The Matrix Resurrection is the fourth film in the Matrix series, coming almost 20 years after
the previous film, directed this time by just one of the Wachowski siblings,
Larry, who now goes by the name Lana. The first Matrix is of course a modern-day
classic, a cultural milestone which introduced wuxia wire effects to western audiences,
perfectly synchronised philosophical theory with straight up cool as heck ***-kicking.
It’s probably on most people’s top 10 action films, though the follow up, The Matrix Reloaded,
was a nonsensical mess in my opinion, but the fight scenes were incredible,
and for that it gets a pass. The Matrix Revolutions was just dire and boring.
So not exactly the greatest of track records, and the Wachowski’s haven’t exactly set the world on
fire with their last couple of projects either. Needless to say, my expectations of this movie
were low, and in any case I am jaded, so jaded, of reboots, remakes, prequels and sequels that come
decades after the original property and are just clear cash grabs. It got to the point where I
actually thought I was falling out of love with movies, only to realise it’s the modern
Hollywood machine my grievances lie with. At the very least, I hoped for a convoluted,
nonsensical mess of a film that would hold my attention with a few good fight scenes.
Well, I got the convoluted, nonsensical part, but unfortunately in the one department I thought the
movie might have going for it – the fight scenes – the film was shockingly ordinary.
Yuen Wu Ping – the fight co-ordinator from the original trilogy – was sorely missed – his action
choreography is incredible and responsible for some of your favourite martial arts scenes,
from Kill Bill, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Fearless, Fist of Legend and so much more.
Bearing in mind that The Matrix revolutionised Hollywood fight scenes, with everyone copying the
bullet time stuff and the martial arts, The Matrix Resurrection gives us generic, standard fluff,
with the jittery camera up close and personal, overuse of CGI which shockingly looks better
20 years ago, and non-existent fight choreography. Nothing stood out – the gunplay, the hand-to-hand
fights – in fact, there were hardly any fight scenes in the movie. A real disappointment on
that front. And the movie has a cheap look to it too, a kind of made for TV look that makes
the fight scenes even worse – the original trilogy was shot on film, has so many iconic shots and had
that classic green hue – this one is digital and it doesn’t look like might thought was given to
what kind of camera to use, where to put it, how to use it – the most creative shot was the
opening when the camera pans out from a shot of a squad of cops from a puddle of water, and that’s
about it – the rest of the film is shot so flat, and the constant one second cuts to scenes from
the original trilogy only serve as reminders to just how much better those films looked.
So what is the movie actually about? Well, it did actually have an interesting premise.
The basic concept is essentially that the original Matrix trilogy,
was a series of ultra-realistic games that were designed by Thomas Anderson,
played by Keanu Reeves. The opening half hour of the film or so weren’t great,
but they were the most innovative and curious parts of the film. It’s bizarre seeing clips of
the original trilogy played out in such fashion, but it’s an interesting idea.
I’m not too sure on it being a game though, maybe a movie series, which is what it actually was,
would have been better, because I found my mind wondering how exactly the game worked, because
they always showed us shots of the Matrix movies as we known them – you know, with the camera where
it is and stuff, whereas in a game you play from a character’s point of view, or from 3rd person,
we have VAR as well, so I was a bit like “well how does it actually work when someone plays
the game?” but they never really show us. Anyway, Mr Anderson has put so many of his
own experiences into the game he starts to have delusions and episodes where he feels a real
Morpheus is trying to contact him, things like that, which his therapist tries to help him with,
to keep him in the real world. Needless to say of course, this isn’t the real world,
but just another rebooted version of The Matrix, and a rag tag team, including a new,
younger looking Morpheus, manage to get Neo to realise the truth and unplug from The Matrix.
All of this wasn’t perfect, but it was where the film was at its best, and maybe they should
have stretched this plot to cover the entire two hours, giving us a film where Anderson just can’t
quite work out whether everything around him is real or not, Truman Show style.
But then it gets really formulaic, and basically becomes a Marvel movie. The crew
basically organise a heist to take Trinity’s body from her pod and free her from The Matrix.
I’m not really sure why they’re so desperate to endanger the remaining humans to do this,
other than Neo really likes Trinity and the power of love and all of that.
In fact, there really was no reason to unplug Neo himself in the first place – the people who do it
openly admit they’re basically fanboys and he’s a legend to them. Anyway, from there the movie
is just a series of boring planning scenes and dull execution. Apparently The Matrix needs both
Neo and Trinity’s energy simultaneously, they’re useless on their own. They’re both “the one” now,
even though that goes against established law, and obviously, they’re “two”, not “one”, but whatever.
