Dog’s Movie House: “The Matrix Resurrections” A Trippy Return To The Matrix Universe!

“The Matrix Resurrections” finds Thomas Anderson (Reeves) living a normal life seemingly outside of the Matrix. Twenty years after the events of the first film, we discover he’s in therapy due to a mental breakdown after the release of a set of games known as. . .you guessed it. . . The Matrix. His analyst (an appropriately condescending Neil Patrick Harris) has convinced Thomas that the immersion in inventing these groundbreaking games has caused Thomas to temporarily lose his grip on reality, believing the world of his video game to be real. Thomas’ therapy includes the daily ingestion of little blue pills to keep him balanced.

Of course we know that the peace can’t last, and soon Thomas is brought back into the world of The Matrix, but now his mission as Neo has become a more personal one: to rescue Trinity (Moss) who also died in the third film but has, like Neo, been resurrected and, also like Neo, is living life as another person; a married woman named Tiffany.

To tell you anymore would serve as an exercise in futility. The plot twists and mechanations are easy enough to understand in the visual medium but defy an easy explanation on the written page. What Neo does find out is that things have changed since he allegedly ended the war between the humans and the machines all those years ago. The two are now working together, fighting against an unseen, rising power in the machine world and the survival of the human race may depend on the reconnection between Neo and the only person he’s ever loved.

Because of the film’s conceit that Neo and the whole Matrix world are simply characters in an immersive game, Wachowski and co-writers David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon are able to play around with the first three movies, honoring and ribbing their pop culture and cinematic relevance all at the same time. Yet the film (like the latest Spider-Man film) is not doing this as mere fan service. There’s a larger story at play here and the idea that the Matrix Trilogy (in game form here) serves as entertainment as opposed to reality really addresses the idea of control and free will. It’s a theme that figures heavily in all of the Matrix films (although the final two in the original trilogy were a little ham-handed about it.) and it works especially well here. Of course, once we get back into the Matrix and the “real” world the meta-influences tone down a bit and it becomes more of a love story, with Neo fighting to get Trinity back against various forces arrayed against him, including a reimagined agent Smith (an effective Jonathan Groff).

The effects and action are first rate, as you’d expect, although I did miss the fight choreography of Yuen Wo-Ping. The martial arts in this film are a little more grounds and don’t have quite the style and grace of the original films. “Resurrections” makes up for that in terms of gunplay and vehicular mayhem, along with a few upgrades for the traditional agents that give new meaning to the phrase “the enemy is everywhere.”

What really makes “The Matrix Resurrections” pop are the performances from Reeves and Moss. Reeves does a great job of portraying Thomas Anderson as a wreck, unsure of what’s real or not. The quite desperation during the opening third of the film is some of Reeve’s best work. He’s also simply one of the best action actors working today and his fight scenes have an authenticity to them that’s a joy to behold. It also helps that he has fabulous chemistry with Moss as Trinity. The two pick up where they left off almost twenty years ago, but with a more natural ease with each other, unburdened by the self-seriousness and exposition heavy atmosphere that held back the final two films in the trilogy from acheiving the same heights as the original film. Groff does some good work as the new Smith and Jessica Henwick shines as Bugs, the new captain of the crew trying to find Neo. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II has some fun as the new Morpheus and Harris is a lot of fun as the Analyst.

Overall, “The Matrix Resurrections” has fun with it’s cinematic legacy while telling a new story that reboots the entire series. While some of the callbacks to the original movies are a little on the nose, for the most part this film is an entertaining continuation of that which came before. Reeves is excellent and there’s enough action to keep the die hards entertained. Check this out either at the theater or on HBO Max! 4 Out Of 5 On Kendog’s Barkometer! So Sayeth The Kendog!

Pages: 1 2