Review of The Matrix Resurrections (2021) by Dannychryst — 01 May 2022

The first Matrix movie had a societal impact like very few other movies have had before or after and the cultural significance is still relevant to this day. I was absolutely blown away by this film and it is certainly one of my all time favorites. The sequels were not quite as good but definitely still had their moments of action, intrigue, and spectacle. After seeing Resurrections I'm now convinced that they never should've gone beyond the original. Resurrections makes Revolutions look like Citizen Kane, despite all the flaws the trilogy's finale had. I knew this latest entry to the series was not going to be as good as the original trilogy, but nothing could've prepared me for how bad this movie actually was.

The first red flag is the fact that this film has to constantly remind you of how much better the first film was. About a third of the film is either trying to sloppily recreate the most iconic scenes and imagery of the first film, or is literally just showing you those scenes within the film. Then there's all the "meta" self-awareness the film has, which could have been a clever plot device but is done in such a painfully cringy way that it feels like they don't want you take this film seriously. Neo's powers are completely nerfed and it's pretty obvious that Keanu is now too old to do kung fu. Agent Smith and Morpheus are just cheap knock-offs of Weaving and Fishburne, and I can't blame those two for not wanting to return to this trainwreck of a sequel. Instead of the Architect we have the "Analyst" who is an actual exposition machine and explains any necessary plot points when the story needs to move forward. There are a lot of cool ideas like a machine civil war that get briefly mentioned and then are never spoken of again, even though these could've been fascinating concepts to explore. The new characters are like forgettable NPCs, which is fitting considering that the film's first angle is to say the Matrix was just a video game. They even introduce one of the most cliche concepts they could possibly throw into this franchise, zombies. Yes that's right, there are now zombies in the Matrix. You might be wondering if at least the action is any good... well, it isn't. The fight choreography also feels like a huge downgrade from the entire Matrix trilogy.

There are so many things wrong with this movie, from the script, to the casting, to the execution, and so on. It's a nostalgia-bait cash-grab that destroys everything the franchise had worked to achieve, and based on Lana Wachowski's statements this was probably intentional. I understand wanting to make a commentary about the film industry, sequels, etc., but that could've been accomplished without creating such a disjointed mess. This is one of the most disappointing sequels ever made, if not the worst sequel in the history of film. I'd prefer to be like Neo and believe that this movie is not real.