The Matrix Resurrections


The Matrix Resurrections is a 2021 American science fiction action film co-produced and directed by Lana Wachowski, who co-wrote the screenplay with David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon. It is the fourth in The Matrix film series. The film stars an ensemble cast including Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jessica Henwick, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Lambert Wilson, Christina Ricci, Freema Agyeman, and Jada Pinkett Smith. Set sixty years after Revolutions, the film follows Neo, who lives a seemingly ordinary life as a video game developer having trouble with distinguishing fantasy from reality. A group of rebels, with the help of a programmed version of Morpheus, free Neo from a new version of the Matrix and fight a new enemy that holds Trinity captive.
Following the release of Revolutions, the Wachowskis denied the possibility of another Matrix film. Warner Bros. constantly expressed interest in reviving the franchise, hiring Zak Penn to write a new screenplay after the Wachowskis refused every offer to create more sequels. In late 2019, a fourth Matrix film was finally announced, with Lana Wachowski returning as director without Lilly, and Reeves and Moss reprising their roles. Filming started in February 2020, but was halted the next month by the COVID-19 pandemic. Wachowski considered abandoning the film, but was encouraged by the cast to finish it. Filming resumed in August and concluded three months later.
The Matrix Resurrections premiered at the Castro Theater in San Francisco on December 16, 2021, and was released theatrically and via the HBO Max streaming service by Warner Bros. Pictures on December 22. The film received mixed reviews from critics, and underperformed at the box office, grossing only $160.2 million worldwide against a $190 million production budget. It received a nomination for Best Special Visual Effects at the 75th British Academy Film Awards. A sequel is currently in development, with Drew Goddard set to direct.

Plot

A young woman named Bugs learns that the Matrix is running old code in a loop, enacting the moment when Trinity first found Neo within the Matrix. Bugs discovers a program embodying Morpheus and helps free him from the simulation.
Thomas Anderson is the creator of a video game series called The Matrix, based on his faint memories as Neo. At a coffee shop, he regularly encounters Tiffany, a married mother with no recollection of her past, on whom Anderson based the game character Trinity. Anderson has created a simulation called a Modal to develop game characters. He struggles to separate perceived reality from dreams, a known concern among his co-workers and partner. Thomas's psychoanalyst prescribes him blue pills that he takes each day to suppress the occurrences, but he stops taking them. Meanwhile, as Bugs and Morpheus work to extract Neo from the Matrix, Anderson's business partner regains his memories as Agent Smith, Neo's former nemesis.
Neo awakens in a pod and notices Trinity confined in another nearby, before being extracted to Bugs's hovercraft Mnemosyne. Neo is brought to the human city Io, the sister city of Zion, where he reunites with an elderly Niobe. She explains that sixty years have passed in the real world since the Machine War ended, and that Neo's allies, including the original Morpheus, have all died over time. The peace achieved by Neo's sacrifice lasted for many years, but the large number of humans leaving the Matrix created a serious power shortage, causing the machines to fight over limited resources. Soon afterward, Zion was targeted in an attempt to get humans to use as the power supply once more. However, this attempt caused many machines, who still remembered Neo's sacrifice and the promise of peace, to turn on the others in order to protect the humans. This allowed most of Zion's citizens to escape. Io was then founded by both machines and humans who have been working together ever since against the remaining machines who want to return things to the way they were before the war.
Niobe refuses to risk Io's safety to help Neo free Trinity and confines him to his quarters. Bugs and her crewmates free Neo and enter the Matrix to contact Trinity. They are attacked by Smith and other exiled programs, including the Merovingian, but Neo and the Mnemosyne crew defeat them as Neo's abilities return. The group leaves and locates Trinity, but before Neo can talk to her, his therapist appears and immobilizes him by manipulating time. He reveals that he is The Analyst, a program designed to study the human psyche.
The Analyst explains that after Neo's and Trinity's deaths, he wanted to study Neo's body and his anomalous powers as The One and convinced his superiors to resurrect both of them. He discovered that due to The One's inherent connection to all humanity in the Matrix, manipulating Neo could make the Matrix produce more energy. Moreover, he found that the code anomaly in Neo was shared in his bond with Trinity, and that by suppressing their memories and keeping them close but always apart, the Matrix generated much more energy. Solving the energy crisis put The Analyst in a position to seize power from The Architect, after which he rebuilt the Matrix to control humans with emotional manipulation, claiming that humans generally believe what they want to believe. Neo's liberation destabilized the system and triggered a fail-safe to reboot the Matrix, but The Analyst stalled the reboot by convincing his superiors that threatening to kill Trinity would coerce Neo to return to his pod.
Neo and Bugs return to Io and talk to Sati, an exiled program that Neo previously met. Seeking to avenge her parents' deaths at the hands of the Analyst, Sati helps devise a plan to free Trinity. Back in the Matrix, Neo makes a deal with The Analyst: he will return to his pod if he fails to convince Trinity to leave the Matrix. Tiffany reaffirms her identity as Trinity while talking with Neo. Realizing that he has lost, The Analyst attempts to kill her, but Agent Smith appears and attacks The Analyst, seeking revenge for his own imprisonment after being restored as a result of Neo's resurrection.
Neo, Trinity, and the others escape in their vehicles, chased through the streets by hordes of bot programs and attack helicopters. As the last ones to be extracted from The Matrix, Neo and Trinity become cornered atop a skyscraper. Holding hands, they leap off and Trinity begins to fly, taking them to safety. With Trinity's newfound control over the Matrix, both return to confront The Analyst. They thank him for giving them a second chance by resurrecting them while they also express their contempt. Neo and Trinity fly off into the sky together, making plans to remake The Matrix.

