Warner Bros. just revealed the title of The Matrix 4 to be The Matrix: Resurrections at this week’s Cinemacon. Not just that, they screened a full teaser trailer as well. As of now, there’s no word on whether that trailer or any version of it will drop online. And unlike the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer, The Matrix: Resurrections teaser trailer has not yet leaked online.
That said, some folks managed to attend the Cinemacon event at Ceaser’s Palace in Las Vegas and have posted some details of the trailer online. These lay out the scenes that were screened in the trailer. I’m combing through those to list down everything that was unveiled as part of the teaser trailer for The Matrix 4.
The trailer begins in a San Francisco set in the near future. Neil Patrick Harris’ unnamed character talks to Keanu Reeves who is back as Neo. Reeves is rocking his long-haired, bearded look from the John Wick movies. From the trailer, it looks like Harris is playing Neo’s therapist. Neo appears to be stuck in a routine, monotonous world, unable to fathom his surroundings, seemingly having forgotten his old life. It’s reminiscent of when we first meet Thomas Anderson in 1999’s The Matrix.
A curious, confused Neo asks, “Am I crazy?” Harris’ character responds, “We don’t use that word in here.”
Carrie-Anne Moss’ Trinity also does not seem to recognize Neo who she stumbles upon in a cafe. Upon reuniting, she asks Neo whether they have met before.
The trailer then devolves into a montage comprising of a series of shots. As described by Deadline, the shots include:
A shot of blue pills spilling into a sink, as Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” song plays.
Then a shot of Neo distorting into an old man in the mirror. A younger Morpheus tells Neo “time to fly,” handing him a red pill.
Then a lot of jumping, a lot of twists in midair, karate and all the acrobats we expect from a Matrix movie.
The action shots also included motorcycles, helicopters, rocket launchers and jumping off buildings in hyper slow-motion.
From the sounds of it, this is going to be a short teaser, likely running about a minute and a half tops. It doesn’t give away anything about the plot but is every bit as trippy, weird and peculiar as you’d imagine a Matrix teaser to be. Per Brandon Davis of ComicBook, we also get a glimpse at Neo stopping a deluge of bullets with his bare hands. And the younger Morpheus character is Yahya Abdul-Mateen II though he hasn’t been officially confirmed to play that role; he may very well be an incarnation of Morpheus or a new character.
It sounds like after their fate at the end of The Matrix Revolutions, Neo and Trinity may have been inserted back into the real world. Remember, humans were bred and grown in the Matrix, not necessarily born. The machines could have very well altered their consciousness, grown their bodies and plugged them back into the Matrix in their own, different lives. The real question is, whether these characters carry any remnants of the memories they shared together.
The shots of jumping and martial arts moves that we see is likely where we’ll be witness to some of the really cool stuff that the movie has in store, much in the vein of the 1999-2003 trilogy’s pioneering action sequences.
The Matrix: Resurrections continues to be set for a December 22, 2021 release date. Let me know your thoughts on the trailer description in the comments below.
