CinemaCon has produced a number of big reactions over the last few days, with trailers for Spider-Man: No Way Home, a screening of Ghostbusters: Afterlife and footage from Jurassic World: Dominion all grabbing the headlines for their respective franchises. Today was the turn of another huge franchise making a belated comeback to cinemas as the Warner Bros. panel not only confirmed the already known title of the fourth movie in the Matrix series as Resurrections, but also unveiled the trailer for the long awaited return of Keanu Reeves as Neo, and it seems like it has been worth the wait.
While The Matrix was a ground-breaking movie when it was released in 1999, its sequels, Reloaded and Revolutions were well received by fans but some felt that the third movie was perhaps overreaching a little and it became the least successful of the trilogy despite making $427 million at the box office. So maybe it was just as well that a fourth installment didn’t follow immediately after, and we have instead been left with an eighteen year gap instead.
So far we have heard very little about Lana Wachowski’s movie, but after the trailer’s premiere it seems that there is a lot to look forward to from The Matrix 4. Warner Bros. usually don’t waste much time between debuting trailers at events such as CinemaCon and putting them out online, so it probably isn’t too long before everyone can see the wonders that are to come from the returning cast led by Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss.
In the trailer, Keanu Reeves plays a character is in therapy, who tells his therapist, played by Neil Patrick Harris, that he “had dreams that weren’t just dreams.” It is clear that he knows something isn’t right in the world he is living in, but he had no memory of the Matrix. He also doesn’t recognize a woman in a coffee shop (Carrie-Anne Moss), even though there is clearly some connection between them. We see Anderson taking blue pills, and questioning why everyone around him seems to be on their phones other than him. He then meets someone who gives him a red pill to take, and soon we are blasting off into Matrix territory, including Neo fighting the Morpheus-style figure who gave him the pill, and also Anderson sealed in an incubator, as well as Neo appearing to use telekinesis to save himself from a missile.
We are one again treated to some shots featuring the now staple slow-motion “bullet time” effect, which was always going to make an appearance but has become a little old hat in the last two decades but from reactions it looks like the movie has plenty of tricks still up its sleeve. “I just saw the trailer for The Matrix: Resurrections at CinemaCon and it looks so badass,” Scott Menzel wrote. “I was so worried that it wasn’t going to WOW me but I was totally wrong. The only thing that shocked me is that a few of the main characters don’t appear in the trailer.” “The Matrix 4 trailer is absolutely stunning,” Rebecca Murray added, with James Preston Poole stating: “Extremely impressive footage, truly brought the house down.” The Matrix: Resurrections releases in cinemas and on HBO Max on December 22.