The action scenes are still next level
Another Matrix film nearly 20 years after the last just feels like it could end in tears.
Why’s that? Well, when the OG Matrix was released in 1999, the world was a different place. For starters, the internet was novel, which made the film’s central idea that we could use technology and coding to travel from one oppressive world to a freer one feel fresh. And CGI was newer too, making the film’s futuristic action scenes feel suitably trippy.
Fast forward to 2021, and these days coding is taught in schools. That’s a great thing, but it takes the novelty away from the Matrix a little bit. And yet, in other ways, society hasn’t changed all that much since the first film. At its widest we still hang off the idea that the internet can bring us new horizons.
Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, returns alongside Carrie-Anne Moss’ Trinity in The Matrix Resurrections. It’s been 20 years since we left them and both are living ordinary lives under aliases in San Francisco. But when the duo run into each other in a coffee shop, a new opportunity arises for them to leave The Matrix – the artificial simulation world designed for humans they’ve been inhabiting which Neo discovered in the first film.
There’s a lot of recycling of the philosophy of the original movies: would we be happier if we could exercise free will, or is an ignorant life lived within The Matrix bliss? Blue pill to stay in the Matrix, red pill to escape, yada yada. A new version of Morpheus, played by actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, still offers profundities dressed in sharp suits.
But by now, all of this wondering about our place on Earth feels like it’s been done before. Mainly because Neo and Trinity, and writer-director from the original movies Lana Wachowski, aren’t any closer to having answers to the same questions they pose about humanity.
What has improved over the past 20 years though are special effects. Fans of fight scenes where bodies, environments and worlds are warped with visuals will get everything they’d hoped for from a Matrix reborn in 2021. The fight scenes still absolutely bang, and that’s reason enough to book tickets.
Neo and Trinity must deflect thousands of bullets with their bare hands. But the bullets and explosions feel generic compared with the new and clever ways VFX artists have modified the way the actors move, to dodge enemies and traverse from one world to another. The gateways created for Neo and Trinity to travel between The Matrix and Zion shimmer like laketops, and their bodies bend like slinkies.
The colours are eye-popping, and the action is spread throughout so there’s barely any time to get bored, except for a few drawn-out expansive shots of Zion. Particularly watch out for Neil Patrick Harris, whose character, The Analyst, combines ridiculous action with comedy.
As for Keanu Reeves. Well, he’s older, but he’s still got the moves, and the grimace, and crucially it’s easy to believe he still gives a shit about escaping from The Matrix. Even if he does repeat those age-old cliches about free will a few too many times.
Otherwise, the storyline doesn’t come to much in terms of why we’re actually back here again. Apart from Neo overcoming his own dissatisfaction with life, and rekindling his fling with Trinity, there’s not much explanation about what the duo hope to actually do if they escape The Matrix.
There also doesn’t seem to be much else going on in Zion, the last place humans live away from The Matrix, apart from some strawberry growing and gossiping between the elders and youngsters about the future, which feels about as juicy as a chat with a neighbour over a suburban garden fence.
The Matrix Resurrections may not be able to offer anything new about us and our place on Earth like it did before. But the brute force of the action still feels unparalleled. And let’s face it, it was always 20% pondering the whole ‘why are we here?’ message and 80% about the amazing action scenes, wasn’t it? Despite those scenes, The Matrix Resurrections doesn’t do enough to bring this franchise back from the dead.
The Matrix Resurrections arrives in cinemas on December 22
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