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Video games are difficult to depict in movies and TV. They tend to present games as either generic arcade titles or full-featured virtual realities that don't capture the experience of playing one. One of my favorite takes on the film has been The Matrix Resurrections, which embraces its own world's unrealism.
I will talk about a few plot points from The Matrix Resurrections, which was released yesterday. If you don't want to read any more about the movie, you should stop reading now.
All right. We should talk about games.
What are the Matrix games? We don't know.
The Matrix Resurrections opens with a new iteration of the Matrix, a simulation designed by machines to keep captive humans submissive. The Matrix is not a film, but it is inside the Matrix. Neo is a renowned game designer who created a world-famous trilogy of video games with the same plot, characters, catchphrases, and style as the first three Matrix films.
The film stays away from specifics, although a large portion of it is devoted to discussing these games. The first game won an award in 1999, the graphics are detailed enough that a Matrix-trapped Trinity can recognize her in-game counterpart two decades later, and it is implied to have some kind of linear narrative with a main character. Maybe a third-person shooter? Is that a sim? A point-and-click game? Lana Wachowski uses old Matrix film footage to illustrate scenes from the games, but they are never explicitly described as live-action.
The Wachowskis' experiences are a symbolic part of the story of the games, so the details are vague. It is an interesting choice within the fiction of the series. It is one of the rare times that we can see the Matrix's rough edges beyond being an excuse for power.
If the first film was a perfect simulation, this one is even better.
Virtual spaces are usually about symbols. Developers bend supposedly objective rules to create tension. Robert Yang, a game designer, has referred to the genre of prestige narrative games asprimal gameisms, which are illogical conventions that people stop noticing as they focus on progress and achievements. Even in a virtual reality headset, players can run around a first-person shooter. They understand that a lockpicking mechanic is a simplified representation of opening a door by kicking it or reaching through a gap, and that they can't open the door by kicking it or reaching through a gap.
The simulation in the original Matrix can be hacked to expose its unreality. The Matrix Resurrections shows a world of quick and dirty. For all we know, there has never been a Matrix game that was actually playable. The film footage is a translation of how people inside the Matrix remember the experience, the way many of us remember our own favorite games having better graphics or more intuitive controls. That deprives me of imagining Trinity struggling through a convoluted interface to learn the truth about reality.
The villain of Resurrections suggests his Matrix is based on some principles. It is a place where people understand that they are being fooled and don't care. They like to remember old stories at the expense of new ones. They experience things the way someone has told them to, even if there is nothing there.
I think The Matrix Resurrections doesn't do a good job of developing themes. It handles this piece in a perfect marriage of style and story, even if I would have liked to see Carrie-Anne Moss play a real Matrix game.
