The Matrix Resurrections is, unfortunately, proof that this franchise should’ve stayed dead.
Overall Score: 5/10
Image: Warner Bros. Pictures
*WARNING: SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED*
Despite starting just as any other movie in the franchise would, The Matrix Resurrections is unable to match the greatness of its predecessors. Instead of being a smart and worthy sequel, the film proves to be nothing but a dumb, confusing, uninspired, and overly long follow-up movie that isn’t able to justify its own existence.
Nevertheless, let’s put this negativity aside for a moment, and start with the good. The new additions to the cast of protagonists are delightful, with the standout members being Jessica Henwick’s Bugs and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Morpheus. The same can be said for the villains, as both Neil Patrick Harris’s the Analyst and Jonathan Groff’s Agent Smith are tons of fun to watch. Furthermore, a few minor characters from the previous films such as a grown-up Sati, now played by Priyanka Chopra, make surprise appearances. It’s also good to see both Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss return as Neo and Trinity (even though Neo now inexplicably looks like John Wick). Both actors continue to have really strong on-screen chemistry, and the movie takes full advantage of this by having their undying love be the main focus of the plot. And, much to my surprise and delight, there is a scene that brings back the dystopian Machine City in all of its glory, and it looks to be in pretty much the same state it last was in Revolutions.
Sadly, however, that’s more or less where the list of positive things ends. Everything else in the movie doesn’t really work and it all ends up falling apart.
For instance, the very first sequence involves Bugs and her team finding “old code” and going in to investigate. There they witness a recreation of the original film’s opening scene where Trinity is being chased by agents. While seeing her in action again was cool, even if it was merely a mirror of her badass moments from the first film, I couldn’t help but become distracted by the fact that the face presented on-screen was very clearly not that of Carrie-Anne Moss. I found it strange that they decided to cast someone else in the role. I mean, come on, this movie was shot in 2020. It isn’t impossible to digitally de-age the actors. Heck, Captain Marvel used this trick on Samuel L. Jackson throughout most of its runtime!
Another issue has to do with the strange choices the creative team decided to go with to bring back certain characters. A good example is Smith. In this case, both the writing and the acting are at fault. Don’t get me wrong, Jonathan Groff certainly is fun to watch, and it is understandable that they’d want to recast the character due to Hugo Weaving’s unavailability, but the problem is that he fails to capture what makes Smith special. Gone are the character’s iconic, exaggerated enunciations and villainous flair, replaced with generic overconfidence. There are literally only two instances where Groff’s performance remotely resembles that of Weaving’s. Both are when he says his iconic lines “Billions of people, just living out their lives... oblivious” — here he’s literally quoting Weaving’s Smith — and “MR. ANDERSON!” Also, in terms of writing, there shouldn’t be, and just isn’t, a way to continue the character as, for better or worse, he meets his end in Revolutions. All Resurrections does is needlessly stretch the character out. At the start of the movie, he’s Neo’s boss and he doesn’t seem to be aware of his true identity. Then, all of a sudden, during Morpheus’s first attempt to save and extract Neo from the Matrix, Smith picks up a gun and inexplicably regains his memories.
Morpheus, unfortunately, is another victim of Resurrection’s mistakes. Story-wise, it does make sense that the original version of the character would be dead, but the decision to ultimately exclude and replace Laurence Fishburne does nothing but hurt the film. While there’s nothing wrong with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s performance, it’s the writing that ruins it. This version of the character explains to Neo that he is a combination of both Morpheus and Agent Smith. However, aside from his few pre-extraction scenes, we don’t see him pull from his Smith half. Moreover, this Morpheus is presented as more of a fun side character who ultimately gets sidelined. The role of Neo’s mentor the original version assumed is also sadly lost here.
As for the rest of the cast, they’re mostly forgettable. There are so many new characters but almost none of them are interesting. The only memorable and likable one is Bugs, who sadly doesn’t get as much time to shine as she should. Even returning characters such as Niobe seem like mere shadows of their former selves.
The plot itself is… meh. The film is about saving Neo and Trinity from the machines, but did they really need saving? While the undying love aspect of the story is certainly a joy to see on-screen again, it isn’t enough to hold the rest of the movie together. It takes over an hour before the plot really gets anywhere, and by the time the movie is done setting everything up, there are only 30 or so minutes left to head into the final battle and conclude everything. Hence, what we get is one of the most over-bloated conclusions ever — one that fails to feel consequential. It doesn’t even begin to live up to that of Revolutions which, while obviously not of the best sequel or movie ever made, at least has our lead characters make one last sacrifice that makes it feel significant and earned. Quite simply, I feel that the franchise had come to a natural and satisfying conclusion and there was no need to try and continue it.
Oh, and another thing, it’s been nearly 20 years since the last Matrix movie. Therefore, one would assume that the latest film in the series would look much better than its predecessors, especially due to the massive improvements in filming techniques and technology. The sad truth, however, is that Resurrections looks and feels like the cheapest of the bunch. Everything is awful, from the terrible-looking visual and special effects to the laughably bad choreography.
Speaking of the choreography, the action here is either one of two things: lackluster, or all over the place. There are scenes that mimic the original film and ones that involve important characters duking it out, but the problem is that nearly all of them lack the required emotional punch. And when the moment that Trinity finally breaks free of the Matrix’s control comes, we’re presented with a scene that features a bafflingly large number of background characters who throw random punches at each other. Many viewers may actively dislike Reloaded and Revolutions, but at least those films still featured fight scenes that make Matrix movies, well, Matrix movies. Resurrections, on the other hand, has action sequences that feel irrelevant, look messy, are overly long, boring, and anti-climatic.
Also, what’s up with the film’s meta aspect? Resurrections, to a fault, tries so hard to come off as self-aware, going as far as to have Neo believe that his memories are merely scenes from a set of video games he made. Games, we learn, which are unsurprisingly referred to as The Matrix trilogy. But what’s worse is that at one point, Smith informs Neo that their “beloved parent company, Warner Bros.,” intends to move forward with a sequel to the trilogy and that it will happen regardless of the pair’s involvement.
This one line is what puts the final nail in the movie’s coffin. The dialogue here reflects the real-life situation between the studio and the original trilogy’s duo of directors (who had turned down the opportunity to make any future installments). One of them did return to the franchise eventually, as evidenced by their involvement with Resurrections, but the sheer irony of the line and the film’s laughable attempts at being meta suggest that, maybe deep down, even the director, and perhaps the writers, knew that this movie should never have been made.
In the end, it all comes down to one question: Did we really need another Matrix movie? That’s what the latest installment in the franchise tries, but ultimately fails, to answer, as The Matrix Resurrections proves to be a rather unworthy sequel to the original trilogy. It isn’t completely pointless, but its ideas and execution are sloppy, leaving far too many loose ends untied. The plot is mediocre and there are points in the movie where the dialogue becomes difficult to follow as it is weighed down by long and confusing exposition dumps. And while it is wonderful to see Neo and Trinity back on the big screen again, I can’t help but think that maybe, instead of making Resurrections, the studio might have been better off simply hitting the reset button and making a film called, oh, I don’t know… something like The Matrix Rebooted. But at the end of the day, this movie is, unfortunately, much-needed proof that some franchises, no matter how great or popular, should stay dead.
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