The first trailer for The Matrix Resurrections has finally released following its debut at Cinema Con
and we got stunning looks at Neo, Trinity and a younger Morpheus in action. I'm going to be
breaking it down, explaining the biggest questions and discussing what it could mean for the science
fiction sequel that is currently set to release this December. I will link the trailer down below
in the description if you haven't seen it already. Before I get into my breakdown though, if you want
to see much more videos on The Matrix 4 leading up to its release date, including video essays on the
previous films, then don't forget to support this upload by giving it a like rating, subscribing to
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But without further ado, let's dive into the newest trailer for The Matrix Resurrections.
So when The Matrix Revolutions came out in 2003, few would have predicted that almost 20 years
later, we are going back to where it all started. Back to The Matrix. And after years of rumours and
hype, we are returning to a world of red pills, blue pills, sentinels, agents, and much more.
The original trilogy of films by the Wachowskis put an end to the story of Keanu Reeves' Neo,
Carrie Anne-Moss' Trinity and Laurence Fishburne's Morpheus. But The Matrix Resurrections is
living up to its title by resurrecting the franchise. Lana Wachowski writes and directs
the newest film which brings back Reeves and Moss along with newcomers Yahya Abdul-Mateen II,
Neil Patrick Harris, Jessica Henwick, and Jonathan Groff.
But the trailer opens up with Neil Patrick Harris speaking to Keanu Reeves in a therapy session
in a future version of San Francisco. We learn that Neo is trapped back
in the fake world, much like he was before he entered the Matrix originally,
but he feels that something is wrong and he’s not quite in control of where he’s at. He asks,
“Am I crazy,” to which Harris responds, “We don’t use that word in here.” It's key to
note that a lot of this trailer contains references to Alice in Wonderland and it
connects to many things that we see. Taking it back to the original Matrix,
“You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you
want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep
the rabbit hole goes.” Laurence Fishburne's Morpheus said this to Keanu Reeve's Neo in The
Matrix as an entry to pulling back the digital curtain on a simulation that had
captured humanity. Now they are the keys to understanding what we're seeing 22 years later
in the new trailer. The whole “red pill/blue pill” analogy came from Lewis Carroll's 1865 children's
tale Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, in which the heroine experiences her
own drastic perspective shift when she grows after eating a cake marked “Eat
Me” and shrinks to nearly nothing by drinking a potion labelled “Drink Me.” A copy of Carroll's
1871 sequel Through the Looking Glass literally appears in one shot too, but
the movie gets even more literal than that when Neo and his new guide use an actual mirror as a
magical gateway. We ask ourselves, why does Neo appear to be back in the normal realm of
the Matrix after the events of 2003's The Matrix Revolutions, in which he seemingly
gave up his life to free people from their digital prisons? Did humans choose to stay in the Matrix,
thereby taking the blue pill, because the real world was a living hell?
And why is Morpheus now in the younger form of Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, how is Trinity back
and why does she not remember Neo? We can't answer these questions based on this
trailer but there are hints to look at surrounding what may actually be going on.
But back to the Alice hints now that we've layed some context and asked some questions,
there is a black cat moving confidently across the therapist's desk as Neo watches.
The Cheshire Cat was a key figure in Carroll's tales, an observer who could appear and disappear,
sometimes leaving only a levitating smile. In the book, the cat and Alice have a conversation
in which Alice says, “I don’t want to go among mad people", and the cat replies, “Oh,
you can’t help that, we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad". The therapist Neil Patrick
Harris plays has an exchange with Neo that seems to reference that with Neo asking whether he's
crazy but the response may of course be a literal reverse to that. Also, the bright blue on Neil
Patrick Harris's glasses is the same as the blue of pills that keep you complacent
in the matrix and it's also the same blue as the butterflies framed on the shelves in
the background in both the cat shot and the shot of Harris. But there are loads
of other things such as the White Rabbit song, the duck on Neo's head, the use of mirrors and
of course the actual Through The Looking Glass book that we mentioned before. It perfectly
set's up the questions of this story in a Matrix way and keeps us guessing rather than giving us
answers. That's what a great first trailer should do, especially one that The Matrix should do.
