Review
Pop Culture Happy Hour
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GLEN WELDON, HOST:
When "The Matrix" opened in 1999, it thrilled audiences with its strangely cerebral mix of stylized violence, existential crisis and tight black leather. The new movie "The Matrix Resurrections" continues the story in a new film. We find ourselves back in a simulation that the machines are using to keep humanity docile as they harvest our energy. Once again, a hero will rise who can lead an uprising to throw off the shackles of artificial intelligence and let us all live real, authentic lives. That hero is Neo, played by Keanu Reeves. One problem, if you remember how the original "Matrix" trilogy ended, he's dead. I'm Glen Weldon, and today we're talking about "The Matrix Resurrections" on POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR.
Joining me today is Audie Cornish. She is one of the hosts of NPR's All Things Considered and the host of Consider This, NPR's daily afternoon news podcast. Welcome back, Audie.
AUDIE CORNISH, BYLINE: Hey. Thanks for having me.
WELDON: Of course. Also with us is NPR producer Mallory Yu. Hey, Mallory.
MALLORY YU, BYLINE: Hey, Glen.
WELDON: And filling out the panel is Ronald Young Jr. He is the host of the Pushkin podcast "Solvable." Welcome back, Ronald.
RONALD YOUNG JR: Welcome to the desert of the real, Glen.
WELDON: There we go. So the original "Matrix," as Ronald alludes to, was more than just another action movie. It introduced a hell of a lot of elements that have since become part of our collective cultural vocabulary - blue pills - for better, for worse - red pills, there is no spoon, bullet time, Mr. Anderson, leather dusters and, for me at least, the music of the Propellerheads. The two films that followed added more characters, more lore and no small amount of confusion to the mix. The first three films in the franchise were directed by the Wachowskis. And now, many years later, one of the Wachowski siblings, Lana, has literally resurrected the franchise.
We're going to avoid any major spoilers in this discussion, but if you want to go in completely cold, stop the podcast now and come back after you've seen it. So as this new film opens, Keanu Reeves' Thomas Anderson is an eccentric video game designer in San Francisco. And all those adventures he had as Neo back in the day, turns out they were all just a video game he designed. And now his smarmy boss, played by Jonathan Groff, wants to get him to make a new one. New characters are introduced, and many old ones, including Morpheus and Trinity return, though they may not look or sound like they used to. It's a brand-new adventure, though The Matrix in which it takes place looks awfully familiar.
Audie, you and I share an unapologetic - nay, defiant love for just about anything the Wachowskis do - justice for "Jupiter Ascending." What'd you think?
CORNISH: Just very briefly, I want to say for people who didn't see "The Matrix" movies, like, when they first came out, it's really hard to overstate just how mind-blowing it was...
WELDON: Yep.
CORNISH: ...The reveal of there being a simulation reality and a true reality. That moment is actually pretty epic. And I saw it in a theater where people were, like, cheering and gasping, and some of the special effects were really - just felt so intense. And so it's actually, I think, very hard to recreate the wheel, so to speak, to create moments again where people feel like, I have literally never seen this before. What this film does is it actually is in dialogue with, not just itself, all the films it's had - the last three - but also with the idea of creativity - right? - the very premise that a character in this world is being asked to make a video game and that video game is called The Matrix, right? This is a meta story. It's about The Matrix, but it's also about Lana wrestling with the legacy of "The Matrix." And it's about all the things that have happened since, whether that's Marvel or "The Bourne Identity" or all kinds of images that we have seen since that in some ways are borrowing from the legacy of these films.
WELDON: Yep. Well said, absolutely. Yeah, you do see things we've seen before kind of in a new light in this film. How about you, Mallory? What'd you think?
YU: I really enjoyed it. The first shallowest thing I have to say is that this movie made me feel so gay because everyone is a stone-cold fox.
WELDON: There is that.
YU: So anyway, the announcement for this movie was one of those, like, I didn't know I wanted this until right that second. But then once I was like, oh, my God, I do want this, I was like, is this going to be good? And I have to say, I really did like the way that this movie, like Audie said, is in dialogue with itself, not just with the trilogy and its impact, but also the fandom and the nostalgia around "The Matrix." There's a lot of talk about expectations for The Matrix video game that they're going to create. And it felt very much like all of the dialogue and discourse about this movie in the movie. And I really appreciated the meta conversation that it made me have with myself where I was like, am I just enjoying this because I understood that reference? Does that even matter if I'm still having a lot of fun?
