Starring Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Ann Moss

Directed by Lana Wachowski

Warner Bros., out now

Video game designer Thomas Anderson finds himself in a battle between two worlds, challenging what he believes to be real.

If Spider-Man: Far From Home proved that you can revisit former glories, give fans what they want and add something to a story, this belated sequel to The Matrix trilogy is its antithesis, a redundant sequel with nothing new to say.

There is literally nothing here in Lana Wachowski’s sci-fi fantasy that hasn’t already been done better in the trilogy. Where the classic 1999 original gave us game-changing ‘bullet-time’ action, this movie trots out more of the same, while also laughing at us. Consider this – Keanu Reeves’ Anderson has created a trilogy of popular computer games about a fantasy world called The Matrix, and now Warner Brothers wants a sequel to this trilogy. Characters wink at us by acknowledging that some characters will have different names and look different, and that this doesn’t really matter provided the public get what they want. It can’t be just another retread or regurgitation – ho ho ho.

So far, so meta, and we do indeed get new characters (Bugs, The Analyst) and others looking different (Morpheus is played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Agent Smith by Jonathan Groff), who then proceed to play out key scenes that we’ve seen before. Thankfully, it’s not as confusing or over-burdened by its own lore as The Matrix Reloaded or The Matrix Revolutions, but it’s so lacking in originality.

Yes, it’s great to see Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss as Neo and Trinity again, but they deserve more than this clip show of their best moments. At least Neil Patrick Harris has some fun as The Analyst, even if at times he’s more like his comedic Count Olaf from A Series of Unfortunate Events than a credible character in a straight sci-fi drama.

Verdict: The Meh-trix repeated – a waste of the opportunity to deliver something fresh and to remind us just how good the original was. This is just a glory lap, 20 years too late. Stop now, or just plug me back into the mainframe. 5/10

Nick Joy