astonishing, jaw-dropping effect of the original film.
Nearly twenty years later, “Resurrections” adds absolutely nothing new to the CGI fold, and we don’t even get an updated version of Bullet Time. The action set-pieces and fight choreography are all outdated and have been used to a greater degree in other better-produced films. We see Neo stop bullets in their tracks, just like he did in the sequels, and he is able to deflect incoming missiles but again, these effects are nothing new and have been utilized more advantageously elsewhere. I was hoping after all this time, the film would employ mind-blowing effects, similar to the original but like its storyline and character development, or lack thereof, they all underwhelm, just like everything else in the movie.
I mention Bullet Time, CGI, and special effects a lot herein, and while story and characters are most important in any film, seeing that this is a Matrix movie, you don’t watch them for their character development, that should automatically progress as the film does, no, you watch a film like this to see Neo and Trinity take advantage of the Matrix itself by turning it against their enemies, and this iteration, we are told, is an updated model, therefore, it would make sense that everything within it would follow suit, but alas, it does not, it feels like the previous incarnations that existed before had more to offer and if I were Neo, I’d be asking for a refund. Naturally, the ending leaves the door wide open for another sequel but here’s hoping this will be the end of the series altogether. “The Matrix Resurrections” fails to deliver the creative inventiveness of its predecessors, specifically the first film, and its characters feel like pale imitations of their original selves. Next time, just take the blue pill!
In Theaters and on HBO Max Wednesday, December 22nd
