Matrix Resurrections highlights new breed of tech villains

The Matrix Resurrections has showcased the latest new breed of villain — the mad genius tech nerds — and it’s becoming more common, Duncan Lay writes.

Move over Nazis, go home Commies and just shut up, all you people with supercilious English accents, because there’s a new villain stereotype in town.

Yes, that’s right, all the old villains are being buried under the weight of a new terror – tech nerds.

But these are not the silly, bespectacled geeks with exploding pens in their shirt pockets once found roaming around your company’s IT department.

These are the evil love children of Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs, bent on world domination in a snazzy suit and happy to employ an army of goons for the rough stuff.

(Hang on, I hear you say, isn’t Zuckerberg’s Facebook intent on world domination already …?)

Anyway, the latest of this new breed of villain is in The Matrix Resurrections, where the old Agent Smith played by our own Hugo Weaving has been replaced by a shinier version played by Jonathan Groff.

This Smith runs a tech company with Keanu Reeves while secretly manipulating him for evil.

While I did miss Weaving’s snarling face, this Smith is pretty scary too.

Keanu Reeves in a scene from The Matrix Resurrections. Picture: Supplied

(By the way, I really enjoyed that movie and it’s miles better than the woeful Matrix 2 and 3).

Anyway, Smith’s just the newest of a production line of tech nerds that I reckon started in 2007 with Timothy Olyphant’s Gabriel in Die Hard 4.0.

It seems to me that what started as a trickle has swiftly become a flood.

Lex Luthor was reimagined as a mad tech genius in Batman v Superman, Samuel L. Jackson was a lisping tech genius in Kingsman, Riz Ahmed has become an expert in it, playing one in Jason Bourne and another in Venom. I could go on, so I will.

Steven Merrick wanted Charlize Theron’s blood in The Old Guard, Andrew Scott played Max – known as “C” for rather rude reasons I cannot reveal in a family newspaper – in Spectre and Taika Waititi hammed it up as the baddie Antwan in Free Guy.

And then of course you have the original tech genius Bill Gates, who has been unwittingly cast as the villain in the movie 5G Towers Gave Me Covid, which is currently only available for viewing inside the tin foil hats of anti-vaxxers.

I find the rise of the tech baddie a fascinating development.

Obviously everyone (except for certain sections of Germany’s east and America’s south) hates Nazis but they are a bit predictable. Communists are also old hat, so then you get into other issues.

International returns are now vital to a film’s success, so you can’t have a villain easily identifiable as coming from a particular country.

They’ve even given up on making villains have an English accent. Although that may be because you can’t cast Tom Hiddleston or Mark Strong in every film.

But Big Tech? Everyone hates them! Social media is already being used to destabilise political systems and infect people’s brains, so it’s just a short step to bring online villainy into the real world. The only issue I have is that, while we all hate Big Tech, we are still using it. So are we all secretly in the employ of supervillains? I’d ponder that further but my phone alert tells me I need to go and help further Big Tech’s plot to take over the world.

Will Han Solo come back in Boba Fett?

There’s a couple of internet rumours doing the rounds that are even hotter than the back of your neck after six hours in a Covid testing queue on a summer’s day.

So get ready for some possibly serious spoilers — or maybe just some random gossip that turns out to be as accurate as predictions the pandemic would all be over by 2022.

The really hot one concerns the new Boba Fett series now dropping every Wednesday on Disney+.

After his guest appearance in The Mandalorian, it was only natural this fan favourite would get his own show.

The Book Of Boba Fett series is airing on Disney+.

So far, however, there hasn’t been anything to rival “Baby Yoda” from Mandalorian.

Yes, there was a Tusken Raider youngling but comparing that to Baby Yoda is like asking who would you rather see in a bikini — Kim Kardashian or Clive Palmer.

But now the online whispers are suggesting the Book Of Boba Fett will have a conclusion even more emotional than season two of Mandalorian, when Mark Hamill reprised his role as Luke Skywalker to save the day.

Only this one has Harrison Ford dusting off Han Solo so the smuggler can meet his old foe Fett.

Solo was killed off in The Force Awakens but BOBF takes places only a couple of years after Revenge Of The Jedi, when Solo was alive and well.

Will Harrison Ford return as Han Solo?

Given one of the key moments in Star Wars was Solo being captured by Fett — and then sending him to his (presumed) death inside the belly of the Sarlacc, it not only seems a logical move but would also give BOBF a “wow” moment that will set Star Wars fans alight.

I’d certainly love to see it but is this rumour based on fact or just wishful thinking from fans who have been a little underwhelmed by BOBF so far.

We’ll know in about five more episodes.

Meanwhile, there are also hot rumours that the Spider-Man spin-off Morbius has not been delayed because of the double whammy of Covid numbers blowing up in the US and Spider-Man No Way Home still casting a web over the box office.

Jared Leto in Morbius.

Morbius, which stars Jared Leto as the vampiric antihero, is set in the same universe as Venom. It was supposed to be out on January 28 but has now been pushed back to April.

The first reaction was: Covid strikes again.

But there are whispers the delay is to build off the success of No Way Home, which saw previous Spider-Men Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield appear to help Tom Holland tackle the villains from their movies.

In fact it could be to allow Andrew Garfield to film a scene for Morbius, as a link to the growing Spidey-verse.

Now that could cause all sorts of continuity problems — but it could also see Morbius pick up some of the millions of fans who have watched No Way Home.

I’d like to think both rumours are true although, if I had to pick one, it would be Harrison Ford returning as Solo for a brief cameo.

That one feels more natural. Plus, without it, BOBF so far feels like something that stayed too long inside the Sarlacc’s bowels.