Retro Neo

Well, we got to see The Matrix Resurrections (2021), and found it a fitting addition to the canon, and for the times.

It starts in the middle of things, with new-character-enter Bugs (Jessica Henwick, AKA Colleen Wing) is fooling around in a Modal, something like a Matrix sandbox. It resembles the old story of Neo and Trinity, but it isn't Neo or Trinity. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II shows up, claiming to be Agent Smith or maybe Morpheus. They all take off in Bugs' ship, the Mnemosyne.

Meanwhile, Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is a burnt-out celebrity game designer. He's famous for his Matrix trilogy of games, but his company is getting impatient for him to deliver something new. Or worse, making a sequel to the Matrix games. He's also having mental problems, doubting the reality of his existence. He goes to a therapist, played by Neil Patrick Harris, who looks like Greg Proops playing Wally Cox. He is also taking blue pills (eh?) to keep the hallucinations at bay. 

He is also mildly obsessed with a woman he sees at his coffeeshop, CC Jitters. Just kidding, this place is called Simulatte, which is pretty good. The woman reminds him of someone - because it's Trinity, Carrie-Anne Moss. But now she's a boring housewife with a houseband (played by stuntman and John Wick director Chad Stahelski) and two kids. 

Anderson's life gets changed when Bugs and new Morpheus find him and extract him from the Matrix into the real world. As he comes out of the pod, he sees Trinity's pod nearby.

So, new Matrix, new world. Some machines have become partners to humans, like S'Bebe and Octocles. Some are even more hostile, finding that keeping humans in the Matrix miserable gets them to generate more energy. Letting Reeves and Moss meet but not get together, for instance, is a real winner.

Then there's lots of action, fights, philosophy, etc. But the best part perhaps, is how Reeves gets trapped in the Matrix. The whole meta-thing about what a bad idea a sequel to the Matri trilogy would be actually works. The moral. which is "Stop taking your meds" may not be what we all need to hear, but the movie is a lot of fun, and very comforting, in a way. Lana Wachowski said she made it when people in her life had died, and she just wanted to spend time with her friends Neo and Trinity again.

Something I've noticed recently is the number of movies that aren't just sequels, or late sequels, but are also elegies. They celebrate the characters and their makers, mourn their loss, and sort of wallow in the nostalgia, just a bit. Like in this movie, people keep telling Neo (and Anderson) how much he means to them, how much they look up to him. Then there's Ghostbusters: Afterlife, a eulogy for Harold Ramis, Then there's the latest Bond movie, where they kill off the character. Then there's Reeve's other late return, Bill and Ted Face the Music. It's a meditation on being stuck creatively, a passing of the torch, and a farewell to George Carlin. 

It might be that some of us are getting old - facing the fact that our series won't run forever. Maybe it's the Boomers aging out. Maybe it fits the Covid era. After all, Fury Road could have been like this, but instead of looking back, just kicked it up a notch. But these movies do feel sad and sweet to me. I don't hate it.