CORNISH: And I think at one point, there are characters who speak like that (laughter), posing the questions the exact way you're saying it.
YU: Exactly. The video game developers have this, like, really interesting conversation about, how do we make this new again? There's just constant, like, winking and nudging at us. And it turns the fourth wall into something that is fluid and portal, like The Matrix portals. I did feel like the movie was a bit overlong. It dragged in parts for me. I think dramatic irony really only gets you so far. And after a while, I was thinking, OK, let's get on with it.
(LAUGHTER)
YU: But then it got on with it, and I found myself sucked right back in. So I really enjoyed it. I think the cast is great. Put Jessica Henwick in everything.
YOUNG: Everything.
WELDON: (Laughter).
YU: I love her so much. Like, give her an action wuxia movie stat. She plays Bugs in the movie, who is one of the people who is trying to find...
WELDON: Yep.
YU: ...The One.
WELDON: She gets a great spotlight in this film. You're right. OK, Ronald, what'd you think? When we saw this, you said you had thoughts on thoughts.
YOUNG: So let me just set up by saying, I'm a huge fan of "The Matrix." "The Matrix" came out when I was in the ninth grade.
WELDON: Oh, boy.
YOUNG: And my parents saw it, my parents who were very strict - never let me watch movies. This was the first rated-R movie I ever saw. I watched all the movies. I watched "The Animatrix." I played the video games.
YU: Wow.
YOUNG: And I called myself The One for a period of time.
YU: That's so cute.
WELDON: Good lord.
CORNISH: But did you have the screensaver?
WELDON: Yeah?
YOUNG: I didn't 'cause I didn't get a computer till I got to college. So...
(LAUGHTER)
YOUNG: So I was ready for this movie, to say the least. For me, the first 50 minutes of this movie was almost too mysterious to bear. It was very self-referential. And I was sitting there, and I was like, this is basically Easter egg salad. Like, what are we doing here?
(LAUGHTER)
YOUNG: But right when I was about to lose my patience, it picks up. It starts answering questions. And the action sequences and the graphics make the movie, like, come alive for me. It took me right back to 1999. "The Matrix" is the originator of all of the cool things we see in movies in a lot of ways now.
WELDON: Yep.
YOUNG: Seeing them say, OK, now we going to do the same thing but with 2021 graphics, I'm like, oh, my God, it was brilliant.
WELDON: (Laughter).
YOUNG: Like, between the colors and - I think that - we can't talk about that enough, the fact that they went from that green-scale color of the - all three movies to bright, vibrant colors in this one and using the green scale with - like, kind of like more as a tool and not necessarily, like, the entire color scape of the movie. I enjoyed seeing the new characters on the screen. I enjoyed seeing the old characters on the screen. So I'm hoping that they have new stories to tell in this universe, and I think they have the chops and the tools to do it.
WELDON: You know, coming out of this, I was like, you get what it says on the label - "Matrix Resurrections." Like...
(LAUGHTER)
WELDON: And my critical brain was sitting in there while I was watching this - well, is this a reboot or merely a retread? And then (laughter) I just lightened the hell up, you know? It's been a long year.
(LAUGHTER)
WELDON: And this thing looks really good, and it's great to see Trinity again, and it's great to see Neo again, and the squids are so cool. They're just as cool as they were the first time you saw them and just as unnerving. You all like the self-referential stuff. A little of that goes an awfully long way.
YU: Yeah.
WELDON: I think this film thinks the game designers are a lot funnier than they turn out to be.
YOUNG: Yes.
WELDON: We get way too much of them. It's like Lana is hedging their bets, right?
CORNISH: I thought they were trying to get out ahead of a Rotten Tomatoes score.
WELDON: This is exactly what I thought. It's like, you know, we know what you're doing. It's in the title (laughter). So just commit to it. Now, Audie, you're a fan of "Matrix" 2 and "Matrix" 3. I don't know if you are alone in that on this panel, but we'll find out.
CORNISH: (Laughter).
