Charles M. Schulz sagely observed that a cartoonist is “someone who has to draw the same thing day after day, without repeating himself.”
Lana Wachowski, on the other hand, is a writer/director who makes the same movie time after time, while repeating everything.
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| Although not entirely convinced, Thomas (Keanu Reeves) instinctively senses that much of what Bugs (Jessica Henwick) says is true ... and that his supposed life on Earth isn't actually what he thinks. |
But the utter absence of originality in this fourth Matrix installment is both tedious and disheartening: in its own way, a contributor to the death of imagination. Wachowski — abetted by co-writers David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon — apparently can make the same movie ad infinitum, and fans don’t seem to mind.
What was novel and mind-blowingly audacious, back in 1999, has become familiar and boring.
A brief prologue introduces the feisty, blue-tressed Bugs (Jessica Henwick), a “white rabbit” on a covert mission in what clearly is a dangerous Matrix rabbit hole, seeking clues that will reveal more about “The One,” who sacrificed himself for humanity 60 years earlier.
Following that, we drop in on Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves), a wildly successful computer programmer who has made a fortune for himself, and his company, with a three-part immersive game called The Matrix Trilogy.
Given that Thomas — known in the “real” world as Neo — died nobly at the conclusion of 2003’s The Matrix Revolutions, his appearance here clearly indicates fresh bad behavior by the intelligent machines that control the Matrix. (As a quick recap, all of humanity unknowingly exists within a simulated reality of our familiar world, their physical bodies actually trapped within pods that suck their life force for energy.)
Thomas suffers from bad dreams, despite having shakily moved beyond a recent psychotic break that prompted a suicide attempt: a crisis expertly managed by his warmly sympathetic psychiatrist (Neil Patrick Harris). Worse yet, Thomas is confronted by his boss — Jonathan Groff, suitably smarmy and condescending, as Smith — and informed that they’re going to make a fresh sequel to the Matrix game trilogy: something Thomas swore he’d never do.
In a bit of cheeky meta, Smith explains that they have no choice; their corporate owners, Warner Bros., will do the game with or without them.
