The Matrix Resurrections

Rating: **

The Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Wild horses couldn’t drag me to see  another  Matrix film—not after  it was duly dead and  buried 17 years  ago—but our very own Priyanka  Chopra Jonas(now  purely  Priyanka) could. So there I was  on a shivery winter  evening  risking the uncommon Covid and the  common  cold(not in  any particular  order) to see Keanu Reeves playing  a game maker in this  game changer of  a franchise which redefined the video-game based genre when  the first Matrix film released  22 years  in  1999.

Times have changed. The  movie experience has  transformed beyond recognition. The Matrix franchise remains frozen in time. The script  this time is even more dense and tense  than  Matrix Revolutions   in  2003. The characters  spill all over  the plot  like  brimming coffee from a hot plastic cup, relentlessly questioning the mirror-image  mirage that separates  reality from illusion.

The one  theme in  Matrix  Resurrections that breaks through the claustrophobic  cordon of cryptography is that of the illusory quality of life. Are we living an imaginary existence  ? This  thought  runs through our hero  Thomas  Anderson, a.k.a Neo’s  mind, more so when his  therapist(Neil Patrick Harris) is  playing  mindgames  of  his  own with  Neo, rendering the  tremulous  relationship between  reality and  fantasy even more precariously undependable.

There are some bouts  of feverish combat  and one onboard a speeding train in Japan is  a marvel  of  choreography.  But such rare episodes  in  an excursion to the border  of disingenuousness  cannot redeem  the slugging slog of a  film running  into almost three hours.

Most  of what we see  this time is  merely a  reiteration  of  what has already passed.Did we  really need  another Matrix  film? Everyone  in  the cast seems  to be in urgent  need  of re-energization.  While  Jessica Henwick’s spunky splash  of a  performance, blue hair and all,  does provide  the urgent dose of  vitality in an otherwise-dead  gamer, the rest of the cast seems to be in  it just for  the  heck of it,  none more so than Priyanka  Chopra  who comes  on after   more than half  the film is over, to deliver some hallucinatory  oracular  lines  before  merging into the meltdown that   defines  all  the characters , new and  old, in their  vain attempt to generate spark to a reunion that has no significance beyond some bland  curiosity.

As for  Keanu Reeves he looks confounded  , almost like  a trapped rabbit,  from the first frame  to the last. Whether  the actor shares his character’s ongoing conflicts, is  not  certain.Nothing is.Everyone seems to be on drugs.

At one  point in the  rambling raga  of  time-unbound ruminations, Keanu  Reeves is  heard  discussing the  imminent arrival of another film in the Matrix series.“Warner Brothers will go ahead with it , no matter what,” Keanu is informed while he looks  even  more confused.

“This is not happening,” he says on  more than one  occasion.I too found myself  thinking  the same.