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DECEMBER 29, 2021�JANUARY 5, 2022
‘Matrix Resurrections’ is loud, joyful, stylish fun
By Chris Hewitt
Star Tribune
THE MATRIX
RESURRECTIONS
MPAA rating: R (for language
and briefl y bloody violence)
Running time: 2:28
Where to watch: In theaters
and streaming on HBO Max
Wednesday
I
s “The Matrix Resurrections” a
kung fu movie? A techno-thrill-
er? A shoot-’em-up? A comedy?
A sequel that’s also a satire of
sequels? Or a love story?
Well, Lana Wachowski’s boldly
entertaining “Resurrections”
combines all those elements,
while mixing in fl ashbacks from
the three previous “Matrix” fi lms.
There’s a lot happening on-
screen, but it’s so deftly balanced
that it doesn’t even matter if, like
me, your memory of the other
“Matrices” is dim and you’re oc-
casionally not sure exactly what’s
going on,
At its core, “Resurrections”
is a rescue movie. Neo (Keanu
Reeves) is a San Francisco game
designer who still fi nds himself
slipping into an alternate reality
where he’s regarded as a once-
in-a-lifetime hero. He struggles
to appease his snake of a boss
(Jonathan Groff ) and to make
sense of his trauma with his
therapist (Neal Patrick Harris),
Warner Bros.
Carrie-Anne Moss (left) and Keanu Reeves in “The Matrix Resurrections.”
but he’s in a bad place because,
“They took my life and turned it
into a video game.”
“Resurrections” returns a few
other characters from earlier
outings, including Carrie-Anne
Moss’ Trinity (although there’s
not enough of her and her im-
peccable cheekbones until the
climax) and Jada Pinkett Smith’s
Gen. Niobe.
The movie also benefi ts from
a batch of newcomers, includ-
ing Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as an
incarnation of Laurence Fish-
burne’s mysterious Morpheus
(Fishburne is only glimpsed
in fl ashbacks). Mateen (“The
Watchmen”) is a charismatic
addition, especially when he
materializes in the form of a life-
sized piece of pin art or dem-
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onstrates Morpheus’ fondness
for vintage discowear circa
1975. Another great newcomer
is Jessica Henwick as Bugs, a
fi erce Neo fangirl who joins his
attempt to rescue lost love Trin-
ity from oblivion.
Previous “Matrix” movies
have veered into self-serious-
ness but Wachowski has a light
touch here, even making fun
of herself for agreeing to do
this sequel. (Neo’s boss warns
him that a new “Matrix” game is
inevitable, threatening, “Warner
Bros. is going to make a sequel
to the trilogy, with or without
us.”) She and sister Lilly, who
didn’t participate in the new
movie, always have created
fantastical, stylish worlds, and
this fi lm is ready to tell us what
sunglasses we’ll be wearing for
the next several seasons.
But there’s a new confi dence
and hopefulness in “Resurrec-
tions,” which takes us to the
brink of apocalypse but also
imagines a not-far-off day when
diff erences in racial or gender
identity are so universally ac-
cepted that they’re not even
remarked upon.
It’s true that not a lot of new
ground gets covered, story-
wise, but “Resurrections” is a
big, loud, joyful movie and when
one character says, “You’ve lost
your capacity to distinguish
reality from fi ction,” it may make
you think, “Duh. Isn’t that what
going to the movies is about?”
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