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

I very nearly jettisoned right out of the film after the utterly misguided and atrociously written first 20 minutes, but I steeled myself, gripped my chair a little bit harder, and bit my tongue against the wave of absolutely garbage that was propelling at me from my home screen to give this movie the smallest of chances (because for the love of god who would see this in theaters).

After a truly bitter first taste the glimpses of 1/2 of the Wachowski genius started to seep in through the cracks. A taste of brilliance here, a dash of somewhat decent writing there, before I began to slowly settle in to what this movie has to offer.

Unfortunately the small taste was all this film had going for it. I stand firmly in the camp of not completely disliking either Reloaded or Revolutions. To put them next to this film makes both hated sequels to an undeniable classic seem like Empire and Return of the Jedi.

The Matrix Resurrections is a deeply flawed picture. It begs the question if it should exist at all. So much of the style, the exciting life of the former movies of the late 90's and early 2000's had is nowhere to be seen.

The writing plops off the page like wet dog excrement. Iconic characters are recast for the worse. Action set pieces and, god forbid I say it, kung fu action sequences the previous films were known for are completely absent in favor of cheap, jump cutting "thrills".

There was perhaps a solid 10 minutes of decent storytelling near the middle of the film that shone a bit brighter amongst the miasma before it inevitably took a nose dive into mediocrity. All in all the film is a shocking mockery of the franchise, built to fail.