We Agree: The Matrix Resurrections

2021, Lana Wachowski (Cloud Atlas) -- download

This blog is weird. It is supposed to be where I write about movies, to elicit my love for movies, especially the movies I luuuuv. And yet, much is bemoaning about not seeing movies as much as I used to, and also how I don't watch movies the way I used to. Gone are the days when I would see every movie in the cinema. And my cinema days were pretty much gone pre-COVID. 

This preamble (ramble) factors in two things: Kent and I had originally intended on seeing this together in the cinema, but Wave 93265 of COVID came along as dashed that idea. But also, I have never written about my love of The Matrix ?!? Seriously, how I have not at least written a ReWatch of the first movie? Let me note that, so I can do an entire series writeup like Ken'ts. 

Ahem. I was unaware of the pressure the Wachowskis were under, to produce another entry in the series; considering the trilogy did sum things up nicely, by having the main characters Neo and Trinity die; I can see why the Wachowskis would balk at the idea. When I heard the chatter about a new movie coming out, I was hoping for a proper reboot of the series, something that would be almost entirely new, without having to rely on all the storylines and characters that came before, maybe even dispensing with the look & feel -- the pseudo-darkwave styles of the late-90s / early-00s are not really with us any longer. Instead we got something more akin to ... what does Kent call them ... a legasequel. This movie literally does pick up after the first three, sitting strongly as a fourth entry, which I guess the Wachowskis were never interested in making. But rather than letting someone butcher their legacy, they had another go at it. Or at least Lana did.

And yes, despite the animosity with which they must have approached the making of this movie, they actually did do something new(ish) with it. As Kent said, there is a lot of subtext in this movie. A LOT. Much of it is commentary on the pop culture sign posts that the original movies created: cool factor, leather coats, sun glasses, bullet time and the eponymous red pill vs blue pill -- free will & choice. Dealing with what Red Pill has come to represent must have been a challenge, but with one line they both dismiss what it means and embrace the truth behind it. For most, there never really is a choice, and the pill just represents actualizing that.

The Matric Resurrections begins with a proper amount of time having passed. More than proper, we learn. Sure, Neo negotiated a truce with the Machine World which should have led to peace between the humans and machines, but we both know that wouldn't work. And also, it couldn't have worked, or we wouldn't be here with a new movie.

The preamble, the prologue, is short and sweet and chock full of nostalgia. Our guide to this new world is Bugs (Jessica Henwick, Iron Fist), "as in Bunny, as in tech that listens", and she is poking around in what we learn is a "modal", a confined "space" inside The Matrix, connected the Matrix but separate... and something weird is going on, something that involves a recreation of the original opening sequence to the first movie, with Trinity and her cat suit, but with one addition -- an Agent who seems to know more than he should, who seems more aware than he should.

And then Act 1; I just love Act 1. The Matrix, the City, a gaming company called Ex Machina, in which a lead programmer / game designer named Thomas Anderson works. Twenty years prior, he and his business partner produced a game trilogy called The Matrix. At the height of his fame, Anderson tried to walk off the top of a building, having lost touch with the reality between the game he created and the world he lives in. And he is still struggling.

This act is where the bulk of the subtext comes into play, from the meta commentary of The Matrix being a game inside the Matrix, which was visually the movies, to the lost, lonely stuck in the rat race, stuck on a tread mill Mr. Anderson, who has more than regular visits to his Analyst (Neil Patrick Harris, Doogie Hauser), a man wearing blue eye glasses, and a blue sweater and supplying Thomas with all of his blue pills. Meanwhile Smith, Anderson's business partner has told him that their parent company, Warner Bros, will do The Matrix sequel game with, or without him. And so the game design company begins the (looping) brainstorming tables on how they will go about bringing the next chapter in a story that was supposed to have ended. Subtle, huh?

But even amidst all this sledgehammer heavy, loud as fuck "sub" text, there are hints of a much more complicated matter going on behind it all. From the flashes of Thomas not appearing who he sees himself as (older Keanu Reeves), to Tiffany (Carrie-Anne Moss, Jessica Jones), the woman at the local coffee shop who reminds Thomas of Trinity, but more represents the life Anderson himself never took on. She has kids, a husband, a "real" life. And even she is not who/what she appears to be. Why would an architect of imprisonment, if Anderson is in fact the "we know he died" Neo, give Neo so many hints of the life he lived and lost? Why be so subtle yet so slap in the face obvious? Because the power of the Matrix (literally, and figuratively) is taken from Neo knowing, yet choosing to stay, for in the Matrix, Anderson has Tiffany, albeit very distantly.

And then Bugs and her crew break out Neo from his rat race, assisted by the modal program Morpheus, now having attained his own freedom / independent state. No, not the Morpheus, but Anderson's own program given life, one aware of who he was modeled from yet bemused by his origins (which also contains a dash of Smith), shirking the shiny black leather for some dashing colour, and colour commentary. This is where the movie begins again, as it did the first time round, but for me, sort of slide backwards. And again, even that, with the less than vibrant battle scenes, and lack of anything as revolutionary as "bullet time", and even somewhat muted sound design for the gunplay, seemed... intentional, meta-commentary on what this "resurrection" should be / needs to be.

The bulk of my enjoyment of this movie comes from watching Neo tackle with this all again. He never truly believed he was ever The One, and even after he performed all those miracles, and did indeed end the war between Zion and the Machines, things never truly got better. Not entirely better. There is still a Matrix, which we should have known there had to be, as how else would the Machines generate power. There are people still living oblivious lives, not free. And once he is again in the mix of working with the captains of Io, the new Zion, he is not who he once was. If The One didn't truly save the world, then what is his true place within it? There is only one answer -- being with Trinity. Weird, how he cannot be The One without his other side.

The rest of the movie is the rescue of Trinity, with proper motivation, as the new Architect, the Analyst, will reset the current Matrix back to the more oppressive previous version if he cannot have both Neo and Trinity in his thrall generating the mass amounts of power they did. There is combat and new-phase references to video games (less fighter, movie zombie apocalypse) but Neo and Trinity never once pick up a gun. Instead, Neo uses his own version of force-push and ... force-shield ? His lacking of remembered true ultimate power is challenging to him, until... he realizes that in this iteration of their lives, it is not his turn. Its hers. And I, for one, want to see what this even newer version of the Matrix, that Trinity will make, will turn out to be.