VShe is not a revolution, it is a revolt… Historians will forgive us for truncating the famous exchange between Louis XVI and his grand master of the wardrobe on the evening of July 14, 1789, but the formula sums up the philosophy fairly well of Matrix Resurrections. Those who expect this 4e part of a big night of the blockbuster, an upheaval of its codes as did Matrix in 1999, are likely to be severely disillusioned. On several occasions, this new film makes us understand that the very project of yet another disruption would have been only the slavish application of a cyclical program, dictated by the Warner matrix. On the other hand, yes, everything Matrix Resurrections echoes like a cry of revolt. Against the diktat of these licenses which have creatively paralyzed Hollywood for twenty years. Against the binarity of the old world, that this opus, the most openly woke of all Matrix, spends his time lambasting. And against… death, quite simply, since it is a question of resuscitating here two heroes that we had nevertheless left well and truly passed away at the end of the previous section.
By Lana Wachowski’s own admission, Matrix Resurrections was intended as a dressing for the immensely painful loss of a close friend and his parents, Ron and Lynne Wachowski, who died five weeks apart in 2019. While Warner had been trying unsuccessfully, for a good decade, to convince the director and her sister Lilly to return to the vein Matrix, this tragic episode will therefore have been the unexpected trigger for the return of the franchise. Inconsolate in mourning, Lana would have found welcome comfort and catharsis in the resurrection of Neo and Trinity, two creations that have always been close to her heart. Without Lilly, preferring to refrain from this return to the matrix, the director and her co-screenwriters David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon have therefore imagined a device worthy of a soap to justify the return of the couple in dark glasses. Teeth will undoubtedly grind, but it is after all the peculiarity of Matrix.
Brilliant mise en abyme or metanombrilist masturbation?
Neo and Trinity are therefore alive and well at the start of Matrix Resurrections… inside a new version of the matrix. Neo has regained his identity as Thomas Anderson, but this time we discover him in the skin of a world-famous video game designer, melancholy and lonely, stumbles with a deceptively friendly chef (Jonathan Groff) who prompts him to reconnect with a creation which made the triumph of the box. At the coffee-shop next to his offices, Anderson crosses paths with a certain Tiffany (Carrie-Anne Moss), an attractive mother of a family whom he feels he knows. Strange visions assail him (flashes from previous films), his shrink (Neil Patrick Harris) prescribes blue pills, mysterious messages invite him to follow the white rabbit… and his reality changes. Let’s be careful not to reveal more to leave you with as much surprise as possible.
To the impossible, no one is bound, and therefore, no, Matrix Resurrections does not revolutionize Hollywood entertainment. But during its first hour, we almost believed in this beautiful mirage. Taking a path similar to that explored by Wes Craven in his Freddy comes out of the night, this first act, bursting with humor and distancing itself from the myth, turns out to be damn stimulating, despite a fragile balance between the brilliant mise en abyme and the metanombrilist masturbation. Like this opening shot of a deceptive reflection in a puddle of water, the film never ceases to wander our senses and our reason. “Modal”, “Modal loop”, “Synthient”, “Simulator-Program” … Resurrections draws out new concepts and barbaric terms practically impossible to understand at first sight, the spectator clings on as best he can to follow the explanations, but, damn it, it’s going too fast! A second experience will probably be necessary for you to understand the mysteries of a hyperdense and often verbose script, alas. As in the first film, you will say… yes…, but not exactly, you will see! By showering us with information by whole terabytes, Matrix Resurrections could quickly cause our final stalling: thanks to a staging on the spot, a rather elegant visual renewal and the spicy humor of the dialogues, it is fortunately the opposite which occurs.
Our attention is on high alert to understand where the film takes us, what details we must scrutinize in the frame to spot the eel under the rock, what meaning to give to these allusions to the past: in short, it is more than ever a question of open our eyes and ears wide to decode the permanent play of the plot with its own concept. In this alone, Matrix Resurrections deserves a respect that many recent Hollywood blockbusters cannot claim. Aware that she has made a pact with the devil, Lana Wachowski multiplies the confessions of defeat in the face of this system which crushes her in spite of herself – “It never ends, we tell the same story again and again, only the faces change”, s’ hears Anderson say from his boss, who we quickly learn is a new version of the evil Mr. Smith. The author agrees to give the system – and to us, the crowds – the program he claims, via a different iteration, but she hacks the source code with a stake that has nothing to do – or almost – with the rescue of humanity which guided the first three films. And this is, alas, precisely where the shoe pinches.
In the right line of his post-Cloud Atlas (series Sense 8 included), Matrix Resurrections assumes a hymn to love against death very cutesy and which unfortunately takes up all the space this time in the dynamics of the story. Over the course of the film, the revelation of Neo’s main objective will probably disappoint some of the fans, in addition to another disappointment concerning the fights: shorter and this time filmed with a handheld camera à la Jason Bourne (in less jerky all the same), choreographed without the grandiose Yuen Woo-ping, they have lost the virtuosity of yesteryear, in favor of not always happy close-ups.
A breathtaking final chase
The Chinese choreographer is sorely missed, as are some of the other former pillars of the saga, such as cinematographer Bill Pope, composer Don Davis and visual effects supervisor John Gaeta – who can however be found here in a cameo, as an employee of Deus Machina, the company that employs Thomas Anderson. Another notable absence: that of Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus, replaced by the younger and much less charismatic Yahya Abdul-Mateen II … On the other hand, some returns are a bit painful, such as that of a Lambert Wilson in rags in the role of a Merovingian now in disgrace in the new Matrix and whose cart of insults in French no longer makes us laugh so much in Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions. We also sigh at the sight of a Jada Pinkett Smith decked out in a horrible bedridden make-up for her character of Niobe, now promoted to general of the new city of men – several decades have indeed passed since Matrix Revolutions. Finally, we will add to the complaints office a curious appetite of the writers for certain grotesque ideas, such as this obsession with the WC as a dimensional portal or this hybrid creature between the pigeon and the manta ray …
At the end of the credits (stay well until the end!), However, the impression dominates of a fourth part which enhances the blazon of the epic. Certainly, alas, Resurrections more like the very patchy and enlarged Reloaded and Revolutions than the first part. Fortunately, however, he has humor on his side and, visually, several scenes bear witness to Lana Wachowski’s ever-abounding surrealist creativity. And even if the brawls have lost their strength, other pieces of bravery pulverize in their staging the all-comer of the Hollywood blockbuster. We will not soon forget the thrilling and very beautiful final night motorcycle chase, where Neo and Trinity must escape a whole horde of suicide programs throwing themselves through the windows of skyscrapers … Despite its narrative flaws and often ostentatious character pachydermic of his political agenda, Matrix Resurrections also has the great merit of trying to deconstruct its own myth. Including the legendary special effect of the bullet time… Only time and new visions will leave a reliable impression on this strange object that is Matrix Resurrections. Lana Wachowski’s new world is imperfect, of course, but it at least tries to inject an author’s gaze into a hyperspectacle which, in the absence of revolution, has fun with déjà vu and often turns out to be mind-blowing. It is already a lot. So take the red pill.