When you make a film, you tend to imprint all the media that mattered to you growing up and bend it to fit your vision. When the Wachowski’s made the original trilogy, there was nothing but love stemming from Anime, John Woo films and Frank Miller comic books. Making the Matrix was about putting all those visual motifs and saying something about the digital age and what identity means. The trilogy would become a hit and change the industry forever; The Matrix Resurrections is about what that legacy represents and whether or not it is viewed as a good thing by one half of the duo that made it a reality.
When The Matrix Resurrections starts, it questions its existence through meta-commentary relating to re-adapting a once finished property. The Matrix Resurrections serves as a way for Lana to wrestle with the presence of the trilogy she helped co-create and remove any barrier of subtext that once existed in the original trilogy — it is now the text. For instance, the film starts by revealing that instead of having a dystopian office worker like in the first film, Thomas Anderson gets a modern update as a game designer who has received a lot of fame and recognition for creating the now-iconic Matrix videogame trilogy. Thomas Anderson wrestles with fame and reality, struggling with the Matrix trilogy and how much of his life he has put into this videogame series. Outside of his creation, Thomas Anderson has little going on. With little left in his life besides his accomplishments, many attempts to drown his sorrow occur as he gets courted into doing another Matrix game, something he thought was completed many years ago.
Through this modern update, what was iconic about the original trilogy is still there, as the film flashes back to memorable sequences to state its importance through the film and finds new ways to feel as fresh as the first film did. While the action sequences are less elaborate and impressive than the original trilogy, that was never the intention. The story has Thomas Anderson filled with the self-doubt of wondering if he can become who he was, and I suspect Lana questioned if she could do the same while making this film. Thomas Anderson’s reluctance to fight is represented by how he creates a force field around himself, deflecting any harm that comes his way and only finding his strength again when he meets Trinity; when they touch hands, there’s a cause and effect, and their bond becomes a chemical reaction. While Morpheus prophesied that Neo was the one, he missed how little power he has without something to fight for, and that’s Trinity. Without her, there is no Neo, and Thomas Anderson, as sometimes the only way to find yourself is to meet someone who shares your life goals and aspirations, someone who will fight for you just as hard as you will for them.
The film trades spectacle for dialogue-driven scenes, with long, intricate dialogue sequences becoming more iconic than the action. Through The Analyst, Thomas Anderson is given blue pills as a prescription and purposely kept in the dark and full of doubt on whether or not his episodes happened. The Analyst controls the show and uses bullet time to provide more direct commentary as the audience is held captive, left only to watch in the scenario where The Analyst threatens Neo as the world freezes before him. These high-frame-rate cameras give off an eerie effect: The Analyst can move faster than one can blink. The themes of agency and free will vs what is more comforting are powerful and told directly through The Analyst holding a mirror to the viewers questioning their sense of free will regarding media platforms. We, as an audience, gravitate toward what these conglomerate studios continually produce. Are we free in an age where truth is hard to find and an endless onslaught of updates buries original properties? Will one be able to tell a story with as much heart, ambition, drive and style as the Matrix? I don’t know, but I sincerely hope so.
