Few if any movie in recent memory has made as much of an impact on popular culture as The Matrix. It’s hard to fathom all of the things the 1999 film brought to the forefront of the pop culture psyche — gun ballet, anime worship, simulation theory, federal agents as demons, dodging bullets, lush slow-mo, dystopian living, overcoats as ritual wear, you name it, Keanu Reeves and Co. made it popular. Now, over two decades since the release of the first film, Lana Wachowski, one half of the original’s directorial team, has returned with a new film, The Matrix Resurrections, and the first trailer is finally available to watch below.
While the trailer leaves much of the plot’s details in shadow, and keeps things very mysterious, here’s what we’re able to get from it: Neo is now older, living in the Matrix itself but without any memory of his previous life as The One. He takes blue pills to help with his latent mental illness, which seems to tell him the world is not what it seems and that he has some sort of control over it. He runs into Trinity at a coffee shop, and suddenly he’s thrust back into a world he vaguely remembers — full of superhuman abilities, shapeshifting Agents, and humanity living in slavery under an endless network of robot overlords. Morpheus appears to be present, though he is somehow younger and more athletic than before. How it will explain the events of the two ill-received and somewhat confused sequels, 2003’s The Matrix: Reloaded and The Matrix: Revolutions, remains to be seen. But you bet your ass we’re going to see it to find out.
Check out the first trailer for The Matrix: Resurrections below:
The Matrix Resurrections comes out December 22nd (it’s 12/22/21 – a palindrome, see?) in theaters and on HBO Max.
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Words by Chris Krovatin
