“You Hear That Mr. Anderson? That Is The Sound Of Inevitability!”
The code is beginning to make sense, as The Matrix Resurrections has received a final trailer ahead of its December 22 release. Promising an ambitious scale and otherworldly action, the mysteries of its narrative are gradually getting debugged. With plenty of purposeful comparisons to the legacy of the trilogy in the latest trailer, there is one aspect of The Matrix 4 plot that has finally been inevitably confirmed. Agent Smith is back with a vengeance — just not in the way you might think.
Fans of the Matrix might be sad due to the absence of Hugo Weaving, but Jonathan Groff looks ready to deliver Smith for a new generation. Groff’s rumored role as a reborn Agent Smith has been in the air for months, but keen-eyed fans have been working overtime to slot the pieces together. The latest trailer gives two key looks at Groff’s iteration of Smith, starting with a callback to the 1999 classic.
“Billions of people just living out their lives... oblivious,” remarks Groff, referencing the same dialog Weaving uttered before interrogating a beaten-down Morpheus back in the original The Matrix. Except the stakes are different here, as Neo is willingly visiting “Smith.”
The prison-like simulation displayed in Resurrections seems to have redistributed the hierarchy of the trilogy’s most formidable characters. Here, Smith is seemingly a wealthy, established businessman. He’s also aware of the Matrix itself, though it's unclear if he’s describing the simulation of the franchise itself. (Has Agent Smith reached a level of power where he can break the fourth wall?)
In The Matrix Resurrections Trailer 2, Neo is shown playing a VR game — with a desk setup fit for streaming and creating. If so, the movie could be far more meta than we realized. Simulations within simulations… are Neo and Smith working on a virtual reality game together?
A second callback to Hugo Weaving’s original villain shows an alternative take of Neo’s rescue mission for Morpheus. Pouring rain cascades over a visibly angered Smith, declaring Neo’s simulated identity: “Mr. Anderson!”
Is that you Agent Smith?
Brandishing the intimidating Desert Eagle pistol all Agent’s holster, Smith is on the warpath to delete Neo from existence. But as the simulation begins to crumble with Neo’s eventual rediscovery of his true nature, it begs the question: What does Smith’s return mean? According to Matrix canon, Smith managed to evade full deletion at the hands of the Machines after the original trilogy by hiding in unknown areas of the Matrix. We saw him mutate from a regular Agent into a full-blown virus, infecting humans and programs alike. Perhaps the instability of his code allowed him to return in this new form for Matrix Resurrections.
Based on the trailers, it seems like Groff’s Smith isn’t as powerful as his Revolutions counterpart, but he’s still able to withstand Neo’s evolved abilities in combat. The question remains: can he still spread like a virus? Or is this version of Agent Smith once again contained to one virtual body at a time?
The Matrix Resurrections seems to be doubling down on one of the trilogy’s core themes: control. The machines are working overtime to keep a revived Neo (and Trinity) sedated. But we know it’s only a matter of time before he breaks free. Will the same thing happen to Agent Smith? We’ll know the truth soon enough. But one thing is sure, we haven’t heard the words “Mister Anderson” for the last time.
The Matrix Resurrections releases in theaters and on HBO Max on December 22.
