My Review of "The Matrix Resurrections"

The Matrix Resurrections is the latest movie in all the call back movies we've had as of late. We just had the newest Ghostbusters revival with Ghostbusters: Afterlife and I would consider the newest Spider-Man: No Way Home as another revival. They're bringing all of these older intellectual properties back into the forefront.

Who would blame these movie companies since they're doing pretty well with all these rehashes. We're all to blame for all of the things that we complain about in Hollywood.

It wasn't a big surprise that this new Matrix movie came out in 2021. The task of making another Matrix movie would of course be quite daunting. Fans have huge expectations when it comes to game changer movies like the Matrix or Star Wars or Indiana Jones. Obviously you can't please everyone but there are basically things that fans want.

This is where everything gets a little murky. Fans pretty much want the same experience as they had when the first fell in love with these franchises. Unfortunately as an artist you want to move forward and innovate. Fans aren't going to like this because it changes the direction of many of their characters or even the tone of the film.

Like I mentioned in the other Matrix reviews that I've done in the past few weeks (I was catching up on the movies). Each of the Matrix movies feels vastly different from one another and this one is no different.

The movie actually starts off with a very familiar scene. In fact there are a lot of very familiar moments in this movie that will have you doing double takes. This movie does it a little different than the other rehashes though. It's quite aware of itself and plays with the fourth wall. The characters in the beginning of the movie almost feel like they're talking to us as the audience directly. We all have those aspirations for this movie and they definitely address this.

I loved how they played with this because it also played with our understanding of the franchise as a whole. Many of us will start wondering right away where is this going but that's the point. The opening of the first movie was the audience following Neo to wonderland. That's essentially what they did with us in this movie.

Of course they had many call backs to the previous movies and I'm really happy that I re-watched the trilogy before watching this movie. There are a lot of fun easter eggs and cameos that I wouldn't have recalled had I not watched the old movies so recently. So yes there is a lot of fan service to this movie.

Some of those easter eggs and cameos are very nuanced. Generally a lot of people will likely watch it a second time because they've probably missed a lot of small details while trying to focus on the main story. There are beautiful graphical homages to the past. You'll see graphical glitches in the drops of condensation on walls. There's mirrors that make you wonder what the heck happened. There's even a cameo from actors that were in past Wachowski movies.

This is also probably the funniest Matrix movie in the franchise. They added a lot of jokes in there that kind of hit the mark. In this day in age we get that a lot because of the huge influence the Marvel movies have had. The Matrix kind of fell into this trend and I didn't mind it.

The problem I did have with it was closer to the end of the movie it sort of fell into the same problems that the third movie had. They didn't really know how to close this movie off. I felt as though there was heavy pressures on the writers to appease the audience rather than go their own direction and take on their artistic liberties. Perhaps the studios handcuffed them to have the ending that they did as well.

Also there were a few special effect issues. There is one particular scene where it is absolutely obvious there was wire work done and it looks horrendous. For a movie that revolutionized special effects in the past it felt really out of place. Then again being self aware the movie actually warned us about a lot of the issues that we may have with this movie in the very beginning.

For those that are wondering if the movie will make sense with the other three movies I can tell you it fortunately does. There is a deep connection to the older movies but in some ways it kind of felt like a best of recap TV show. Though it was still entertaining to me I can't oversee this aspect of the movie.

I did find it interesting that they still play on many of the philosophical questions that they had in the previous movies. The notion of free will and determinism are still talked about. They didn't go too deep into a few other questions that they asked. I would have liked for them to dive deeper into the question of the being. Is someone still the same person if only their memories are passed? What about the pressures of doing what's best for mass populations?

Out of all the movies I think this one focuses most on the romantic relationship with Neo and Trinity the most. Where the other movies were more focused on the needs of humans and machines this one differs in focusing on the needs of the main characters.

Overall, this movie was flawed though still fun. Those that have seen the other movies will get a kick out of a lot of the things they added to this movie however it isn't without some eye rolls. For a casual viewer it's probably not the best to go into this movie blind. That's why I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. I may re-watch this movie again and have a different opinion. That's usually how Wachowski movies work for me. I tend to grow to like them after a few years.