Review of The Matrix Resurrections (2021) by Leaveit — 22 Dec 2021

Very bizarre... Not a complete disaster but a number of stylistic and artistic choices kept dragging it down. The story smacked very heavily of soft reboot despite their Adaptation-style lampshading of it. Fight scenes were truly awful; the camera was constantly far too close for some reason, as though directed by someone who did not direct the Matrix. Music sounded royalty-free. Jada Pinkett-Smith in old makeup... Named robot characters that have no use except to high-five someone once... A nearly incomprehensible reason to bring Neo and Trinity back... G.I. Joe gunfights like never before... Very awkward dialogue between Neo and Trinity that made me feel like a friend was making a social faux pas... These are some of the oddities. It's not that the original trilogy was Citizen Kane or something (the dialogue was cringey from day one), but other than some weird story structure in the sequels it was at least well-shot, characters' motivations were comprehensible, the music was highly memorable, and it didn't tackle too many themes at once.

Just imagine the Matrix, but:

1. Music's bad.

2. There are no monologue-worthy actors, but there are still monologues.

3. Action scenes are all zoomed in, you have no idea what's happening.

4. The story is at least as convoluted as Reloaded and Revolutions, characters seem to do stuff for no real reason.

5. Keanu Reeves talks about painting the sky with rainbows in his weird deadpan.

In a word, bizarre. Just think of your least favorite Matrix and all the reasons it was your least favorite and this has more of that.