Resurrecting The Matrix: The Challenges of a Belated Sequel

This article contains spoilers for the original Matrix trilogy.

Arriving at the tail end of the 1990s, The Matrix felt like a culmination of that particular decade of cinema. Much of what defined the 90s cultural landscape found its way in: society’s new-found obsession with cyber culture, the limitless potential of the fledgling internet, not to mention Generation X scepticism. It all coalesced into a film which both challenged and delighted mainstream audiences on a number of levels.

1999 also brought us Being John Malkovich, Fight Club and The Blair Witch Project, a turn-of-the-century wave of films that proved that questioning cinematic traditions, or even reality itself, was in vogue. However, The Matrix was the most audacious of the bunch. Not only did it challenge the entire fabric of reality in a way those other films didn’t, but by allying itself to the growing fascination with cyber culture, the film found itself surfing a cultural zeitgeist that transcended far beyond the confines of cinema.

Arriving at the tail end of the 1990s, The Matrix felt like a culmination of that particular decade of cinema

Two sequels would follow, although they would be far less celebrated. Both The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions would misjudge the perfect equilibrium that characterised the first film (and indeed, the other great movies mentioned above), that careful balance between expert storytelling and a whip-smart sense of self-awareness. Intead, self-awareness would grow, unchecked, into self-importance, alongside a move away from the first film’s eye-popping physical stunts and fight choreography, and towards a CGI frenzy that has not aged well.

New Century, New World

Almost two decades later then, we look ahead to The Matrix Resurrections, set to release this December with the film’s first trailer landing this very week. Being only three months away, it’s been something of a low-key marketing campaign so far for The Matrix 4. Primarily due to the production’s desire to keep a lid on the surprises that the film presumably has in store for us. Although many fans are rooting for Resurrections to be the sequel to the first film that they’ve always longed for, it’s arriving in a significantly different world to the one that rapturously received The Matrix. 9/11 and its continued fallout, the world’s economic meltdown, incendiary binary politics and a global pandemic have all altered the world irreversibly. Even the corporate drone culture that those 1999 movies like The Matrix, Fight Club and Office Space riffed off seeming strangely alien to the millions of us who have spent the best part of two years working from home.

After the muted response to The Matrix’s original sequels, Resurrections’ creators know all too well the difficulties in staging a successful follow-up. It’s a difficult trick to pull off for any production, but Resurrections faces a greater challenge, that of the belated sequel. In the case of The Matrix series, this offers up a unique set of challenges, and I say that as someone incredibly excited for the sequel and hopeful that it proves worthy of the 1999 original. But how can it match the impact of the first film, and what obstacles stand in its way?

Zeitgeist? What Zeitgeist?

One of the reasons the original film was so revered was because it captured audiences’ imaginations with the simple boldness of its core idea: that humanity could be ‘living’ inside a computer simulation. A thought of us being unknowing slaves to a master race of machines. Whilst that conceit still stands up for further storytelling, its freshness has obviously waned. The original wave of cyber films that preceded The Matrix such as Hackers, eXistenZ and The Lawnmower Man have all but died out, and with good reason.

If we are indeed living inside of a computer simulation, then whoever’s been pushing the buttons for the last twenty years is, frankly, a bit of a dick

The power behind The Matrix’s central concept was rooted in 1990s optimism, the last decade when culturally and technologically, it felt like we were on the precipice of sweeping, positive change. The Matrix cleverly undercut that hopefulness, reversing technology as a weapon to be deployed against humanity, rendering us shackled by invisible chains that we didn’t know existed.

Two decades on, after an unending series of global crises that have long extinguished that aforementioned optimism, the idea that this reality is some sort of gilded prison seems questionable at best. It’s more likely that if we are indeed living inside of a computer simulation, as the science fiction author Philip K Dick predicted way back in 1977, then whoever’s been pushing the buttons for the last twenty years is, frankly, a bit of a dick.

Belated sequels often feel valid when the world shifts to accommodate them. 2010’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps may not have been a worthy counterpart to its 1987 predecessor, but director Oliver Stone’s return to that world – some 23 years later – at least felt narratively justified, as the world’s global economic markets imploded due to financial sharks that bore more than a passing resemblance to Stone’s 80s corporate raider, Gordon Gecko.

The problem that The Matrix Resurrections faces in this regard is that few of us believe that technology could be used for such fantastical evil. The world we inhabit has become far too uncomfortable to be what Cypher described in the original film as “bliss”, and the technology used to construct such a prison has been revealed to have evil purposes that are, in comparison to a global consciousness-spanning virtual prison, somewhat banal. Deepfakes and revenge porn, social media and Cambridge Analytica: these are examples of the evils that technology has been repurposed for, nothing as grand as The Matrix suggests, but depressingly real nonetheless.

