Keanu Reeves’ Best Sci-Fi Movies Are Streaming, But Not Where You Think
You can catch Keanu Reeves in all four Matrix films streaming now, but they’ve moved from Max to Peacock. The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, and The Matrix Resurrections were recently moved to their new streaming home, but viewers will of course need a Peacock subscription to see them. While many streaming services are deleting original content entirely, it’s good to see the Matrix films kept together even as they transition between streamers.
When it premiered in 1999, The Matrix was a hit on multiple levels, advancing digital effects and visual storytelling while introducing its audience to philosophical concepts like simulations and simulacra as well as a brand new sci-fi Messiah figure in Neo.
Keanu Reeves had only recently begun making a name for himself as an action star when the Wachowskis cast him in their ambitious new sci-fi/action film. Before appearing in Point Break with Patrick and Speed with Sandra Bullock, he was mostly known as a comic actor from his breakout role as Ted “Theodore” Logan in 1989’s Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and its 1991 sequel Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey.
Despite having appeared in such dramatic films as My Own Private Idaho and Dangerous Liaisons, the dimwitted surfer vibe of the Bill and Ted movies was still dogging him in the late 90s.
This made Keanu Reeves an interesting casting choice for a film that, beyond its spectacle, was also deeply steeped in philosophy, religion, and cultural commentary. When it premiered in 1999, The Matrix was a hit on multiple levels, advancing digital effects and visual storytelling while introducing its audience to philosophical concepts like simulations and simulacra as well as a brand new sci-fi Messiah figure in Neo.
Postulating that the world all of us know as real is actually a complex digital environment created in all of our brains as we are fed upon by machines who have overtaken the real planet Earth, the film’s trippy conceptual story made for a confusing, intriguing first viewing with a slow reveal that led audiences to want to see it again and again.
With every film in the series, Keanu Reeves’ star has continued to rise, with the fourth film coming much later following his runaway success in the John Wick film series, another reality-bending action franchise.
Each of the subsequent three films have continued to feature Keanu Reeves’ Neo (also known as Thomas Anderson) navigating his evolving role as the apparent savior of the human race. None of them, of course, could quite match the reveal of the first film, giving us deeper and more complex views of the real world and its relationship to the world of the Matrix.
They also succeeded to varying degrees in the area of visual effects, where the first film had so greatly excelled by introducing the “bullet time” effects that were soon quickly overused throughout popular media.
With every film in the series, Keanu Reeves’ star has continued to rise, with the fourth film coming much later following his runaway success in the John Wick film series, another reality-bending action franchise.
The Wachowskis had originally only planned a trilogy of Matrix films, though a series of animated short films called The Animatrix was also produced. 2003’s The Matrix Revolutions was intended as the writer-director siblings’ final entry into the universe they’d created, but Warner Bros. had a different plan, coaxing Lana Wachowski back for a fourth film without her sister Lily in 2020.
The Matrix Resurrections Releases 18 Years After The Original Trilogy’s Conclusion
Released in 2021, the same year as Keanu Reeves’ John Wick Chapter 4, the film premiered theatrically the day before it was released on Max, then known as HBO Max. The clever retooling of the Matrix universe that takes place in the film not only furthers the story of the humans living in the underground known as Zion in the real world but also puts Neo and Trinity through yet another simulated conflict as the machines try to keep them apart.
There is a very meta connection between the script and the real life relationship between Lana Wachowski and Warner Bros., which is named in the movie as having a similar role in forcing a sequel to a Matrix video game as they had in compelling Lana Wachowski to return for a fourth Matrix film.
Whether you’re a Keanu Reeves fan or you need to catch up on the Matrix films, or perhaps you’re questioning your own reality, this classic, densely constructed science fiction quadrilogy is definitely worth exploring again and again.
The films are full of symbolism, mysteries, and Easter eggs that reward repeated viewings. You can stream The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, and The Matrix Resurrections right now on Peacock.
