An arc from wasteful to tedious

The two biggest films of the moment appear to be The Matrix Resurrections and Don't Look Up. Having seen both of them in the past two days, I can't say that my opinion on either is particularly positive. If this is what passes for "big splash" films in the streaming era, there's some work to be done. Then again, a lot of people liked Tiger King.

Resurrections is an effort by one half of the Wachowskis (Lana) to delve back into the setting for which she and her sister, Lilly, are most famous; the political, philosophical, and cultural statement that was The Matrix. The problem is that, in an effort to reach back 22 years to what the story originally was, she spends an awful lot of time performing little fan service tricks, rather than telling an actual story. The result is a film that reaches a level at which I usually assign things the label "universally awful." When I go to the theater and regret spending the money it cost to sit there, that's one thing. When I go and want the two hours (or more...) of my life back, that's something else entirely. Resurrections hit that latter category about a half hour into it and never got better.

The main problem is that it lacks originality. Not only is it essentially telling the same story of the original film (Neo is trapped in the Matrix and others are trying to free him as he's the key to a dramatic combination that will change the world(s)), but it's utterly self-referential in doing so. There are constant flashbacks to both the original and its underwhelming sequels, actions and dialog that deliberately mimic the same stuff we saw 22 years ago, and even deliberate aping (Follow the white rabbit!) of that same stuff. Yes, in Revolutions they suggested that the whole construct was a replay of the same events that had gone before, but that's getting a bit too meta for my taste. This hits a bit too close to The Force Awakens, where the obvious intent was to serve the rabid fans who think that SF storytelling began in 1977 and never developed past that point. But instead of following the smart pacing and visual storytelling of the first film, this one lurches from repetitive action (Explosions! Use the telekinetic shield! Again!) to exposition dumps which are literally just people standing around talking about the plot. It's not even the old Aaron Sorkin walk-and-talk exposition, where you at least have visuals of motion so you feel like something is happening aside from a wiki being dumped into your ear. No, this was people standing in a room talking at each other about basic elements of the plot and setting. That's not a story. That's a game manual.

Unfortunately, there aren't any decent performances to rescue the miserable screenplay and direction, either. Keanu Reeves does his Keanu Koncerned/Konfused look throughout the film, remaining as one-note as both he and Carrie Ann-Moss were in the first film. (And yet there was someone else called 'Cypher'...) That served the first film to some degree, as it kept the idea of both of them representing the Anyone who could see through the shadows (The cave allegory) and speak the truth. But in this more sentimental offering, it just means that they can't deliver the requisite emotion to the camera. Luckily, Neil Patrick Harris is there to explain everyone's motivations in extreme detail (Exposition!), just in case Lana thought we couldn't figure those out for ourselves. Then it's back to the explosions and the fan service. There's two-and-a-half hours of this. It was already a bad idea to take the original, complete concept film and stretch it across two more, but when people are throwing piles of money at you, you do these things sometimes. Resurrections is what happens when you really have no new ideas and want to try going back to the well again. Seriously, don't waste your time.

To its mild credit, Don't Look Up at least delivers a story in a halfway decent fashion (obviously, the bar of comparison is not high here.) The problem is that the story itself is both obvious and highly annoying. In a lot of ways, I was reminded of Uncut Gems, which is a film about obnoxious people being as obnoxious as possible for two hours. Don't Look Up isn't that much different in that respect. Yes, everything it says about government and media and public reaction is quite realistic. The modern info cycle of influencers and memes is both inane and pathetic. The question is whether it's worthwhile sitting through two hours of being beat over the head with that message when it's extant on every screen we look at, all day, every day. Writer/director, Adam McKay, got his start in the comedy of the super-obvious with Will Ferrell. He's since moved on to very well-received films that delivered direct messages, like The Big Short and Vice, but which still retained a level of dramatic tension, even while they recounted historical events of which we all knew the ending. Don't Look Up lacks that tension almost entirely and instead becomes kind of tedious as we have to endure the obvious scenarios of obtuse talk show hosts and scheming presidents and the emotional foibles of an introverted scientist thrust into the limelight. Yes, there's proper story construction here but it's all so mundane that it gets kind of boring.

In contrast to Resurrections, there are a couple performances here that do a lot of heavy lifting. Rob Morgan is great as Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe, the head of an obscure (but actual) wing of NASA, who perfectly portrays the dilemma of the egghead in the room being ignored by the cool kids. Cate Blanchett is also excellent as Brie Evantee, a self-absorbed talk show host who hides her significant intelligence because she makes more money being shallow and stupid. But even those two high points don't make up for the general dreariness of the whole package. Yes, there are regular shots taken at the Trumpanzees and the cynical politicians who manipulate them, but that message is already apparent to anyone who logs into Twitter on a daily basis. There are no anti-vaxxers who are going to be convinced that their ignorant behavior is actually destructive for everyone by a film about cataclysmic stupidity. In some respects, we're already way past that point.