Directed by Lana Wachowski
Written by Lana Wachowski, David Mitchell, Aleksandar Hemon, based on characters created by Lana and Lily Wachowski.
Starring Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Neil Patrick Harris
Are the Wachowskis the Wonder Twins? Do the sisters’ powers only work when they are within reach of each other shouting “form of a decent director”? because The Matrix: Resurrections shows some obvious flaws that should have been rectified by a seasoned director. True, there’s some interesting philosophical ground covered here, as well as the seed of a good script, but both in terms of structure and execution, this is a colossal fail. Even worse, it’s dull, which is shocking for the director that exposed the world to “bullet-time” and brought the magic of wire-fu to Hollywood cinema.
Thomas Anderson’s (Keanu Reeves) success in writing the blockbuster Matrix trilogy has come at a huge cost. The immersive computer games were drawn from a personal place and have left him questioning his own sense of reality, one that he has been struggling to rebuild after a delusional break. Despite the counselling of his analyst (Neil Patrick Harris) those questions become even more pronounced when he meets a woman who is the spitting image of Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), and as he is forced to begin work on a sequel. Worse still, one of the characters, Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), appears to have disappeared from the game, and soon appears to him in real life.
This could have worked. The core idea is interesting enough to warrant booting up again, but this is a script that could have used a lot more work before it hit the screen. The initial sequences of Thomas Anderson questioning the nature of his reality and his own sanity are brought to a sharper edge than in the first film, as it is seen from the point of view of an older, more weary character that already knows that he’s struggling with mental health concerns. Yet this whole initial section of the film is derailed by the beginning action sequence, a subversion of Trinity’s introduction in the original Matrix, which clues the audience to the actual nature of reality and robs Anderson’s struggle of any sense of dramatic tension.
The film desperately clings to the past. The recasting of certain key characters leaves the talented actors clumsy walking a line between finding their own take on the character at hand and a straight parody of the previous actor. This is amplified by the amount of footage used from the previous entries in the series as the film often pauses to flashback to old footage, or to recall a line, or both. Initially this flirts with a sense of metatextuality within the script, but it remains as a crutch for the entirety of the film, well after any vague questions about the nature of reality have been addressed.
Finally, the action is lacklustre. From such a ground-breaking beginning, the series has evolved into nothing that we have not seen done before and done better. Heck, Reeves is one of the great action stars of this age, and even he’s being edited around in a tight and close manner meant to disguise a lack of martial prowess.
It’s not entirely dire news. Some of the performances go some way to saving this film. Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss bring a great sense of lived experience to their roles, a sense of fragility and weariness as they begin to question their reality. Neil Patrick Harris also brings a much-needed light touch as an analyst counselling Anderson on his dissociation from reality.
The Matrix: Resurrections is a frustrating piece. You can easily see the good in here, how with a bit of work on the script and the editing this could have been something extraordinary. As it stands I suspect it’s not going to be the revitalization that the franchise needs, and it’s just time to pull the plug.
