The Matrix Resurrections trailer is out. Photo / Warner Bros
The Matrix Resurrections trailer is out. Photo / Warner Bros
After that tantalising tease earlier this week, at least the producers of The Matrix Resurrections didn't make us wait that long for the real deal.
Or, at least as close as we'll get to the real deal until the movie itself is released in a few months' time.
With the Matrix sequel shrouded in secrecy, it's the first time fans have had any clarity on what the movie could be about – a particularly intriguing puzzle given the original trilogy's ending with Trinity and then Neo's deaths.
Yet, here they are in the trailer for The Matrix Resurrections – perhaps that title was the clue? Maybe no one ever dies in the Matrix, or even the Matrix-adjacent real world?
What if the real world wasn't real?! Nah, let's not go down the rabbit hole, that's a long climb back to the top.
But certainly Neo and Trinity's presence in this fourth movie suggests their final fates in The Matrix Revolutions weren't so, well, final. And the peace brokered between the humans and the machines – the Architect and the Oracle basically said it wasn't going to last.
The trailer opens on what looks like a CGI version of San Francisco – you can see the Transamerica pyramid in the skyline – before cutting to inside a therapist's office.
Neil Patrick Harris's unnamed character is addressing Neo, who seems to be going by the name of Thomas again, who says, "I've had dreams that weren't just dreams".
The Matrix Resurrections trailer is out. Photo / Warner Bros
Of course, dreams are central to the Matrix, and there's even a black cat wandering on the desk in this scene, just for old time kicks.
Thomas seems to be living a "normal" life, where he takes blue pills (warning sign!) and meets women in cafes. Specifically, he meets Trinity, or at least someone who is played by Carrie-Anne Moss.
They shake hands but there's a lingering moment and she looks him in the eye and says, "Have we met?"
From what the trailer is suggesting, Neo has returned – or maybe stayed? – in the Matrix but he's reached a point where he's questioning his surroundings.
That's when Jessica Henwick's blue-haired character, sporting a rather on-the-nose tattoo of a white rabbit, leads Neo through a glowing door. They appear to step out the other side of a mirror.
And Priyanka Chopra's character is fondling a copy of Alice in Wonderland while the trailer's song is Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit". It's all pretty obvious where this might be going.
Much has been made of Laurence Fishburne's absence in this sequel but Yahya Abdul-Mateen's character might be stepping into a similar role. Or, he's at least wearing Morpheus-esque sunglasses and standing with very upright posture while holding out a red pill.
One line of dialogue from Abdul-Mateen's character is suggestive of what might be happening in this for-now inscrutable movie. He says, "The only thing that matters to you is still here, I know that's why you're still fighting and why you're never give up".
This line is overlaid with images of Neo and Trinity.
Given that the first Matrix was revolutionary in its action sequences and visual pizzazz, there are a lot of expectations for this fourth instalment, especially given how many other films in the intervening 22 years have pushed it forward after being influenced by The Matrix.
The trailer gives us a taste of what's to come, with ambitious sequences involving helicopters, motorcycle chases, gravity defying fights and the requisite jumping off buildings.
