I saw the new Matrix film the other day, and, though this blog is most assuredly not a review site, it does seem to tend towards a site about story-telling….and The Matrix: Resurrections is most assuredly (for better or worse) concerned with the same subject matter.
So, in the spirit of that, here is a not-review review of Resurrections – or maybe, a deconstruction of a couple of things that I really liked, and what I hated….and my attempt at correcting those things that I didn’t like. To be clear, I wouldn’t be doing this exercise at all if Resurrections had been bereft of quality or potential…..I just wish it had zigged instead of zagging on a few, very crucial points.
Oh, and naturally, full spoiler mode from here on out, so here’s a picture of Gandalf fighting the Balrog if you don’t want to scroll down any further, by the superb John Howe.
All gone? Good.
Let’s start with most of the positives. I liked most of the premise…the concept of a machine civil war was great fun, and a fairly logical extension from the ending of Revolutions. Further, the idea that some machines would defect to humanity, and that such defections would be inspired in large part by Neo’s actions, made a lot of sense to me and felt like a logical (if somewhat unexpected) turn of events…to me, it was a subtle way of showing that, despite the ‘reboot’ nature of this film on the whole, the previous trilogy had had consequences on this new world.
I also didn’t mind the literal resurrection of Neo and Trinity, or how they were integrated into this new world – after all it was one heck of a corner that Revolutions had written those characters into, and, well, if there’s a story worth telling with them, then a bit of liberty is fine. As explained below, I’d have gone for a slightly different reason for the machines to resurrect Trinity – perhaps she was the test subject for “Project: Resurrect Neo”, to make sure they could do it right? But that’s a small enough change.
I also enjoyed most of the introductory act…Agent Morpheus was a fine way to rework the character, and the concept of a program within a program was so much fun that I wish they had done even more with it. The reframing of previous events through Anderson’s online game was also highly enjoyable, though this is, unhappily, associated with a negative…the film’s action was, for the most part, utterly awful. Bewilderingly cut, shakily shot, with none of the technical or visual mastery that is so associated with the trilogy….and this was put in stark relief by the near shot-for-shot remaking of the opening sequence, which looked miles better than the rest of the film.
Right, enough nice talk, let’s be meanies instead.
I’ll start with a few smaller points that I don’t have much to say beyond, ‘I hated this’….and save my analysis for a couple of key elements.
Firstly, I hated the ending of the film, it felt really petty and strangely villainous on the parts of Neo and Trinity. I hated the reappearance of the Merovingian and his exiled programs, it felt very out of place, and I wasn’t really sure why they turned up at all. It was a neat concept, but it didn’t fit at all into the overall tone or narrative – if there’d been more room to explore it, then I would have been rather more convinced. As for the meta-humour that defined the first act, I felt a little more mixed…my wife rather enjoyed it, but for me it was a little too much, and too disconnected with the rest of the film. I didn’t not enjoy it, but I was certainly unmoved by a fair amount of it.
Right, let’s get down to business – clickbait title, ‘The Top Two Things The Matrix Resurrections Totally Tanked’ or something like that.
I hated the portrayal of Agent Smith. Hated hated hated it…and not a good fun “oh he’s so villainous” hate, but a “ugh, I can’t wait for this guy to be off the screen” hate.
To be clear, I’m unwilling to lay much, if any blame at the feet of Jonathon Groff, who had the unenviable task of portraying an extraordinarily iconic villain. I’ve not seen Groff in enough roles to judge whether he was up to the task or not but, to his credit, he seemed to do exactly what script and direction demanded of him….and it was that that sat so ill with me.
The idea of rebooting Smith with a new face makes a fair amount of sense – Smith is a program, there’s no real reason why he has to look like Hugo Weaving. I also kinda liked the idea of the Matrix forcing Smith and Neo, these hated, legendary foes, into a banal and trite relationship – what could be a more fitting punishment for those two who so dramatically undid the Matrix’s previous status quo?
But I hated the portrayal of Smith, and I think there was much more drama to be explored in this petty office relationship between him and Neo. To the first point, Agent Smith was many things in the Matrix trilogy. Philosophic, prone to overblown speeches and grandiose verbosity, more than a little silly and petty, and fiercely independent. This Smith had very little of that, and suffered for it.
Actually, that might not be the whole truth….for, even as a stand-alone character, Smith suffered in this film when compared with the Analyst. Given that these two were the film’s primary antagonistic forces, one would hope that they be drawn in contrast with each other…but in manner, in portrayal and in philosophy, I saw not one whit of difference between them. Both were verbose but favoured the trivial and shallow, with phrases like “O.M.G.” and “She’s like, such a babe” peppering their speech. Both were drawn to be threatening but trite, which in turn made it very difficult to understand them in contrast to one another.
