Johnny Mnemonic: in Black and White

Trapped somewhere between Blade Runner and The Matrix, aesthetically as well as chronologically, director Robert Longo's Johnny Mnemonic immediately benefits from any proximity to the latter, the project on which actor Keanu Reeves firmly ascended to his position as one of cyberpunk's holiest messiahs. The thirty years of real-life socioeconomic downturn that has occurred since cameras rolled on this adaptation of a William Gibson short story hasn't harmed the film either, with amateur futurologists noting that more or less every single worst case scenario threatened in Wired's 1997 article The Long Boom has come to pass (in some form) in the decades since. That which registered as pointedly downcast back in 1995, when Mnemonic was originally released, now plays like eerie prescience, particularly the idea that the unceasing data firing at human beings can have a palpable and even detrimental physiological effect. Although this information overload may not trigger the bodily ruptures described in Mnemonic, it'd be laughable to argue that the weaponised blurbs now blasting out of every person's pocket haven't melted a lot of people's brains into a reactionary goo. Re-released on home video in 2022 with a new colour grading that has tweaked Mnemonic to be monochromatic, Longo's film is now better able to present itself as queasy, ideas-driven science fiction rather than a failing attempt at an exciting, post-Speed blockbuster. In black and white, Reeves' face now reads as luminous and glaring: a light source destined to be imprisoned inside the headsets and hardware that the filmmakers have lifted straight out of Shinya Tsukamoto's seminal works of technological alienation, Tetsuo: The Iron Man and Tetsuo II: Body Hammer. 

The Matrix Resurrections

Credit to Lana Wachowski, it takes a certain amount of bravery to attempt a fourth entry in The Matrix series during a pandemic with a drastically shortened production cycle and an army of key collaborators off the board. As well as Lana's sister and co-writer-director Lilly Wachowski, The Matrix Resurrections misses both the gravitas conferred by Laurence Fishburne and the alien jeopardy that radiated from Hugo Weaving. Despite the absence of these actors their characters remain - one rejuvenated into self-satisfied nanotechnology whose big, plugged-in scene lands like farce; the other given the handsome-but-dull affect of the American ruling class. Alarmingly, these truancies extend beyond the screen into the technological and conceptual arena too. Bill Pope's (constantly quoted) sulphurous chiaroscuro has been overwritten here with a mode of visual communication that is often indistinguishable from streaming service television. A decision that, in fairness to this film's central conceit, is genuinely evocative of an artificial construct circling the drain. 

The most dispiriting point of departure for Resurrections though is how the film handles its action. Fight choreographer Yuen Woo-ping was not retained for this fourquel, the decision (or restriction given that Yuen is deep into his seventies and very likely at least semi-retired) limits not just the movements that have been drilled into the cast but the angles the filmmakers then use to communicate arching limbs and the resulting impacts. The Matrix didn't just vary the speed of reality when employing its time slice visual effects. Bodies hammered each other in violent, exaggerated, flurries; fists detonated concrete structures in beatific crawls. Although Resurrections revisits these ideas, there's no attempt to build on them. The majority of the film's hand-to-hand action instead resolving to a deliberately obscured askance. Where previously we were asked to consider the ways in which super-powered bodies relate to each other - not just in terms of combat, but the twisting poses and power displays that might denote annoyance or one expert's assured tranquility - here these battles are punctuation, deployed to massage the transition between scenes. Basically, these (admittedly older) characters are no longer expressing themselves physically. 

What Resurrections does have though is Carrie-Anne Moss, Keanu Reeves and an on-screen longing between the two that has only deepened with age. Reeves' Thomas Anderson is trapped in the medicated funk of corporate game development, forced to deliver a much delayed sequel to his biggest most wonderful hit. Although Resurrections' frequently features enormous, projected clips from the previous Matrix films, everyone in-universe points at these illuminations and identifies them as games. Apparently the interactive full-motion video titles associated with the Philips CDi or Sega's Mega-CD were a seismic success on this particular server? Trinity is similarly confined by middle-class domesticity; kept busy by an insistent, hovering husband and a pair of children portrayed as nothing more than ongoing irritants. The pull between Neo and Trinity then is initially contextualised as that of an affair: an exciting, instantaneous connection between two disappointed adults. Since Resurrections suffers horribly the further apart this couple are, it's therefore tempting to imagine a smaller scale instalment that completely forewent the technological ambitions of a big budget action film to concentrate on a bubbling infidelity in a counterfeit world. A Brief Encounter by way of The Wachowskis' own Bound. 

