'The Matrix Resurrections': interactive website lets fans choose between red and blue pill

Warner Bros will release a full trailer on Thursday

You can choose between the red and blue pill on The Matrix Resurrections's new fan website. Photo: Warner Bros

After 18 long years, fans of The Matrix are finally being invited to make a choice: do you want to take the red or blue pill?

Ahead of the release of the full trailer of The Matrix Resurrections on Thursday, Warner Bros has launched an interactive website, WhatIsTheMatrix.com, which allows users to choose between two realities, as in the original 1999 film.

Click on the blue pill and you'll hear the voice of Neil Patrick Harris, who plays a therapist treating Neo (Keanu Reeves) who's back in the Matrix. "Do you remember how you got here?" he asks, as clips from the fourth installation of this beloved series play in the background.

"You've lost your capacity to discern reality from fiction. What's real is here and now."

Your current time flashes on the screen, something Harris mentions, before saying: "Anything else is just your mind playing tricks on you. It becomes a problem when fantasies endanger us. We don't want anyone to get hurt, do we?"

What happens when you click the red pill? You'll hear the voice of Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who takes on the role of a man trying to get Neo to see reality is simply an illusion.

"This is the moment for you to show us what is real. Right now you believe it's..." he mentions your current time "... but that couldn't be further from the truth. Could be this is the first day of the rest of your life, but if you want it, you gotta fight for it."

Watch a teaser here:

There are reportedly thousands of variations of these videos. In them, you'll see snippets of Reeves as Neo.

There's a glimpse of a bald Abdul-Mateen II looking at himself in the mirror, but also materialising out of thin air.

A blue-haired Jessica Henwick, who played Nymeria Sand in Game of Thrones, seems to be a soldier fighting the machine, while Jonathan Groff (Mindhunter) appears with his mouth melting shut in a manner similar to Neo's in the first movie.

Eagle-eyed fans will also spot a shot from The Matrix of Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) sitting in a chair as soldiers come in from behind her. An older Trinity appears again with Neo.

There's a sparring session between Reeves and Abdul-Mateen II reminiscent of the one between Neo and Morpheus in the original.

And a black cat pops up as a signal for deja vu, aka a glitch in the Matrix.

What do we know about 'The Matrix Resurrections'?

The Matrix, directed by Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski, was groundbreaking for its time, introducing a futuristic world and the concept that reality isn't what it seems.

While not much is known about the plot for the latest instalment, which is being directed by Lana alone, it does feature a stellar cast, including Jada Pinkett-Smith, who reprises her role as Niobe, a member of the resistance, Christina Ricci and Priyanka Chopra.

It has been reported that Laurence Fishburne, who played Morpheus in the original trilogy, said he was not contacted to star in the new film.

In August, Warner Bros shared its first trailer at CinemaCon. Set in a near-future San Francisco, the new footage started with Harris's so-far unnamed therapist character talking to Neo.

“Am I crazy?” Neo asks, to which Harris's character replies, “We don’t use that word in here.” Neo encountersMoss’s Trinity in a cafe, where she asks him: “Have we met?”

And, of course, there is a shot of the famous pills. Blue pills are seen spilling into a sink, to the soundtrack of Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit.

A shot of an ageing Neo then appears, with a younger Morpheus telling Neo it's “time to fly” as he hands him a red pill.

Film critics who previewed the footage were impressed.

“I was so worried that it wasn’t going to wow me but I was totally wrong," American film critic Scott Menzel tweeted. "The only thing that shocked me is that a few of the main characters don’t appear in the trailer.”

The Hollywood Reporter's Aaron Couch tweeted: "Folks, I don't even know where to begin with The Matrix. Wow! It's called The Matrix Resurrections. Thomas Anderson is in therapy, having forgotten The Matrix. He meets Trinity at a coffee shop. Neither remembers one another."