WELDON: Do you think your knowledge of and passion for those two films helped? Or can somebody who really liked "Matrix" 1 and kind of didn't get what 2 or 3 were doing, do you think they will get enough out of this, or do we have to go back and do some homework?
CORNISH: It does feel like homework is involved. I mean, certainly this is about the first "Matrix," but I was surprised at how much it called back to some of the other films. Again, I wonder if they're saying, look; we're in the age of Marvel, where that's 20 films deep...
WELDON: Yeah.
CORNISH: ...And people are expected to know certain things, and they do. But one of the reasons why I like those early films is because they're the seeds of things that people don't talk about about these films. No. 1 - diversity, gender diversity, androgyny, like, nonbinary ideas. Lots of people talk about sort of trans politics of "The Matrix," the original one. That's sort of something that people have looked back and talked about. And that was way ahead of its time. And seeing it in this film just reminds you of that. The fact that there are Black and brown people in this future, which...
YOUNG: Yes.
YU: Yeah.
CORNISH: How many franchises have there been where that is not the case? I mean, remember; the Neo character, that role was put before Will Smith. You know, this is stuff that was in their mind. And as a result, the way this film looks today and the way the 1999 film looks, they fit in because everyone else has caught up on these concepts of casting and what the future should look like and what women can do on screen, right? I wish I had seen another decade of Carrie-Anne Mosses.
YU: Absolutely.
CORNISH: And that's what I really like about those other films and that this one confidently marches in that tradition. You know, I understand that Lana Wachowski has said that one of the reasons she wanted to return to this after the loss of her own parents - and as a result, the story has gone from a trinity, so to speak, to a duo. That's not a spoiler to say that Neo and Trinity, Carrie-Anne Moss and Keanu Reeves, are the heart, literally, of the film, and the film is now a lot more about heart. But I thought that the scenes that Laurence Fishburne was in, when he was in a scene with Carrie-Ann Moss or in a scene about Keanu Reeves, had their own independent energy, story and arc and narrative. Some of that is lost in this new scenario, and it's not just because he's not there. It's because the film is no longer built that way.
WELDON: Yeah, and if you've seen the trailer, you know that Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is a Morpheus of a sort, younger, different, 2.0 kind of Morpheus. It's not the same.
YOUNG: I think one thing Audie said that triggered something in me was talking about how "The Matrix" looking forward fits into the landscape of today. The one way in which I will say it does not is - I remember (laughter) writing this note down while the movie was on, what I said. Besides fan service, why are y'all still dressed like that?
(LAUGHTER)
YU: Yes.
YOUNG: Looking at it, I'm like, man, it's 2021, man. That's not your residual self-image anymore, man. You out here wearing the leather coat with the glasses still. And I feel like, actually, the most contemporary-looking person in those scenes in the real world was Keanu Reeves. So there were some parts of the movie that I felt like were clinging to 1999, and I think that's a little bit of just, like, the Wachowskis' aesthetic in terms of, like, how they like to look at people in movies, which is perfectly fine. But as a fan, I was just like, maybe update that a little bit. But yeah, I agree. The heart of the movie - having to watch the scenes in which we're watching these two people who I love and these two characters who I love play out this love story, I found those parts of the movie to be slower for a while, until later in the movie...
YU: Yeah.
YOUNG: ...When they kind of picked up, and it got more interesting. But I will say, anytime I saw new people on screen, any time I saw bugs and the crew, any time I saw where they were originated from, I was like, OK, we are seeing cool, new things. This is great. They're doing world-building. And it kind of made me wish that this had been a series 'cause I'm like, I just want to spend more time in their world, seeing what they've been up to in this period of time.
YU: "The Matrix Resurrections" has a lot of people of color in the main cast, but it doesn't feel like this was a course correction, which I appreciated. I just went back and watched the original "Matrix" and was struck by just how many people were not white on the Nebuchadnezzar crew.
CORNISH: Right. And that the agents - right? - are all white men in suits. Like, that is very specific.
YOUNG: (Laughter).
CORNISH: That's not an accident. It's actually a statement.
YOUNG: Yeah.
