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.
This early chapter is laden with droll in-jokes and sly, break-the-reality-wall efforts to blur the line between what’s happening within this film, and what’s happening in our real world. The most amusing sequence comes when Thomas reluctantly attends a blue-sky concept meeting with his team, as they attempt to conceptualize what made the Matrix game series so popular:
“It effed with your head. “Matrix” is mind-porn.”
“I like my games big, loud and dumb.”
“We need guns … lots of guns. Matrix is bullet time. Bullet time!”
“Trans-politics. Crypto fascism.”
“It’s a metaphor of capitalist exploitation.”
And so forth. All of the wild, crazed and occasionally faintly coherent theories that have flourished in Internet chat rooms populated by fans doing their best to explain the original trilogy … which was, despite such pretense of Significance, simply big, loud and dumb.
The films also are much too long. (This one clocks in at 148 minutes.)
Alas, that sort of clever wink-wink-nudge-nudge quickly is replaced by an endless stream of chases and shoot-’em-ups, to the point of exhaustion. It’s amazing how, despite being armed with rapid-fire automatic weapons, the Matrix baddies never even nick any of our good guys … whereas the latter always take out their enemies with single, well-placed shots.
So, okay: Thomas/Neo once again discovers that his “supposed” life has been wholly artificial. He actually has been back in a Matrix pod, until being rescued by Bugs, Sequoia (Toby Onwumere) and the rest of their team. He then learns that humanity — in the mostly dystopian “real” world — has gathered into a fresh protected community, Io, build on the ashes of its predecessor (Zion) which was mostly destroyed in Revolutions, and carefully concealed from the nasty, roving Matrix sentinels.
Back in the virtual reality world, Thomas/Neo had been noticing a woman, Tiffany, who frequents his favorite coffee shop. She looks remarkably like his beloved — and also deceased — Trinity: no surprise, since she’s once again played by Carrie-Anne Moss. Believing in his heart that this must actually be Trinity, he insists on risking Io and its many inhabitants, with an effort to return to Matrix/Earth in order to “rescue” Trinity/Tiffany.
And because Wachowski and her fellows scribes want it this way, instead of properly calling Thomas/Neo a selfish jerk and locking him away for their own safety, Bugs and the others cheerfully join him on this insane quest.
Before embarking on said suicide mission, Thomas/Neo must “toughen up” during a wreck-the-landscape, Samurai-style skirmish with former mentor Morpheus: now played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, presumably because he’s younger and more buff that Laurence Fishburne.
With respect to that point … at 56, Reeves is past his sell-by date for this sort of physical mayhem. He’s a convincing grunter and groaner, and he’s carefully doubled by the film’s stunt team, but the increasingly violent melees stretch credibility far past the breaking point.
On top of which, stone-faced Reeves still can’t act worth a damn; he makes Clint Eastwood (in his prime) look like Anthony Hopkins. Reeves’ sole go-to expression looks more like a guy suffering from indigestion, than anything approaching credible angst.
His wooden line deliveries and shaggy, ill-kempt slovenliness don’t help.
Henwick is refreshingly perky and plucky as Bugs; Moss is ultra-cool as always, with that half smile that bespeaks slightly mocking amusement. The other members of Bugs’ team don’t display much in the way of personality.
What’s perhaps most disappointing is that the bravura special effects and imaginative action sequences, so eye-popping in 1999’s first film, are shadows of their former self here. The best fracas, taking place aboard a Japanese bullet train, is the sole exception: imaginative choreographed and edited by Joseph Jett Sally.
All the other battles are … well … merely big, loud and dumb. Perhaps not content with that, the third act “climaxes” with a zombie apocalypse horde, as all “regular” people in Matrix Earth are transformed into berserkers ordered to kill Thomas/Neo, Bugs and all the others.
Seriously? That’s what passes for “new” in this franchise?
I could go on, but there’s really no point; this series’ fans likely will adore this fourth installments as much as its diminishing-returns predecessors, insisting that everything old is new again. And since the Matrix machines never will truly go away, this same premise can be repeated again and again. And again. And again.
Count me out.
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