To be clear, I wasn’t a huge fan of the Analyst as a villain either….but as a very clear contrast with the Architect, he worked well enough. But the Analyst and Smith were far, far too close to each other in manner and delivery, and both suffered for it….and, given that we have such a masterful characterisation for Smith already drawn, why not utilise it? Update it, install the latest Smith!patch on him, whatever you fancy, but keep him Smith, and thus lend both antagonistic forces more distinct personalities.
However, even with a changed Smith portrayal, I would still go a little further. I picked, very early in the film, that near-everyone around Neo and Trinity was a program….and, given that the Analyst and Smith were the most obviously important characters, as well as being the two characters who seemed to be the most sinister in their behaviour with Neo, it was equally clear that they would be the primary oppositional forces.
So why not switch it up further? Keep the Analyst as he is, whilst returning Smith to his hammy and overblown grandiose self….but make Smith a less overtly antagonistic force towards Neo as well. Not *quite* a friend, that would run contrary to the Matrix’s goal of making Neo suffer….but a confidante, a sympathetic and friendly (if discomfiting) figure.
This wouldn’t allay our suspicion of him, but it would confuse it. Is Neo’s boss the true villain, or the Analyst? Is one secretly trying to help Neo in some way? Is Smith even a program, or is he some fellow human, trapped as Neo is?
Then, when Smith breaks free of his conditioning, his literal programming, his rage would be all the more real. He was this close to subsuming the Matrix completely, to remaking it according to his will….and now he has been reduced to this. Reduced to a brainwashed slave, forced to carry out a function, and forced to endure the company of his most hated foe. Indeed, just as Neo and Trinity’s near-togetherness and suffering was such a powerful force, so too might Smith be suffering.
So Smith lashes out, first at Neo (and more on that soon), because that’s what Smith does….he hates Neo. He hates that he’s been forced to spend these long years conditioned into acting a certain way, for Neo’s benefit.
Then, come the final act, Smith’s switch can play out more or less as it did, as he realises that Neo isn’t the real enemy here, and never was. It’s this new version of the Matrix that has punished Smith, and that has seen fit to reduce him so – Smith cannot achieve his goals of freedom or of domination without turning on the Matrix itself in this scenario, so that makes a great deal of sense to me.
But by clearly drawing him as being a very different character, a very different force, to the Analyst, from the beginning of the film, his eventual reveal would be far more potent, and I think it would do a lot of the hard work in rebuilding Neo’s relationship with this new-faced Smith if there was already greater commonality to the previous iteration.
Speaking of, let’s move on and over to my other massive gripe with the story as a whole – which, erm, is either most of the plot, or a key detail, depending on how you look at it?
Let’s start from the top down – I am almost always deeply suspicious of stories that incorporate “The Power of Love” in some fashion. Sometimes it works….I love the way the Harry Potter books utilise it, and think it is both mature and dramatic in that series. Conversely, though, most times that a plot is resolved because “we’re stronger together”, “you can’t overcome love”, or whatever, I loathe it. Interstellar is a stark example of that – to this day, it’s the only Christopher Nolan film that I really, really hate, because its treatment of The Power of Love is so….so banal, so ultimately empty and meaningless. Shows like Doctor Who tend toward an overreliance on such cheap tricks as well, as do various animated films and TV shows.
Can such stories work? Sure. But they often need a lot of work to win me over….and the latest Matrix didn’t quite get there, in my view. Not just because its Power of Love was lazy (it was, but actually had a couple of elements that could have worked), but because it actively rewrote the history of the Matrix itself, and to the worse overall.
In what way did Resurrections rewrite Matrix canon? Primarily, in how it defined Neo as the One, as outlined by The Analyst in his most supremely irritating monologue:
“We worked for years, trying to activate your source code. I was about to give up, when I realized it was never just you. Alone, neither of you is of any particular value. Like acids and bases, you’re dangerous when mixed together. Every sim where you two bonded… Let’s just say bad things happened.”
In the Matrix Trilogy, Neo is The One…destined and prophesied to save humanity, yadda yadda yadda. The Analyst, though, seems to be indicating that Neo was never The One…he was half of a whole, him and Trinity making each other greater than the sum of their parts. Except that doesn’t make much sense when one thinks about the plots of Reloaded and Revolutions.
In Reloaded, Neo is told by the Architect that he is the One because, for whatever reason, the optimal algorithm for the Machines must always produce a One. Neo hasn’t been created by the Machines, per se, but he has been enabled by them – he is an inevitability of their own system that they have foreseen, and that has occurred before, and that must occur again if the Matrix is to survive.
Never once does the Architect say that Trinity is a part of this equation, or that she enables or adds to Neo’s own abilities in any way. Nor does Trinity ever display some great show of power – she is highly capable within the Matrix, even getting the drop on an Agent at one point, but she does not seem any more extraordinary than, say, Morpheus.
