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

There is inevitably going to be a lot of political backlash around this film from angry people who don't like some of the changes that threaten the cool masculinity of the original films. For me, those changes weren't a major issue, and if anything were some of the more entertaining aspects of the movie. There were a few moments that felt a little overbearing, but nothing too egregious.

The real issue is that the movie just isn't very good. The music was bland, the CGI was ugly, the editing was bad, the choreography was uninteresting and the action was occasionally hard to read a la the Bourne films, the cinematography was lifeless, the script was pretty abysmal, with several interesting ideas all executed poorly. The use of flashbacks were atrocious. The meta commentary immediately wore thin. While this is definitely not a full retread of older Matrix films, it still carries the baggage of one. Huge swaths of the movie are just people explaining things to the audience. The earlier movies are somewhat guilty of this, but Keanu just doesn't work as an audience surrogate or as an engaging character here and we are mostly taken out of the film as a result. Keanu lacks the intensity he had when he was younger, leaving him to mostly just appear bored, and the flat framing and editing does nothing to help remedy that. This especially comes across in the action, such as when he's jumping away from an explosion and it really feels like an old dude jumping in front of a green screen. The newcomers were fine, but the Morpheus surrogate didn't feel anything like Morpheus or the other character he's meant to embody. The whole thing felt like a made for TV movie with a bigger budget that went almost entirely to bad CGI. Carrie-Anne Moss is fine, which is good because her character is integral to the better aspects of the plot, but Keanu really is the crux of the film and fails to carry it. The new villains do not work. This honestly just doesn't feel like a Matrix movie. It feels like a pitch with some salvageable ideas in it.