But as the trailer progresses we cut to a scene where Neo comes in contact with Carrie Anne Moss’
Trinity in a cafe and she asks, “Have we met?” There is obviously something going on here where
they are slowly realizing they are trapped in the Matrix, a world where they don’t belong. And may I
mention the Trinity looks great in all the footage especially the intriguing shot later on which
shows that there are actually different versions of the character. She helps Neo
a lot throughout the scenes driving him on a motorcycle during an escape and re-connects
with him in other sequences. It will be intriguing to see how they develop this
bond and give us the answers to the question we identified before. But moving on and coming back
to the situation of Neo, there’s also a shot of blue pills spilling in a sink, and at one point
there’s a shot of Neo looking at himself as an old man in the mirror and his reflection begins to
distort. There’s a part where Neo is looking into the sky watching a flock of birds flying around
as he’s trying to analyze it too. We then see him in an elevator with a group of people on their
phones and he is looking at the reflection of everyone looking at their screens. So
maybe what this trailer is communicating is that escape is not actually Neo's goal
anymore. Maybe he wants to go deeper, to escape reality and inhabit a world that is comfortable
rather than terrifying. That would be a reversal of everything we expect. Like throwing the pills
down the sink, the pill that lets you stay in this Wonderland. Like the glasses on the therapist
in reference to Alice In Wonderland telling Neo that he's not crazy.
And the idea of reflections continues to pop up in later scenes in the trailer when Neo
starts meeting some familiar and unfamiliar faces. Neo meets a person with blue hair
who has a tattoo of a rabbit and they end up walking through a mirror. He ends up in the dojo,
which is on a lake, with Abdul-Mateen’s young Morpheus character and he says,
“The only thing that matters to you is still here. You’ll never give up.” Then they start to spar
and at one point Neo hits this Morpheus character super hard in the chest sending him flying out of
the room. The younger Morpheus also tells Neo that it’s “time to fly”
and then hands him a red pill. When Neo encounters Morpheus originally,
his dojo is centred in a still lake that creates a mirrored image and for what it's worth,
this iteration of Morpheus is dressed from head to toe in bright red. Jessica
Henwick's blue-haired character is appropriately named Bugs, and in comparison to the reflection
at the Dojo, she takes Neo through a rooftop door, and the puddle of water around it does the same,
mirroring their actions above as they pass through into what looks like a stately hotel room through
the lens of another mirror. The reflections are an answer to what seems to be Neo's lowest point,
but a path that again, Neo is committing himself to.
However, from the rest of the trailer, we learn that this is a new, upgraded
Neo too. The footage shows us that he can not only stop bullets but redirect full-blown
missiles to stop them from hitting him. We see him also holding bullets in the air
and being plugged into the matrix during the midst of some wicked and explosive fight sequences like
you’d expect to see from a Matrix movie and many radical visuals that are difficult to take in.
With Neo and Trinity escaping the Matrix and ending up back in the real world, we just don’t
know what exactly for yet. The trailer comes to its conclusion following this insane action,
with another fantastic visual cue as a helicopter launches a missile at Neo and Trinity
and while that happens Neo changes its direction mid-air and shoots it into another helicopter.
This is the type of sequence that I can imagine is going to look incredible in IMAX
and it really does take me back to that original Matrix movie. The final shot ends with kind
of a welcoming back to Neo and the audience, as Neo is in an office with a man in a business suit
who is played by Jonathan Groff, and he says, “You’re going back to where it all started. Back
to the Matrix".
So interestingly, most of the footage that was available earlier this week on the
official Matrix website isn’t in this trailer, which is really exciting of course. And all
the new footage we get in this first trailer signals to us that there has to be some kind
of time-loop, replay-of-reality narrative happening. Are we really seeing a Young
Morpheus or is he someone that’s related to Morpheus? The similarities are strikingly
intentional and if he is a younger version of that character, could this have all happened
before the events of the original films? Is this a story of Neo and Trinity forever destined to save
themselves and free Zion and Does Zion even exist in this world anymore? And who is even controlling
the Matrix? There are a crazy amount of questions that arise from this first trailer and it shows a
similar path to the original movie too, with Thomas Anderson stuck in his tech-obsessed
reality, beginning to then free his mind, learning to fight, and eventually become very powerful with
his abilities to manipulate the computer world that we know. We see people fighting agents,
running up walls, and really just a big chunk of everything without getting too many answers, and
I must say, I love that. Everything looks really great and it could be a movie that reignites new
ideas in science fiction storytelling, in the way the original film did back in 1999,
or it could end up like the sequels. It's a huge task to pull it off, but if anyone can,
it’s the director and crew behind the first Matrix. It'll be
interesting to see but so far I'm loving everything we are seeing from the new film.
Let me know down below in the comments section what you thought of the first trailer alongside
what else you would like to see for The Matrix 4 here on the channel in the next few months.
For more videos surrounding The Matrix Resurrections leading up to its release this year,
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I've been Cortex and as always make some noise.