YU: It's very pointed. And that is kind of recreated here with, you know, certain reiterations of characters that we know from "The Matrix." You know, I found Jonathan Groff's character to be really interesting because he is a young, white, tech bro-y (ph) kind of dude who is talking about, we need profit, we want to make money, the future of our company and whatever. And it felt really like a pointed reference to, like, this is the old way of doing things, and we should be moving forward if we want to be creative and tell new stories, which I really liked.
I also want to say that I've been - you know, Audie, you mentioned, like, the trans politics and gender identity of "The Matrix," and I've kind of been struggling with thinking about that and, you know, how to talk about some of the themes that this movie was bringing on. You know, as a nonbinary person, I really related to Neo. There's a scene where Neo says something like, I'm so tired. I don't want to fight anymore. And I have to say that that was the moment where I was like, oh, that's me. I relate to that so hard, because now in this time, you're constantly hearing, like, you shouldn't exist, sex is biology, whatever. And it can be really hard to keep standing up and saying, no, I exist, and I should have rights. And I kind of really related to that emotion of, like, I don't know if I can keep doing this.
But then he still gets up and still keeps going, and there's something really meaningful about that when we're in the end of the second year of a pandemic. Everyone is burnt out and tired, and yet we still have to keep going. And what does that choice look like, and what does that choice do to the people who have to make that choice? I just really love how these queer narratives are baked into the world, but they're there if you want to see them. But if you don't, that's OK.
WELDON: Yeah, that's a great point, Mallory, because yeah, this is a kind of slightly different definition of hero, someone who just keeps going because they have to. And the queer sensibility - it's in the casting. There's plenty of queer actors playing - maybe not queer folks, but Brian J. Smith, who is from "Sense8," plays a crew member on this new ship, and he gets a passing moment to mention how hot Keanu Reeves is because of course, because he would, because you would. And it's not something that stops the film dead, and it's not dealt with in any kind of homophobic way, as it would be in any kind of '80s action film.
CORNISH: Right.
WELDON: It's just a thing that happens because certain truths are inviolate.
CORNISH: If you've been watching their work for the last couple of years, all of this doesn't feel new at all.
WELDON: Right.
CORNISH: I mean, for the five people who watched "Sense8"...
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: Glen and I are among them - there's Easter eggs for you because a number of those actors appear.
WELDON: Yeah. Right.
CORNISH: But some of the themes from that, which is essentially fighting for your own identity, that people may see you as one thing. You may feel you are another. People may tell you you're something when you feel you are another. You see him in his sort of - where he doesn't know who he is, but in a way he does, and it's in his subconscious. And he's constantly doing kind of reckless things to fight his way to being that person again and, you know, as a result is in therapy, which is also a hilarious part of this film and a part that I actually found to be a pretty serious critique of therapy...
WELDON: Yep.
CORNISH: ...About how helpful it can and can't be when you don't have someone who acknowledges who you are and what some of the specific things are that you are dealing with. We are still making this sound, like, really academic, but please understand it's just because we don't want to spoil...
WELDON: Yeah.
CORNISH: ...All the other stuff for you.
WELDON: That's the thing. That's the thing.
CORNISH: It is wrestling with those ideas in the way that Mallory said is also - in a way that is universal. And that made up for some of the things that I was like, OK, we get it. Like, there are one too many jokes about the old films.
YU: Yeah.
CORNISH: And those started to weigh on me at a certain point.
YU: I was like - after the fifth mention of bullet time, I was kind of like, all right, I get it.
WELDON: Yeah.
YOUNG: Another note I wrote during that first 50 minutes was, are you all just going to show me the old "Matrix" because there was a lot of going back and showing actual clips from the previous movies, where I'm just like...
CORNISH: Yeah.
YU: Yes.
YOUNG: ...This should not be this much of this movie. That's a little excessive. I did not like that. But to your point about therapy, I don't know if it was a critique of therapy as much as it was a critique of bad therapy because in the case of having someone whose intent is to do something in this case, I don't know if that's a person you should see for therapy.
CORNISH: Yeah, yeah. But it wasn't subtle. The red pill and the blue pill come back.
YOUNG: Yeah.
WELDON: Yeah.
YU: Yeah.
CORNISH: And the therapist doesn't help with that choice.
WELDON: Yeah.
YU: Yeah.
