Movie reviews: 'The Matrix Resurrections' is a self-aware film, but lacks ambition
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This week, TV pop culture critic Richard Crouse reviews new movies: 'The Matrix Resurrections,' 'Licorice Pizza,' 'The Tragedy of Macbeth,' and 'The King's Man.'
These days movies are regularly remade, rebooted, reimagined and regurgitated. But none of those terms capture how Warner Bros has brought back one of their most famous and ground breaking franchises.
The new Keanu Reeves movie isn’t simply a return to the Matrix—the simulated reality created by intelligent machines to pacify humans and steal their energy—it’s a resurrection. After 18 years, Neo has been raised from the dead by Lana Wachowski in “The Matrix Resurrections,” now playing in theatres.
The last time we saw Neo (Reeves) he made the ultimate sacrifice, giving himself to create peace between machines and mankind. His death would allow people to finally be free of the virtual world of the Matrix.
In “Resurrections,” it’s 20 years later. Neo now goes by his real name, Thomas A. Anderson. He is the “greatest video game designer of his generation,” with an ordinary life, save for the visions that plague him. “I’ve had dreams,” he says, “that weren’t just dreams.” His analyst (Neil Patrick Harris) has him on a steady diet of heavy therapy and blue pills, meant to quell the strange delusions.
