It’s basically impossible to pick the coolest line of dialogue from The Matrix. You’ve got Trinity’s “Dodge this!” kiss-off after blowing an agent’s head off. You have Morpheus’ entire blue pill / red pill speech. There’s that bit where Neo and Trinity need “guns… lots of guns”. But if we did have to pick just one? It’d be that ultimate Neo line, just before he faces off against Morpheus in the training programme, having suddenly acquired some serious fighting upgrades uploaded straight into his brain. All together now: “I know kung fu.” All these years later, Keanu still has it – and he shows it in the second trailer for The Matrix Resurrections. Watch it, and begin to believe.
Be honest: who else audibly exploded at that final line? Our imminent return to The Matrix will see Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss return as Neo and Trinity, joined by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as a new Morpheus, with extra assistance from characters played by Jessica Yu Li Henwick and Priyanka Chopra. If this second trailer does give one other thing away, it’s that it looks like Jonathan Groff is indeed playing a new incarnation of Agent Smith, with direct lines drawn between Groff’s performance and that of Hugo Weaving in the original trilogy. Intriguing stuff!
Beyond that, there’s still little by way of plot here thankfully. What we do get are more mystifying shots showing bits of The Matrix being screened within this film, epic machine-war sequences, slow-mo kicks, and an unplugged older Neo with his head shaved. Was that an older, scarred version of Jada Pinkett-Smith's Niobe in there? Kudos, too, to whoever scored this trailer with an orchestral version of Rage Against The Machine's classic 'Wake Up'. And how stunning are those ten seconds of near-silence as Trinity tells Neo: “I saw this in a dream…” insert several cool, noiseless shots “…my dream ended here.”
It’s fair to say excitement for this one is reaching new levels now. If Neo still knows kung-fu, it seems Lana Wachowski still knows The Matrix. We’ll see what she – and co-writers David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon – have cooked up when the film hits cinemas on 22 December. Merry Christmas, everyone.
READ MORE: The Matrix Sequels Explained