Review of The Matrix Resurrections (2021) by Nobodyyouknow — 02 Jan 2022

I REALLY wanted to like this movie -- The Matrix is one of my all-time fave movies -- but Resurrections is ham-fisted and heavy-handed with poor direction, editing, cinematography, and sound design. It feels surprisingly amateurish. The brief flashbacks of the original Matrix are a literal reminder of how much better that movie was than this. "Resurrections" is the perfect word to use in the title because rather than an installment that propels the story forward, it's a rehash that simultaneously relies on fans' knowledge of the previous films while borrowing heavily from them. The whole thing feels like low-budget fan fiction.

There are too many ancillary characters who aren't fleshed out. Most of them aren't given more than a handful of lines. This neither fleshes out their character nor propels the story (such as it is) forward. Oh, and the story... I saw another reviewer say that if you don't like this movie, it's because you're not intelligent enough to understand it. Another possibility is that if you think everyone else is too dumb to understand it, maybe you're just too dumb to realize how simplistic and two-dimensional the story is. What we get here is just a 2021 version of "tech is bad" and "what's reality?" It's really not hard to understand what Lana W. is saying/asking. Unfortunately, the movie does nothing to truly explore those concepts; it just gives us lazily regurgitated Matrix tropes. Despite its 2.5-hour length, it has very little to say, and despite my love for the Neo-Trinity story, their relationship was not moved forward in any way.

One big complaint is that Carrie Ann Moss is criminally underused here. She's the best actor of the franchise, IMO, yet we hardly see her. And what's really unfortunate is that when she's pulled into the climax of the story, her character inexplicably changes in ways that make no sense at all given everything that led up to those changes. So, she's underused AND *mis*used.

Overall, Resurrections is a big disappointment for this Matrix fan, and if you're someone who hasn't seen the original trilogy, Resurrections will leave you befuddled and wishing you had that 2.5 hours of your life back. I'm sad to say that while it's not a train wreck, it's just not worth your time.