September 10, 2021

Keanu Reeves returns to sci-fi in The Matrix Resurrections

Trailer of the Week: Watch Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss and Lana Wachowski reinvent the sci-fi blockbuster all over again. Bullet time, wooh!

What is it?

Official Trailer 1 for The Matrix Resurrections, the fourth film in The Matrix trilogy-I-mean-tetralogy, entering the real world 22 years after the groundbreaking first film set the world on fire, and 18 years after The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions put the fire out again.

Who – and what – is in it?

Keanu Reeves returns as Neo, Carrie-Ann Moss is back as Trinity and Jada Pinkett-Smith is here again as Niobe. Joining them are Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Candyman), Jessica Henwick (Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens), Jonathan Groff (Hamilton), Neil Patrick Harris (Gone Girl), Priyanka Chopra Jonas (Quantico) and Christina Ricci (Speed Racer).

What’s the story?

“Thomas, you seem particularly triggered right now. Can you tell me what happened?” says Harris-the-shrink to Reeves-the-patient. “I’ve had dreams that weren’t just dreams. Am I crazy?” “NO, YOU’RE NEO!!!!” And soon enough, it’s pill time! (I’ll have the blue one, please.)

Where’s Keanu?

In his psychiatrist’s office. In the bath with a plastic yellow duck on his head. Standing in the street staring at murmuration of starlings. Doing sci-fi kung-fu. Walking through liquid mirrors. Doing super-cool bullet-time stunts in a whole lot of new ways. Just being excellent, basically.

You haven’t answered me. What’s the story?

Um, more stuff happening in a virtual reality parallel world run by ultra-intelligent robots and policed by deadly, black-suited agents? Beyond that, the plot remains elusive. But as the producers said last year: “The Matrix Resurrections is a continuation of the story established in the first Matrix film. It reunites Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss as cinematic icons Neo and Trinity in an expansion of their story that ventures back into the Matrix and even deeper down the rabbit hole. A mind-bending new adventure with action and epic scale, it’s set in a familiar yet even more provocative world where reality is more subjective than ever and all that’s required to see the truth is to free your mind.” That’ll do!

Not to be confused with…

…either of the sequels to the first film, ’cause they were meh.

So 18 years on, why do we care?

Because the first film reinvented what a fantasy movie could be, as brilliantly explored in this 1999 feature in The Face, which reinvented what a story about a fantasy movie could be (if we do say so ourselves). And because Keanu.

Ah, Keanu.

Indeed. Age shall not wither him, and nor shall any number of #sadkeanu memes. At 57 years young, he looks sensational.

What’s the music like?

Perfection. Jefferson Airplane’s 1967 psych-rock masterpiece White Rabbit. Altogether now: “One pill makes you larger /And one pill makes you small /And the ones that mother gives you / Don’t do anything at all…” Actually, I’ll have the red one, please.

Best line in the trailer?

“After all these years, to be going back to where it all started – back to The Matrix?!” says Jonathan Groff as both question and statement of incredulity. Too fckn right we are!