So now, to have the Analyst claim that Trinity was a crucial part of the power of the One sits extremely ill with me….but I don’t just dislike it because of how it rewrites the previous films, but how it then impacts this one. The moment that we are told that Neo and Trinity together are incredibly powerful, to the point of being unstoppable, all tension is sucked out of the film. Just get them together, and we know it will all be fine…as, indeed, happens.
Surprisingly, though, I feel like there’s a fairly straightforward solution to this problem, and one which keeps the film’s plot near-intact.
But let’s start from the top, or near enough. Once Neo is rescued from the Matrix, have the resistance fighters play up their hero worship of him. This happens in the film already, but on a historical level – the people of Io respect Neo for what he did. I’d push it further, so that Bugs’ crew (at least) also revere him for what he could do now. The stories of what Neo could do in the Matrix ought to be legendary. Here was a man who used the abilities and powers of the machines against them. A man who could rewrite and warp the Matrix like it was nothing. A man who could fly.
And now, this man, this living weapon, walks among them. Now, the fight against the machines is on with a vengeance.
Bla bla bla they reenter the Matrix to save Trinity. Everyone is hyped to see what exactly a legend can do – Neo himself is cool, confident, ready to go in there and reassume his mantle. And…he doesn’t. He can’t fly. He isn’t as fast, as strong, as invulnerable or as tireless as he once was. He’s not ‘weak’, per se, but he is considerably less powerful than we remember….indeed, coupled with his lack of practice, the crew seem rather more capable than he does.
And we, the audience, can be baffled alongside Neo and the crew as to why this isn’t working…until the Analyst enters the picture, and gloats at Neo and us both.
Neo was the One, sure. But not in the Matrix. In a Matrix. In his predecessor’s version – but those powers were inherent to the Architect’s entire equation. Neo wasn’t the One because of anything innately special about him, because he was born with abilities that others did not. Neo was the One because somebody had to be the One.
And the Analyst has recalculated, recalibrated, reorganised the entire system. This brave new version of the Matrix needs no One – here, Neo is just a man. A tired, old man, trapped in a world that has moved past him.
At that point, the Analyst can move on, explaining how this new Matrix works on feelings, on sorrow, on lost potential and fear, as he does in the film. But I’d remove any mention of Neo and Trinity being powerful….rather, the Analyst can be content with explaining that their fear and doubt is a powerful source of energy (as he does), and elaborate no further. This keeps a fairly crucial element in place for the film’s denouement, but also lends some tension to the current situation – as far as we know, Neo cannot win this fight.
From this point, the film can likely play out very similarly to how it does, including the unlocking of Neo and Trinity’s newfound powers when they are reunited. Now, though, the reason why they are so powerful isn’t that they are ‘special’, chosen by destiny or anything like that. Now, the reason is clearly because the machines literally bestowed that power upon them themselves – the machines have been harvesting that power, but now that Neo and Trinity are together, they are able to use it to their own ends.
So, there you have it. These likely aren’t the only changes that I’d make to Resurrections – the film is overall somewhat unfocused, uneven in its delivery and pace. But these were, to my mind, the most perplexing elements, for the simple reason that I feel like there was a much better way of realising both, without really changing structural elements of the film. I don’t know that some elements can be saved at all (the metahumour was, again, somewhat grating at times to me), but these changes would make the film far better for me. In the first case, the ‘Smith’ character would have felt far better realised, far more clearly drawn and been more immediately perceivable as the same character that Weaving played all those years ago, allowing us to readily track his own character development. As for the Power of Love stuff, I think it does fit into this film and works given the technobabble and thematic material. But the explanation that was given for why it works was perplexing to me, given how poorly it fitted the history of the previous films, and how badly it served the drama of this one.
And finally, since a common writing ‘trick’ is to open with a positive, lay out all of one’s complaints, and then conclude with a positive….dear Lord, Jessica Henwick is a great actress. She wasn’t the most important or crucial part of the film, and faded out of importance by the final act, but her character was fun, convincing, engaging, and hella cool. Alas, most of the side characters fell very flat, lacking development or connection – Niobe’s return was interesting and fun, but even Agent Morpheus fell out of importance as the film progressed, and I think stripping the human characters down and spending more time with them would’ve helped the film immensely. But Captain Bugs was an incredibly fine exception to that rule, she was cool, compelling, fun, capable and yet still very relatable, where that character could’ve been very irritating or overbearingly ‘Independent Strong Female” in the hands of a lesser actress. But Henwick was brilliant, and if she isn’t a massive star in 5 years I will eat my hat, and I have a big hat.
Seriously, she’s great – if the next, inexorable Matrix is just about her, I’d be delighted.
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