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

John Wick: Chapter 2 ended somewhere wonderful by weaponising the secret, subdermal societies that otherwise strain to give the films any sense of a terrifying, vampiric centre. It was a smart decision - taking the series' weakest, chummiest element then transforming it into a rolling, enormous threat. Wick trespassed against the rule-set, killing an enemy currently under the protection of the sacred hotel chain that offers its clients boutique ceasefire. Thanks to this action screenwriter Derek Kolstad was able to pivot, taking Wick out of the comfort provided by being a murderer among murderers. There's a bounty on his head. He's prey now.

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum begins shortly afterwards, plunging the title character into an Invasion of the Body Snatchers sized nightmare in which every single person in New York is living a pantomime life, concealing incredible martial arts skills and an intent to collect on Wick's head. For one act Parabellum keeps us locked into this paranoia - we see the bounty ticking up, our favourite assassin burning through former allies (including The Matrix Reloaded's Randall Duk Kim) and pointedly battling against foes he enjoys an otherwise friendly rapport with. Wick is attacked and injured, losing all access to the city's network of underground death bazaars. Gunless, he is forced to break into a museum armoury to assemble a six-shooter from antique parts like Tuco in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

Parabellum's problem is that it isn't interested in working through this idea of an assailed Wick. The character's fracturing sense of self is suggested then played at arm's length, the film preferring instead to lean back into the circuitous, disinteresting machinations that prop up this counterfeit world. Wick seeks audiences with higher and higher authorities, begging forgiveness along the way. These acts, which at least seem to be taking John somewhere compromised, are instead ways to massage through the dramatic dead-end of two opposing powers that cannot, yet, taste defeat. Still, the finale's the best yet - the aperitif before the tower climbing, Game of Death style, main course sets Wick against special forces soldiers clad head-to-toe in the same bulletproof material used by the assassin's tailor. Sustained gunfire does nothing but wobble the incoming hordes. Wick must instead get in close and use his pistol like a dirk - jamming its muzzle into the armour's creases to score the kill shot.

John Wick: Chapter 2

It's all a matter of taste but I bounce off a lot of the detailing in the John Wick universe. The baroque rule-set baked into the stories often seems unduly synthetic; a series of hanging excuses designed to stop or re-start the action whenever the screenwriters (in this instance, Derek Kolstad) can find no other, meaningful way to push our hero forward. Likewise, the technological leaps in tactical tailoring - that keep Wick buttoned up and protected without ruining his silhouette - suggest a heroic immunity that, really, stands to undermine any sense of situational distress. Nevertheless this particular flight of fancy does give rise to one fantastic moment - Reeves tugging at his slim-fitted jacket, forcing his lapel up over his face to protect his head from incoming bullets.

What is unmistakably and consistently brilliant about John Wick: Chapter 2 though is its star, Keanu Reeves. The 53 year old actor's movements stand in tonal opposition to the flamboyant nonsense around him. His Wick gait is stiff and deliberate, arthritic even. A living testament to a career filled with colliding bodies. The film's interpersonal action - just as frequent as the close-quarters shoot-outs - sees Wick using his size and weight against his enemies. His signature move is to trap his assailant's arms or pistol in some way, then kick away at their legs until both of their bodies collapse in a heap. Wick is then able to use them as an axis to take aim at other, incoming goons. Another choice that stands out is the actor's speed or, rather, his lack of it. There's no great hurry in Chad Stahelski's film. We see Reeve's body contorting and crashing in ways that let us know that it is pained, that these manoeuvres require an effort beyond simply shifting mass. A small but perfect note that lends every single confrontation a faint sense of fallibility. John Wick will win. But it will hurt.

John Wick

There's precious little wriggle room with John Wick. Keanu Reeves stars as the titular assassin, out for justice after a Russian mob brat steals his ride and pulps his dog. That's it. The film is a collision course, nothing more. John Wick impresses then because of this purity. Every line exist solely to feed into the idea of Wick as a horrifying, supernatural presence in the Golgo 13 mold. His enemies understand the danger he represents and quake accordingly.

Back in action, Reeves resembles something dragged out of a deep deep well in feudal Japan. A vengeful wraith, dredged up and dressed to impress, marksmanship skills eternally set to aimbot. Literally no head goes unplugged. Directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch construct a series of athletic gunfights that revolve around a basic one-two boxing rhythm. If Wick can't immediately ventilate the cranium in question he'll put lead into a limb or sternum, explicitly paining his enemies so they reveal their unguarded head.