The mea culpa is irresistible, not to mention wryly meta and charmingly candid, so I won’t even try to resist quoting what “The Matrix Resurrections” has provided for our delectation. (The film is playing in theaters and streaming on HBO Max.) First, though, a quick bit of context. This fourth iteration of the franchise is set 60 years after the events of “The Matrix Revolutions,” which came out in 2003. Neo, we are told, is actually a balding nerd, but we still see him as Keanu Reeves, who is neither balding nor nerdy. The once-unquenchable hero of “The Matrix” trilogy, which began in 1999, has gone back to his identity...

The mea culpa is irresistible, not to mention wryly meta and charmingly candid, so I won’t even try to resist quoting what “The Matrix Resurrections” has provided for our delectation. (The film is playing in theaters and streaming on HBO Max.) First, though, a quick bit of context. This fourth iteration of the franchise is set 60 years after the events of “The Matrix Revolutions,” which came out in 2003. Neo, we are told, is actually a balding nerd, but we still see him as Keanu Reeves, who is neither balding nor nerdy. The once-unquenchable hero of “The Matrix” trilogy, which began in 1999, has gone back to his identity as Thomas Anderson, now the head designer for a video-game company called Deus Machina. In a scene at the company’s headquarters, Thomas gets unwelcome news from his business partner, Smith (Jonathan Groff), who eventually proves to be more than a mere Smith. “I’m sure you can understand why our beloved parent company Warner Bros. has decided to make a sequel to the trilogy,” he says. “With or without us.”

Carrie-Anne Moss as Trinity.

Photo: Warner Bros.

Smith is talking about a video-game trilogy, of course, but we understand that his reference is really to the feature films that have earned zillions for Warner Bros. over the decades. And everyone has their reasons, their artistic or commercial imperatives. The why of the sequel for the studio’s bean counters may differ from the motives of the director, Lana Wachowski, and her screenplay collaborators, David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon. Still, the acknowledgement is perfectly clear. This is not a movie the world needs, or a movie that thinks it’s needed. Having suffered through it, I can vouch for the purity of its needlessness.

The story isn’t complicated if you strip away the frenetic gibberish, the space/time fiddlings and the incessant hops, leaps and levitations in and out of the Matrix, the vast computer-generated simulation of reality built by sentient and predatory machines to keep humanity in their thrall. It is, in a reality that any movie lover can relate to, a classic tale of separated lovers trying to reconnect.

Neo, last seen dead but recently repaired by the machines with his memory suppressed, doesn’t know he is living inside a new version of the Matrix as a new version of Thomas Anderson. But he’s been having panic attacks that his therapist, played by Neil Patrick Harris, insists are psychotic episodes. What’s more, he has a funny feeling about a suburban wife and mother he keeps running into in a coffee shop—her name is Tiffany, and she’s played by Carrie-Anne Moss. We know what neither of them knows, that Tiffany is Trinity, the formidable heroine of the trilogy and the love of Neo’s life, who is also in the machines’ thrall.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Morpheus.

Photo: Warner Bros.

Yet the original trilogy, and especially the first film, wasn’t a classic anything. It was a pop-culture landmark—a new perspective on life in the age of the internet; an exhortation to self-improving awakeness, as distinct from subsequent wokeness; and, not incidentally, a stunning piece of filmmaking with innovative graphics, elegant action and distinctive fashion. “The Matrix Resurrections” is a recycling dump of murky effects, indifferent action and a crazily cluttered, relentlessly repetitive narrative. It’s “Groundhog Day” in cyberpunk.