CORNISH: It felt like there might have been more of Lana in this film than the past films. They haven't been that public about their story of transition over the last couple of years, but you do feel like you see glimmers of something being told in this one, and we should remember only one of the sisters was involved in making this one. The other declined. So it does have a very singular vision to it.
WELDON: Yeah, that's interesting to think about. And there is something that feels more specific in this film, you're right, because if you think about it, the first films I think were set in this kind of generic city, right? And - 'cause it was filmed in Australia, and it was doubling for City, USA, right? And this is clearly set - very specifically set in San Francisco, so it has a very San Francisco, Silicon Valley, tech vibe that the first one just didn't have.
YOUNG: I think this movie actually benefits from having a singular vision...
WELDON: Right.
YOUNG: ...Because I'm sitting there thinking about all the ways in which I thought "Matrix" 2 and 3 and even including "The Animatrix" and "Enter The Matrix," the video game, were confusing 'cause there are so many ideas, and it sounds like two people riffing, whereas when you have one singular vision here, it feels like one person said, this is what we're doing, and everyone else was like, yup, and just went along with it. And I think that might give this movie some longevity.
CORNISH: It's hard to say because there were so many moments that I wrote down where I was thinking, oh, this reminds me of "The Walking Dead." This reminds me of "Winter Soldier."
WELDON: Yeah.
CORNISH: This reminds me of the "Fast & Furious" scene when they did X, Y and Z. This reminds me of "Batman," blah blah. Like, I can't tell if they all ripped from "The Matrix," or if...
WELDON: Oh, yeah.
YOUNG: Yeah.
CORNISH: ...Lana's just watched all the films like we have.
YOUNG: Yeah.
YU: Yeah.
CORNISH: And as a result, it was this weird sort of like, I could see everything we've seen in action films.
YU: Woven in?
CORNISH: I don't know. I could feel the distance between '99 and now.
YOUNG: That's a very "Simpsons"-did-it critique.
WELDON: Yep.
CORNISH: It did. Even "John Wick," he keeps the long hair. And so there are certain times when he walks - he's wearing a certain coat, and I'm like, oh, John Wick. And I didn't know if that was part of the critique, as well.
WELDON: He's going to punch somebody with a horse. Yeah.
CORNISH: For people who ever watched "The Matrix" - because I have had friends who've done this, who've watched "The Matrix" because everyone hyped it, and then they were like, (vocalizing), that was trash. I hated it. It was too complicated. What was going on? Like, you're not going to come back around, OK?
WELDON: Right.
CORNISH: 'Cause it's still got a lot of complicated ideas. It's still got a lot of characters. It's still got a lot of, like, is it my mind, or is it this? Is it da da? And then this person. Everyone has these sort of, like, esoteric names. And - but any of you who liked it, yeah, see it.
WELDON: Yeah. Tell us what you think about "The Matrix Resurrections." Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/pchh. Or tweet us at @PCHH. Up next, what is making us happy this week. Now it is time for our favorite segment of this week and every week, what is making us happy this week. Audie Cornish, what do you got? What is making you happy this week?
CORNISH: What is making me happy is this episode of Throughline, our history podcast, where they speak to the singer Thom Yorke of Radiohead and the art designer Stanley Donwood from the two seminal Radiohead albums that kind of - what they describe as captures the anxiety and dread of the early 2000s. Seems like a good follow for this episode, actually. They talk about "Kid A." They talk about "Amnesiac." And it's not just for people who are like, Radiohead - they did the "Creep" song, right?
WELDON: Yeah.
CORNISH: You know, or "Paranoid Android" - that seemed pretty cool. It actually situates the music in the history of the moment - the wars in the Balkans, Y2K, you know, the conversations people were having about technology and how it could change our lives. It is a sonic - oh, my God - like, wonderland. I love listening to this thing. Just put your headphones on, sit back and let it wash over you because it's not about nostalgia. And maybe it's just because I'm reaching the point where I'm old enough where my recent history is now history history...
YU: (Laughter).
CORNISH: ...To the youngs. That was a little bit jarring. But it's actually a good time, now that we're in the moment of having a very jaundiced view of technology, to go back to the moment where to have caution about it actually made you a kind of outlier. So Throughline - the Radiohead episode. Get it where you find your podcasts.
