If The Matrix: Resurrections Was Great

Warning! This article contains spoilers for The Matrix: Resurrections

Leaving The Matrix is the biggest mistake in all of the movies, and The Matrix: Resurrections is no different. If they must have referenced this part, they should have kept it to an absolute minimum.

If I were to have been in the The Matrix IV writers’ room, with all those self-asserted experts, wryly portrayed in the movie, I would have suggested never leave the Matrix at all.

Here’s why: The issue is that Neo and Trinity trade one version of reality for another. Outside the Matrix is not necessarily any less 'real'. The world outside is dogged by politics, war and violence. All of the good philosophy and insight the films provide us are undermined by another arbitrary hierarchy that are in human form.

This was the criticism by Jean Baudrillard of the original movie, and the problem still stands. The simulacrum of the known world of Thomas Anderson is the parallel to our own. But it is arguable that this realm is simply expanded. Anderson becoming Neo is one remarkable metamorphization, but he is still in a ‘matrix’, just not the one he was led to believe he was in.

However, regarding Resurrections I would not have left The Matrix, the reflection of our world. Personally, I would have rewritten the lore and made the world outside another version of reality that Neo was able to enter. It is not the definite one he created in the previous trilogy, just one of infinite possibilities he could imagine. He could still harness his abilities and they could keep all of the teleportation type of jumping around the world - it could be his playground. However, instead of rescuing Trinity, he could have tried to convince her of finding her powers.

The movie is not about Neo having to save Trinity. It is a return to the world that Neo gave up upon entering the Matrix. The plot revolves around him finally trying to find his way out and then back into it. They return to The Matrix in a way to simply resurrect one more version of their world, but this time one where they are the ultimate rulers.

If I Warner Brothers backed me into a corner and force out my other opinions to improve the latest film, I would suggest the following:

• Cut out the ridiculous slow motion. I know this is what the original trilogy is known for but in 2021 it dates it and not in a good way. It has the unfortunate effect of causing dramatic scenes to look comical, because of the hyperreal nature it gives.

• I would have got 'Chad', Tiffany's husband, played by Chad Stahelski, the director of the John Wick films and his team to coordinate the fight scenes. He's on set anyway, the action and martial arts should be at least up to that level.

• I would not have touched the robot mascots with a spaceship barge pole. The different characters on the ship, in particular was a hideous addition that is undermines any of its sincerity.

• Finally, I would have made the film a tight 100 minutes in length. I would have substituted shots of Neo fighting the bad guys with shots of the Matrix, rather than having him act out so many more and break the flow of the film's story.

In my view, Resurrections did more to bring this fiction to the edge of its absurdity than did the original movie trilogy. Ultimately, much of it felt very silly, which is a shame, because it certainly didn't have to be.