The world we inhabit has become far too uncomfortable to be what Cypher described in the original film as “bliss”

Perhaps Resurrections has a way to freshen up its central conceit and shake us to our roots once more. But it’s got a job on its hands there.

The Lone Wachowski

The concern that the film might be content with re-ploughing old furrows rather than searching out new ones is one echoed by Lily Wachowski, half of the directing duo behind the first three films. Wachowski elected not to return to the franchise, ceding the responsibility for its future to her sister Lana, and saying only this: “There was something about the idea of going backwards and being a part of something that I had done before that was expressly unappealing… and sort of walk over old paths that I had walked in, felt emotionally unfulfilling.”

For whatever reason, Resurrections didn’t feel like fertile creative ground for Lily Wachowski, and that has to be a potential point for concern. After all, when you consider belated sequels that have worked on some level, they’ve had something fresh to say: Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo (but less so Final Blood) and especially Rocky Balboa being cases in point. The latter explored how a publicity-shy prizefighter like Balboa would fare in a ‘brave new world’ of lop-sided ‘fantasy legacy fights’ and computer-simulated matchups, where the boxing media will try anything to siphon and repackage the glory days of the sport. Whilst I’m all for director duos embarking on solo flights (Joel Coen’s The Tragedy Of Macbeth is high on my watchlist), if Lily Wachowski truly felt that Resurrections wasn’t breaking new ground, to the point when she wasn’t inspired to return, then you have to wonder why.

Kung-Fu, Do What You Do To Me

Whilst 1999’s The Matrix unquestionably pushed both stunt work and fight choreography to new levels, its sequels were a tad too content to fall back on CGI. Sure, the sequels still honoured the wuxia traditions of classic ‘wire-fu’ cinema, but it’s also fair to say that some of the bone-crunching physicality of the first film’s bruising encounters was lost. A quick glance at the stunt co-ordinator team for Resurrections reveals an experienced crew, some of whom have worked on more physical movies such as the John Wick films, as well as George Miller’s incredible Mad Max: Fury Road, but also a host of Marvel features, such as Black Panther.

As somebody who wasn’t particularly enamoured with the way CGI was heavily implemented into many of the fight sequences in the recent Marvel kung-fu flick, Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, I’m hoping we see far more of an emphasis on physical encounters with the new The Matrix. Naturally, this depends hugely on the direction of the story. Still, Keanu Reeves has been enjoying great success with the physical choreography of the John Wick films, and surely the creatives behind Resurrections will look to capitalise on this.

Keanu Reeves has been enjoying great success with the physical choreography of the John Wick films, and surely the creatives behind Resurrections will look to capitalise on this

The Hands of Time

A final potential pitfall, but one which could be cannily converted into a successful element, is the recognition of time passing. Whilst not a classic belated sequel, 2010’s TRON Legacy’s use of an older, beatific Jeff Bridges to portray an introspective Kevin Flynn who has spent decades in a state of zen-like pondering, added pathos to an otherwise throwaway (albeit enjoyable) film. Likewise, seeing Paul Newman’s Eddie visibly age as he still ekes out a living as a hustler in 1986’s The Color Of Money or Andy leaving his toys behind as he transitioned into adulthood in Toy Story 3 can create a potent sense of melancholy that could add a powerfully resonant layer to the upcoming sequel.

With Keanu Reeves’ popularity as strong as it’s ever been, if the creative team use the character of Neo thoughtfully in Resurrections, revisiting an aged version of a character who was a hero to so many could be a powerful storytelling tool. It’s a risky manoeuvre though: Rian Johnson tried something similar with the iconic character of Luke Skywalker in 2017’s The Last Jedi, the second entry in the belated Star Wars sequel trilogy and well, you probably remember the vitriolic response of a certain section of fandom to that.

You have to hope that hasn’t affected the creative decision-making of the team behind Resurrections, because given the creative liberty to take an older Neo in any number of directions, there’s a wealth of interesting possibilities to be explored.

Rising to the challenge

There are a lot of questions regarding whether The Matrix Resurrections can buck the downwards trend of belated sequels and return with the same bravado that heralded the first film’s arrival in 1999. But don’t forget, Resurrections still comes to us courtesy of a large part of that original creative time. In 1999, they were able to answer the ultimate question – “What is The Matrix?” – with such a sense of style and inventiveness that it felt like a bolt out of nowhere. The original is still a much-loved, hugely-influential piece of blockbuster cinema.

If they could answer that original mind-bending conundrum, then the question of how to successfully revitalise a legendary franchise – following two underwhelming sequels – may yet be within their grasp.