WELDON: Thank you very much, Audie Cornish. Mallory, what is making you happy this week?
YU: So what's making me happy this week is basically another nostalgic thing for me, which is an anime called "Cardcaptor Sakura." It's based on a CLAMP manga series of the same title. And it's about a fourth-grader named Sakura who finds a mysterious book in her house. When she opens it, cards fly everywhere. And they're magic cards, which are now going to cause havoc in her little Japanese township. And she's tasked with recapturing these cards.
Each episode is basically a tiny shot of serotonin directly into your brain. The chaos has stakes, but the stakes are the nice shop lady's life is being ruined by one of these cards, and Sakura has to help her. Plus, it's very gay. It's much gayer than I initially thought when I first watched it. Sakura has a crush on her older brother's best friend, but it's very clear that her older brother and this best friend are very much more than that. It's just a wholesome, honestly really beautiful anime to watch. I was transported back to the days of Saturday morning cartoons, for instance, but it's also just a really fun, lovely thing to put on if you're looking for something light. And I think that's what we're all looking for right now.
WELDON: Cool.
YU: It's "Cardcaptor Sakura," and you can find that on Netflix.
WELDON: Great. Thank you very much, Mallory. Ronald Young Jr., what is making you happy this week?
YOUNG: "The Sex Lives Of College Girls" on HBO Max.
WELDON: OK. All right.
YOUNG: Let me just start off by saying I watched the first episode of this show, and I did not like it. There was a lot of things about it where just I'm like, this is not it for me. But I'm like, all right, I'm into the story, so let's see what happens. And every single episode of the show is better than the last one. It all continues to improve the more you get invested into the actual story of these four women. Two of them, I think, are doing a lot more work and have more interesting storylines than the other. And those are the - that's Pauline Chalamet playing Kimberly and Amrit Kaur playing Bela. They're very funny to watch.
It brings me back to the times of college. It makes me reexamine my own college experience, and it makes it very relatable in that way. So anybody who started "Sex Lives Of College Girls" and said, maybe this isn't for me, I would encourage you to go back, revisit it, get with it because by the end of the season, I was so happy they renewed for a second season. And I'm like, is this one of my favorite shows now? Am I looking forward to this? And I know I'm not the audience for it. I recognize that. But I'm like, hey, Mindy, let's see what you doing in season two. So that's "The Sex Lives Of College Girls" on HBO Max.
WELDON: Oh, big Ronnie got layers. That's what I like about you. I really do.
YOUNG: (Laughter).
WELDON: For me, the Twitter account Liminal Spaces is a great place to go to get a little bolus of vaguely creepy existential dread in your feed. Look. Can't all be hugs and puppies, people.
YOUNG: (Laughter).
WELDON: I know this year has been this year.
YU: More existential dread, Glen?
WELDON: Hey, look. Your Twitter feed can't just be ducks making friends with kittens, right? You need something.
YOUNG: (Laughter).
WELDON: So it's just photos of empty malls, weirdly lit parking lots at night...
YU: (Laughter).
WELDON: ...Rooms that go unused. It just gives you this weird feeling. And what's fun about it is then as soon as you get that weird feeling, you ask, why is this picture of a mall giving me a weird feeling? It's a little self-analysis. So that's the Twitter account Liminal Spaces. It is @SpaceLiminalBot. And that is what's making me happy this week. If you want links for what we recommended, plus some more recommendations, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org/popculturenewsletter.
That brings us to the end of our show. You can find us all on Twitter. You can find me at @ghweldon. You can follow Audie at @nprAudie. You can follow Mallory at @mallory_yu and Ronald at @OhitsBIGRON. You can follow editor Jessica Reedy at @jessica_reedy, producers Candice Lim at @thecandicelim and Rommel Wood at @blergisphere. And you can follow producer Mike Katzif, as always, at @mikekatzif. That's K-A-T-Z-I-F. Mike's band, Hello Come In, is providing the music you may or may not be bobbing your head to right now. Thanks to all of you for being here. This was great.
CORNISH: Thank you.
YU: This was so fun.
YOUNG: Thanks for having us.
WELDON: And thanks to you for listening to POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. We will see you all tomorrow, when we will be talking about the new Paul Thomas Anderson film "Licorice Pizza."
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