Cast

  • Keanu Reeves as Neo / Thomas Anderson: The prophesied "One" from the previous version of the Matrix, Neo has been repaired by the machines and reinserted into a new version of the Matrix, with his memories suppressed in order to keep him under control. Despite sixty years having taken place since Neo's sacrifice, Neo has only aged twenty years thanks to the machines' modifications to his body. Steven Roy plays the embodiment of the original Neo, in reflections and various additional scenes.
  • Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity / Tiffany: Neo's romantic interest who was freed from the Matrix by Morpheus in the first film, and killed at the end of the Machine War. The machines recover, repair and modify her body and reinsert her into a new version of the Matrix. As with Neo, her memories of her previous life are suppressed by the machines and she becomes Tiffany, a suburban mother-of-three with a penchant for motorcycles. Despite sixty years having passed since her death, Trinity has only aged twenty years thanks to the machines' modifications to her body.
  • Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Morpheus / Agent Smith: A program created as part of a modal by Neo who takes on traits of the original Morpheus, the hacker who originally freed him from the Matrix, as well as aspects of Neo's nemesis, Agent Smith. The character was portrayed by Laurence Fishburne in the previous films; Fishburne's version of the character appears through the use of archive footage.
  • Jessica Henwick as Bugs: A gunslinger with a White Rabbit tattoo, and captain of the hovercraft Mnemosyne. Henwick describes her character as "the audience's eyes".
  • Jonathan Groff as Smith: Thomas' business partner and Neo's former arch-nemesis and Agent of the Matrix. The character was portrayed by Hugo Weaving in the previous films; Weaving also appears as Smith through the use of archive footage. To prepare for the role, Groff watched YouTube clips featuring Weaving's performance, rewatched the original trilogy and read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, works of Philip K. Dick and Christopher Isherwood's The Berlin Stories, though he did not want to do an impression of Weaving, feeling more connected to the role during the fight sequences. As a result of his dedication during training for such sequences, Groff was nicknamed "The Savage" by a member of the stunt team.
  • Neil Patrick Harris as the Analyst: The creator of the current iteration of the Matrix, who masquerades as Thomas' therapist, working closely with his patient to understand the meaning behind his dreams and to distinguish them from "reality" while keeping him within the Matrix.
  • Priyanka Chopra Jonas as Sati: An exile program created without a purpose who met Neo shortly before the end of the Machine War. The character was portrayed by Tanveer K. Atwal in The Matrix Revolutions.
  • Christina Ricci as Gwyn de Vere: A business executive at Thomas' video game company.
  • Jada Pinkett Smith as Niobe: A general of the human bastion Io and former captain of the hovercraft Logos. Smith reprises her role from the previous two films. It took five hours to apply Smith's prosthetic makeup to create the appearance that her character had aged 60 years.
  • Telma Hopkins as Freya: The head of botany in Io.
  • Chad Stahelski as Chad: Tiffany's husband. Stahelski was Keanu Reeves' stunt double, as well as a stunt coordinator, for the previous films.
  • Lambert Wilson as The Merovingian: A self-professed trafficker of information who encountered Neo prior to the end of the Machine War; he now seeks revenge on Neo for inadvertently stripping him of his purpose when the previous Matrix was destroyed. Wilson reprises his role from the previous two films.
  • Freema Agyeman as Astra: A business executive at Thomas' video game company.
  • Brian J. Smith as Berg: A crew member of the Mnemosyne who has studied Neo.
  • Toby Onwumere as Sequoia: The operator of the Mnemosyne.
  • Max Riemelt as Sheperd: Niobe's most-trusted captain at Io.
  • Eréndira Ibarra as Lexy: A crew member of the Mnemosyne who idolizes Trinity.
Additionally, Andrew Lewis Caldwell and Ellen Hollman appear as Jude and Echo, respectively. Julian Grey and Gaige Chat also appear as Tiffany's sons Brandon and Donnie, respectively. San Francisco mayor London Breed appears as Calliope, a member of Resistance. Daniel Bernhardt was announced to be reprising his role as Agent Johnson from The Matrix Reloaded, but his scenes were cut from the final film. Tom Hardy filmed an uncredited background cameo appearance, due to The Matrix Resurrections filming in San Francisco simultaneously with Venom: Let There Be Carnage, in which Hardy starred as Eddie Brock / Venom.