Much of the advance publicity surrounding The Matrix Resurrections focused on Act One’s satirical nature. The movie mocked the production house, Warner Bros., by name, for their demand for a lucrative sequel, whether the art demanded it or not. Warner, in a remarkable show of grace, leaned into that mockery and included it in the PR packet. Sounds cool, I remember thinking, but not compelling; I’ll wait for home video.
Now that it’s streaming, I find myself struck by what the PR omitted: a much more fatalistic tone, admitting that the original trilogy’s prophecies fell flat. The original movie remains relevant and talked-about a quarter century after its release, but its messianic promise of deliverance from corporatized autocracy seems naïve now. We haven’t escaped the machine, this movie warns us. If anything, it’s stronger now than it appeared in 1999.
The movie begins with Neo, having returned to his pre-liberation name of Thomas, working a soulless corporate job, like he did in the first movie. Instead of toiling in the anonymous cube farm, however, he now occupies the corner office, and has personal confabs with the corporate straw-boss. But he’s profoundly dissatisfied, treating his malaise by chronically overdosing psychiatric medications. Then word comes that Warner wants a sequel.
Fans embraced the first movie for two defining characteristics: cutting-edge visual effects, and long, maundering philosophical monologues. We who are old enough to remember the first movie, without the historical baggage that followed thereafter, probably remember feeling almost vindicated by the Wachowskis’ take on the decade between the Cold War and 9/11. That decade was slick, shiny, and frequently fun, but also stultifyingly boring in its safety.
Thereafter, some aspects of the first movie seemed downright prophetic. Scenes of urban destruction and gun violence looked eerily like footage of both 9/11 and the War on Terror. It’s hard to watch Neo and Trinity piloting a helicopter gunship into a skyscraper, without remembering the street-to-street fighting of the Siege of Fallujah. The videogame-like violence would become only worse as footage of American drone strikes became cable news fodder.
Unfortunately, if the first movie evidently recognized the boredom of safety, and the violence which boredom begets, the sequels fell flat. They pushed heavily on images of neo as messianic deliverer, whose unique person promises to challenge the system. As Agent Smith increasingly possesses everyone and everything, remaking the Matrix in his self-serving image, the movie promises that Neo, operating alone, will reset the changes and release the captives.
Christians worldwide have, certainly, believed their singular messiah would bring that promised deliverance. But often, instead of acting boldly in trust that Christ would vindicate the just, Christians used the promise of future deliverance to sit idly by, expecting Jesus to fix everything. Christians tolerated, if not outright participated in, war, slavery, exploitation, and empire. Molding ourselves to the world is okay, if the Messiah will triumph eventually.
Mass media in the post-Matrix decades has embraced the Chosen One myth. Rey Skywalker, Captain America, Katniss Everdeen, and even Keanu Reeves’ own John Wick have raced headlong into pits of vipers which seems insuperably large, and emerged triumphant. Despite occasional interludes, like the cinematic Les Misérables, American corporate media keeps promising a singular messiah that will redeem us from… well, from America, mostly.
Meanwhile, The Matrix Resurrections acknowledges directly that conditions have gotten worse. English-speaking conservative parties repeatedly promise to actively make oppression more oppressive, while progressive parties limply pledge that, under their supervision, things won’t get much worse. War, disease, and poverty have gotten worse, not better, since 1999. As Ian Haney López writes, the machinery of oppression proves infinitely capable of adapting to every direct challenge.
This movie takes that adaptability literally. A machine learning heuristic seizes the heroes that previously challenged the Matrix, and turns them into the Matrix’s driving engines. It uses the very human embodiment of justice to fuel injustice—shades of Republicans appropriating one orphan MLK quote to proclaim themselves the real arbiters of fairness. This movie admits that we who believe in freedom must adapt faster than the oppressors.
Hovering over San Francisco streets, Neo realizes something the original trilogy missed: if he hoards the power of salvation, then he’s already failed. The messianic impulse may begin with one individual, but unless it radiates outward, unless others join the kingdom as priests and kings themselves, messianic deliverance will never arrive. Humans, even messiahs, eventually die. The final shot abjures the sequels, and restores the “we”-centered salvation the first movie promised.
No comments:
Post a Comment