DirectorLana Wachowskidoesn’t appear to be in any mood to tone down her sensibilities;The Matrix Resurrectionsis officially rated R for “violence and some language,” according to a new bulletin issued by the Motion Picture Association.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering that each of the three previous films in the franchise —The Matrix,The Matrix Reloaded, andThe Matrix Revolutions— is also rated R. In fact,Reloadedwas the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time for several years, until it was knocked down from the top spot byDeadpool. The record was subsequently beaten byDeadpool 2, and then byTodd Phillips’Joker.
Philosophically dense and visually ambitious, TheMatrixmovies don’t really have any overt nudity or gratuitous bloodshed. And this is reflected in the Motion Picture Association’s categorization — these films are restricted mainly for “sci-fi violence” and “brief sexuality.”
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The fourthMatrixfilm comes at a crucial time for Lana and her sister,Lilly Wachowski, both of whom came out as trans women in the years after the original trilogy’s release. Lilly, who isn’t involved inThe Matrix Resurrections, acknowledged the recent re-examination of their films through a new lens, and said at the GLAAD awards some years ago, “This is a cool thing because it’s an excellent reminder that art is never static. And while the ideas of identity and transformation are critical components in our work, the bedrock that all ideas rest upon is love.”
As forwhy Lilly didn’t returnto co-direct the new film like the previous ones, she said during a virtual panel for her Showtime seriesWork in Progressthat she found the idea of going “backward” in her career “expressly unappealing,” especially after the upheaval that she had experienced in her personal life.
“[Lana] had come up with this idea for another Matrix movie, and we had this talk, and it was actually — we started talking about it in between [our] dad dying and [our] mom dying, which was like five weeks apart. And there was something about the idea of going backward and being a part of something that I had done before that was expressly unappealing. And, like, I didn’t want to have gone through my transition and gone through this massive upheaval in my life, the sense of loss from my mom and dad, to want to go back to something that I had done before, and sort of [walk] over old paths that I had walked in, felt emotionally unfulfilling, and really the opposite — like I was going to go back and live in these old shoes, in a way. And I didn’t want to do that.”
The Matrix Resurrectionsstars returning playersKeanu Reeves,Carrie-Anne Moss,Jada Pinkett Smith, andLambert Wilson. Franchise newcomers includeYahya Abdul-Mateen II,Jessica Henwick,Jonathan Groff,Neil Patrick Harris, andPriyanka Chopra Jonas. The film is slated to release on December 22 in theaters, and will be the final Warner Bros. title to get a simultaneous HBO Max streaming debut as a part of the studio’scontroversial 2021 release strategy. You can check out the official plot synopsis here:
In a world of two realities—everyday life and what lies behind it—Thomas Anderson will have to choose to follow the white rabbit once more. Choice, while an illusion, is still the only way in or out of the Matrix, which is stronger, more secure and more dangerous than ever before.
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