Film Review

The Matrix Resurrections (2021)

To find out if his reality is a construct, to truly know himself, Mr. Anderson will have to choose to follow the white rabbit once more.

Having concluded a trilogy with apparent finality, returns almost 20 years later with an unlikely fourth instalment. This time only half the Wachowski’s are back to direct — as Lily decided not to rake over old ground, whereas Lana was inspired to revive their characters as a salve for real-life grief — and The Matrix Resurrections duly steps into a pop culture landscape that’s changed radically since the millennium. The Matrix (1999) was a seminal moment in cinema; it evolved how sci-fi/action movies were made, gave 1990s audiences a taste of 21st-century digital filmmaking, and helped to popularise its own anime and martial arts influences in the west.

There followed a decade of Hollywood movies that borrowed ideas, visuals, and techniques from The Matrix (most famously the ‘bullet time’ effect), and even today echoes of its influence are still felt. The divisive sequels — The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions…