Another feature that Universal Pictures Australia sent me an invite to see early, and as truly thankful as I am for getting the chance to do so… I’m kinda intimidated by the prospect of critiquing this film and giving it its fair due. I’ve gone on record about how the original Matrix is one of my all-time favourite films, and I can vividly remember where I was when I first watched it, but I’ve also mentioned that the sequels didn’t really measure up to it.
I bring up that last point because, after rewatching them just a few days before going out to see the latest instalment, that opinion has drastically changed; not only are the sequels genuinely great films, but they make the first film that much better by expanding on everything that made that film work. I’ve been watching those sequels on and off for more than half of my lifetime on this earth, and it’s only now that I properly appreciate what they were going for.
As such, I’m getting the uncomfortable feeling that this will be a similar deal, and I don’t really have the time or mental capacity to squeeze several years’ worth of hindsight into my perspective on a film that will be out this week. But I must press on, because even if I end up missing a few things here and there, this is still a very interesting feature to be writing about.
Well, might as well get the bad news out of the way first: The action scenes are not that great. Or, at the very least, the film doesn’t give the audience as much opportunity to really take them all in. The stunt work led by Jonathan Eusebio and Scott Rogers, who previously worked together on John Wick 3 as well as Birds Of Prey, on its own is really good and sticks to the gravity-bending John Woo worship of the original trilogy, but with how close Daniele Massaccesi and John Toll’s cinematography gets to those set pieces, and how quickly Joseph Jett Sally cuts around them, their work isn’t given enough space to be fully appreciated as it happens. For a follow-up to one of the most iconic action flicks of the modern era, that’s pretty disconcerting.
However, while there’s gripes to be had about the presentation, the ideas at the heart of this Gnostic cyberpunk world are still here… and they’re far more reflexive than they have ever been in this franchise before, even considering its multimedia offshoots. This is a legacy sequel in its most meta context, as this is as much about the Matrix as an in-universe system of control as it is about the Matrix franchise as an element of pop culture. The first act is full of raw fan service for long-time fans, and with how Neo’s character has been re-established within the Matrix, he’s basically a stand-in for Lana Wachowski herself, being pushed toward making a follow-up to a successful IP and all the in-office finagling that entails.
In the process of making this kind of introduction, pushing the series further into questioning the nature of simulation vs. reality (or, broader terms, fiction vs. reality), a lot of what Lana, and her co-writers David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon, have to say about how this story has gone down in pop culture history is… pretty pissed off, actually. The way the villain is characterised, he comes across like the avatar for every person on our side of the screen who sees themselves as part of the ‘Redpill’ community. And with the statements made about human emotion, the cyclical treadmill of capitalism, and even the Hollywood sequel/reboot/remake machine (taking some pot shots at Warner Bros. in the process, which is more than fair game after what they did with Space Jam: A New Legacy), it reads like Lana is especially perturbed at how her and Lilly’s parable on self-actualisation and personal freedom has been weaponised to… well, enforce the exact opposite of those values.
Not that this turns into ‘Author Is God’ or anything so strict. I mean, part of my aforementioned revelation regarding the sequels is that I can definitely see how this franchise’s ethos could give rise to two such diametrically opposing perspectives on the world. The films were always far more concerned about knowledge of self and one’s surroundings, with notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ being somewhat beside the point; choice is paramount, no matter what choice ends up being. I’m almost positive that such an admission will do sweet F.A. about certain reactionary audiences inevitably decrying this for ‘going woke’ just for re-emphasising ideas that have always been there (or, at the very least, have made sense to be read into it after the fact), but you want to know the funniest part about all this? It doesn’t even matter that much.
For all its venom about the circumstances of its own existence, both as pop culture product and as springboard for real-world philosophy, it still functions much as the Wachowskis’ previous films have in terms of plot, up to and including the Matrix itself: A means to an end for a much simpler idea. And here, that comes in the form of what the titular Resurrections is referring to: Neo and Trinity, and getting the legendary power couple back together. It’s in much the same vein as Reloaded in how it’s a love story first and foremost, and Keanu Reeves and Carrie Anne-Moss’ chemistry together still sells that relationship as the purest thing ever put to film… and in that intersection, Lana reveals a notion about the Matrix, both as fiction and as in-universe plot device, that I don’t think a lot of people have considered before.
Where Lilly wasn’t that into going back to an older idea and reliving the past (which is a stance I can totally understand coming from a trans woman), Lana saw it more as a means of comfort. Of being able to revisit people that played an integral part of her life as an artist… to help deal with not being able to do the same with others (her parents as well as a friend who all died in close proximity to each other). It’s fiction as a healing tool, same as what went into Andrew Garfield’s performance in tick, tick… BOOM!, and the main thing that comes out the loudest throughout this entire film has nothing to do with philosophy or the nature of reality; it’s a feeling of earnest intimacy. A sense that what is happening on-screen isn’t contrived because some ulterior force demanded that it happen, but because the people who created it wanted it to happen.
There’s something quite refreshing about that, especially given the very retread culture it spends a lot of its first act commenting on directly, and it also helps clarify something about the Matrix itself. The Matrix, the big simulation meant to anaesthetise what’s left of future-humanity, isn’t a bad thing just because it is a false reality. It’s a bad thing because it is a false reality beyond the control and (most importantly) consent of those engaging with it, since it exists specifically to take them both away from those plugged into it. There is nothing wrong with fiction as an aspect of human reality; I mean, what is The Matrix as a film if not a compilation of every film, anime, comic book, and video game the Wachowskis have ever loved? Fiction can be a very powerful thing, and with how much it has influenced the real world (both for good and for ill), it’s hard to argue its impact. So why shouldn’t Lana try and reconnect with the good that it can bring?
I admittedly still have my issues with this film as it stands, from the action, to its wordier bits of world-building to explain just how much has changed in-universe since the last film, to it going this hard into full metafiction concerning its own franchise. But even with all that said and done, this makes for one of the strongest legacy sequels I’ve seen in years, showing equal strength in continuing its own franchise’s story while hammering home the ways in which it has influenced the reality on our side of the screen. It shows flashes of anger at how its core message has become so warped in the modern discourse, but rather than let that be all it has to say, it sticks to a simple and highly effective plea for love to conquer all. It may neglect the more visceral side of the equation, but only to emphasise that the reason why people love these movies to this day is down to more than just those action scenes.
No comments:
Post a Comment