Posted by Movie about machines becoming self-aware becomes self-aware
Happy New Year! Yes, yes, it’s been over two weeks – but I’ve been sitting on this review for the Matrix Resurrections since LAST YEAR. Ok, that’s a bit dramatic, but in real time I watched the Matrix Resurrections 23 days ago. The plan was to watch it again before putting pen to paper, but frankly, I just don’t want to!
I’m going to go into spoilers, so if I really need to give a spoiler warning despite the movie being in cinemas for weeks, then you need to give yourself a talking to.
The Matrix Resurrections picks up decades after The Matrix Revolutions. The machines have rebuilt Neo and Trinity and reinserted them back into the Matrix so they can harness their power as super batteries. Neo is back to being Mr Anderson, but this time is a video game developer of the original matrix movies, which in this story are video games not movies. Cue tons of meta comments until Neo is released from the Matrix once again. However, he decides that isn’t enough and so aims to save Trinity from the Matrix too, who is under high surveillance security. Bangs, explosions, exposition… and sleep.
The movie is essentially split in two halves. The first half consists of Neo’s story of being stuck in the matrix, where we’re treated to a lot of meta commentary on reboots and evil execs. In fact, why wouldn’t they have called this The Matrix Rebooted? It would have served as a much better title, and a middle finger to the execs that the movie basically is.
The second half of the movie is a run-of-the-mill Matrix movie with action sequence after action sequence. But here’s the twist… The action is crap! That’s right, after giving us bullet-time and awesome fight choreography in the first Matrix, we’re treated to Keanu Reeves stretching his muscles by… pushing things away via lifting his hands in the air as he pulls a straining face. I guess they’re saving him for John Wick Chapter 7 or something? The line “I still know kung fu” (also from the trailer) made me cringe very much.
I enjoyed the first half of the movie more than I did the second boring half. I thought the meta comments were interesting and probably shed light on the movie’s existence from Lana Wachowski’s view. There’s a comment in the movie about Warner Bros wanting a fourth part to the video game series… with or without the creator’s involvement. An obvious nod there for you.
There’s a lot of flashback scenes in this movie. And they do not work one little bit. They’re awkwardly placed throughout the movie – yet, if I wanted to watch the original Matrix, I would just watch the original Matrix! Then there’s the shoehorning in of Smith and Morpheus, played by different actors. What was the point? I don’t care if the actors are good – just leave the characters out. The story doesn’t do their appearances any justice whatsoever.
It’s like Lana Wachowski was purposely trying to do a bad job. But then I remember Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions and it’s more apparent that the original Matrix movie was just a fluke. And what a fluke it was! One of my all-time favourite movies.
Verdict
There’s no reason for The Matrix Resurrections to exist other than to make Warner Bros money. Mildly entertaining scenes aren’t enough to brush over the lack of personality on show here. If you want to plug back into the Matrix – just watch the original movie again.