Review: ‘The Matrix: Resurrections,’ Time to Fly in a New Direction
“That’s the thing about stories … they never really end.”
The Matrix: Resurrections is quite unlike any of the other films in the series. The first three films, stone-cold philosophical action movies with concerns for, though not exclusively relegated to, fate, destiny, and choice. While not entirely removed from those themes, Resurrections now looks at those classic films in the rearview and asks what sort of scenario would warrant a fourth Matrix film in the first place. The answer to which, presumably money and studio arm twisting, becomes the meta-textual structure for which Lana Wachowski writes and directs her latest entry that completely uproots preconceived notions of what a Matrix movie is.
This time around the story is far more self-aware, both of previous events and its own commercial release. Neo is now back in the Matrix as his original digital self-image, Thomas Anderson. He is the game director for a wildly successful video game series (based on the events of the original Matrix trilogy), and he is tasked with creating a new entry. He is occasionally manic, holdovers from Neo’s past, but a daily dose of blue pills represses his true conscious. A similar existence has taken hold of Trinity, now Tiffany, who has kids and a husband and has no recollection of her efforts to stop the machines with Neo. On the outside, in the real world, a group of new, unplugged operators are trying to extract Neo and Trinity and reawaken them to confront the new reality imposed by new programs running the Matrix.
The comparison making the rounds for Resurrections is to that of Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, a film from the post-modern slasher era in which the original A Nightmare on Elm Street is acknowledged within the film’s narrative as franchise fodder primed for a reboot by original cast members. Given their respective genres and years, it’s an apt comparison for Resurrections. Crucially, both New Nightmare and Resurrections take the events of their respective originals and reframe their diegesis to include meta-commentary regarding their production and release as monetizable franchise films. New Nightmare addresses legacy and introduces self-reflection for the slasher genre when it was long beaten to death. In a similar fashion, Resurrections arrives on the scene when the contemporary blockbuster is on creative life support, reduced to predominately franchise affairs that placate to audiences’ worst tendencies and siphon the commercial viability of other projects.
Wachowski acknowledges such realities by including a tidbit about how, had she not stepped in to assume the director’s chair, Warner Brothers would have proceeded to create a fourth Matrix without her, an allusion to the product like commodification of IP devoid of artistry. The interesting part is how Wachowski critiques that movie-making ethos in the very project meant to be apart of the studio machine.
She doesn’t fetishize nostalgia for the previous films. In fact, she actively prods it. “It’s a trans allegory. It’s a tale of fate and destiny. No, it’s a tale of good versus evil.” Words spoken during one scene taking place in a video game boardroom think tank where creatives are trying to pinpoint what the Matrix actually is and what the next incarnation should be. What the film concludes, in very frustrated terms, is that it could be any one of these things, but it is not something that should coddled. Case in point is Resurrections itself; Wachowski goes to great lengths to draw a delineating line between this entry and the previous three films that will most likely alienate movie goers. It’s a denouncement of legacy that will come in stark contrast to another film competing in theaters this week: Spider-Man: No Way Home, a film whose entire identity is contingent on satiating fans’ desires to see specters of the past.
These two films are foils of one another, particularly with regards to the state of the modern blockbuster; where Spider-Man is already seeing immediate success and validation for its method, Resurrections will (likely) come across as a disaster simply because it refuses to do what Spider-Man does.
Public criticism may call the film ‘a betrayal to the franchise,’ which isn’t necessarily untrue, though I would contend that such a deviation makes for a differentiated, and much needed, statement. How Resurrections goes about making such a statement is where I have my own contentions. The critiques about modern movie making are packaged via the traits of a comedy, perhaps the best approach given the absurdity. However, a lot of it is crass and dare I say cringe-inducing — at one point, Trinity is called a milf, a remark played to the chagrin of both Neo and audiences alike. And like previous Matrix sequels, there is a healthy amount of technobabble that can convolute what the film is actually trying to say; many dissertations will be written on the layers upon layers of meaning packed into Resurrections. It’s a film whose message, like New Nightmare, I ultimately agree with, but whose method I can’t say I particularly enjoyed.
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