The Matrix Resurrections

After 22 years, Lana Wachows­ki returns to the Matrix – a sim­u­la­tion pro­gramme designed to deceive humans while their bod­ies are har­vest­ed in amni­ot­ic vats for ener­gy. In 1999, Lana and her sis­ter, Lil­ly, cre­at­ed a cin­e­mat­ic mas­ter­piece that has since evolved and mutat­ed into a branch of phi­los­o­phy unto itself. From right-wing con­spir­acists to schol­ars of trans* the­o­ry, the Wachowskis’ autho­r­i­al hold on The Matrix as a con­cept has large­ly slipped away.

A lot has changed for Lana and Lil­ly in the last two decades. After com­plet­ing The Matrix tril­o­gy, they co-direct­ed sev­er­al ever-expand­ing movie worlds, from Speed Rac­er to Jupiter Ascend­ing, which felt like an auteur­ial sand­box for the pair. While they have their fans, most of these sub­se­quent ven­tures have flopped at the box office and made a Wachows­ki project a pre­car­i­ous invest­ment. Will their ideas fly and land safe­ly, or will they fall flat on the pavement?

The process of gen­der tran­si­tion both Wachowskis under­went dur­ing this peri­od has invit­ed reassess­ment of their ear­ly work. Of course, with The Matrix it’s all a mat­ter of per­spec­tive – the blue pill thinkers may only just be catch­ing on, but for those of us who took the red pill long before it was cool, the transness of these films has always been self-evi­dent. It’s always been about see­ing beyond the bina­ry and unlock­ing the infi­nite pos­si­bil­i­ties offered in that space.

That’s where the fourth film, The Matrix Res­ur­rec­tions, starts off. We live in a blue pill soci­ety. Even Neo downs his block­ers by the bot­tle­ful, shut­ting out the trau­ma of div­ing down the rab­bit hole and, like Alice, accept­ing that it was just a dream. Read­opt­ing his dead name, Neo expe­ri­ences the events of the first three films as flash­backs, receiv­ing Cog­ni­tive Behav­iour­al Ther­a­py from his ana­lyst, played by Neil Patrick Harris.

Like many artists, Neo has been pro­ject­ing these elu­sive trau­mas into a video game called The Matrix, some­thing akin to the MMORPG the Wachowskis cre­at­ed after the films to con­tin­ue the sto­ry of Zion. It’s the game that made his name and that every­one knows him for, and after mak­ing three instal­ments, he’s been try­ing to devel­op an orig­i­nal game called ​‘Bina­ry’ that will take his ideas in a new direction.

These con­ver­sa­tions at the start of the film sim­mer with self-know­ing irony. Neo has a meet­ing with Smith, a ver­sion of Hugo Weaving’s arch-neme­sis from the orig­i­nal films, now played men­ac­ing­ly by Jonathan Groff. He tells Neo that Warn­er Bros want him to go back to The Matrix, to devel­op what the fans want, lead­ing to a mon­tage of devel­op­er meet­ings mock­ing every­thing from ​‘bul­let time’ to guns and philo­soph­i­cal allu­sions set to the psy­che­del­ic sound­track of ​‘White Rab­bit’ by Jef­fer­son Airplane.

Com­ing from any oth­er film­mak­er, this could be cringe-induc­ing. But the Wachowskis are such pri­vate indi­vid­u­als, who rarely make any pub­lic com­ment on their per­son­al lives or inter­pre­ta­tions of their films, that this feels like a long pent-up final word. It’s hard­ly sur­pris­ing that Lil­ly hasn’t want­ed to be a part of this new film – she’s left it in the past, and if Neo’s expe­ri­ence is delib­er­ate­ly evoca­tive of what the Wachowskis have been through, then it’s clear­ly required a lot of per­son­al strength to dig up their past in this way.

The Matrix Res­ur­rec­tions is a heart­break­ing depic­tion of the dam­age bina­ry think­ing can have, espe­cial­ly on trans* peo­ple. But it’s also a beau­ti­ful­ly opti­mistic film which con­stant­ly affirms the real­i­ty of non-bina­ry­ness, and the improve­ment in qual­i­ty of life break­ing free from our social chains can have. No char­ac­ter is iden­ti­cal in the real world and in the Matrix – every aspect of gen­der pre­sen­ta­tion, such as hair­style and cloth­ing, dif­fers for every­one, a form of switch­ing explored much more explic­it­ly now than it could have been at the turn of the century.

That doesn’t mean the blue-pill thinkers won’t have a great time with The Matrix Res­ur­rec­tions. It’s stun­ning to watch, a neon-infused mat­te fin­ish craft­ed by cin­e­matog­ra­phers Daniele Mas­sac­ce­si and John Toll that shows off the improved action chore­og­ra­phy and spe­cial effects in excit­ing new ways. And while Hugo Weav­ing and Lau­rence Fish­burne don’t reprise their roles as Smith and Mor­pheus (there are a hun­dred canon­i­cal rea­sons why which there sim­ply isn’t space to delve into here), it’s a nos­tal­gic delight to see Keanu Reeves and Car­rie-Anne Moss once again kick­ing sen­tinel butt.

But this isn’t a film for them, as much as they like to think the world was cre­at­ed for their ben­e­fit. Unlike the eye-rolling fan ser­vice of recent fran­chise reboots like Star Wars or Ghost­busters, no ref­er­ence is made in The Matrix Res­ur­rec­tions with­out an essen­tial nar­ra­tive pur­pose. It’s such a rich and orig­i­nal tapes­try of world expan­sion that it will no doubt be analysed as inten­sive­ly as the orig­i­nal films by schol­ars for years to come. Once the premise is estab­lished, and Lana’s had her self-ref­er­en­tial fun, buck­le your seat­belts for some­thing com­plete­ly different.

Reeves and Moss are mag­nif­i­cent at res­ur­rect­ing Neo and Trin­i­ty, and they blend exquis­ite­ly into Lana Wachowski’s matured style of film­mak­ing. It’s won­der­ful to see the influ­ence of her inter­im projects on this one – David Mitchell, who wrote the nov­el Cloud Atlas and col­lab­o­rat­ed on the writ­ing of the Wachowskis’ ground­break­ing Net­flix series Sense8, assist­ed with the screen­play along with Alek­san­dar Hamon. And their Cloud Atlas co-direc­tor and com­pos­er Tom Tyk­w­er brings a lav­ish update to Don Davis’s score that height­ens the film’s atmos­phere at every turn.

Col­lab­o­ra­tion is an essen­tial part of the Wachowskis’ film­mak­ing, and while Lil­ly isn’t present here, this isn’t a lone effort from Lana. There’s a unique warmth that per­me­ates the screen of love for what every­one is doing, and their deep per­son­al invest­ment in this project sel­dom felt watch­ing a block­buster. That includes a smat­ter­ing of Sense8 alum­ni, as well as Groff and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II who bring refresh­ing takes on their clas­sic characters.

The Wachowskis love to cel­e­brate new­com­ers, and Jes­si­ca Hen­wick is sub­lime as Cap­tain Bugs. Hav­ing had a num­ber of small roles in oth­er fran­chis­es, her lead turn here keeps The Matrix feel­ing fresh and alive. The cen­tring of female and non-bina­ry char­ac­ters in the film feels spe­cial and inspires so much hope for the future of cin­e­ma. As with all of her work, what Lana Wachows­ki has achieved in The Matrix Res­ur­rec­tions feels gen­uine­ly revolutionary.