I guess it’s kind of a meta remake of the original, I guess. In that one we had Neo being
unplugged, learning about the real world, and the second half where they have to rescue Morpheus,
the plot sprinkled in with a bit of philosophy. Rinse and repeat here, with a few changes and an
abundance of imbecilic creative choices. And so much for being a meta commentary
because much like Jurassic World it ends up becoming the same thing it’s commentating on.
There’s no stakes in this film – nobody gets seriously hurt, none of the good guys die.
It has a feel-good feel about it. How did more people die in the first film in a lesser
version of the Matrix, where here the analyst can literally control hundreds of people at a time to
charge at the main characters? Human characters fist bump with machines, the Merovingian has a
cameo as a homeless angry hobo boomer, there’s a big robot bird that beeps and bots like R2-D2,
there’s even an after credit joke scene about cat videos - what the hell? Or as the new Smith
would say “WTF – AM I RIGHT GUYS?” Why even make this guy Smith, and the other
dude Morpheus? Why draw that comparison? You had plenty of new characters, if Hugo Weaving
had a scheduling conflict as he apparently did change the character so he isn’t Smith.
Some of the movie serves to try and explain the more dumber aspects of the other Matrix sequels,
but a lot of it is just side-stepped. Like, they never address why in the 3rd film Neo was able to
manipulate machines in the real world, they just completely ignore that. I found the fan theory
that the “real” world was just another level of the Matrix to fool the humans into thinking
they had made it out was really interesting, but there was none of that here. Speaking of
Neo and his powers in the Matrix, he’s so useless in this film. He doesn’t do anything, and is just
mothered by those around him, only at the end gaining the power to repeatedly force-push his
enemies away. Trinity is actually the one who for some reason all of a sudden is able to fly
and do all sorts of stuff when moments before she didn’t even know she was in a simulation.
But you know, girl power and all that. This movie seems to have been made with
an intentional desire to **** on the original Matrix, with a specialised character assassination
dedicated to Morpheus. The more meta aspects of the first half of the movie seem to indicate the
movie is aware of its own existence – a character even says something like, “we’re making a sequel
to the original trilogy because reboots are all the rage”. Warner Bros are even name dropped,
with the same character saying they were gonna make a sequel with or without us, as if the film
is perhaps telling us why the director decided to re-visit the film series after so long.
Anyway, going back to Morpheus – remember how he was a wise, profound man with an aura about him?
Well now he’s a wisecracking “brotha”, a campy guy who literally parodies the original Morpheus
by taking the p*** out of the character’s original lines. This rendition of Morpheus
seems based on the fresh prince of bel air. And ALL of the characters, aside from Neo and Trinity,
have no gravatas about them, nothing memorable. The guy they got to play the new Smith looked
like a jock *****-bag from a 90s slasher movie, the kind of guy who’s killed halfway through
and you cheer when it happens. He was HORRIBLE. Hearing him scream “MR ANDERSOOOON” was painful,
but hearing him say things like “OMG” again reinforces the idea that this is a parody of
The Matrix, not a sequel. There’s a blue haired young lady who looks like she really doesn’t
belong in this world, more like behind a laptop, logged into Tumblr. Niobe pops up,
looking like a granny Jack Sparrow and with the actress doing a hilariously old-woman acting.
Neil Patrick Harris played what I think was a hipster version of the architect or something,
and he was just as bad as everyone else. The movie gets worse as it goes on, with the final
scene with Trinity and Neo *****-slapping the Harris’ character while saying quirky lines was
cringeworthy, though not as bad as he actual ending where the duo hold hands and fly away,
accompanied by a horrible, horrible cover son. Everyone was so cool in the original Matrix,
and that was even maintained in the two sequels. I don’t know what was up with the characters here.
In my review of House of Gucci, I described the film as a gay best friend of Casino,
and this really feels like a gay best friend of the original Matrix.
The movie was not funny when it was trying to be, and it was trying REALLY hard, and it was
hilarious when it was playing it straight. There was a part where our new heroes are confronted by
Smith and he’s like “let me introduce you to some old friends of yours. Mwuhahaha!”
and then some guys who look like background extras from Game of Thrones pop up with their fists up
and I was sitting there thinking “who the hell are these guys supposed to be?” Some rejects who were
background bad guys for about 5 minutes in the other trilogy? I thought Hugo Weaving was gonna
show up, or at least those twins from Reloaded. Ultimately, after you see the film you think “what
was the point?” It didn’t add anything, it didn’t feel like it provided anything to the Matrix lore,
gave us any memorable scenes or characters or anything. The music was forgettable. A
true lightweight film. I think some part of it might be intentionally bad – there was a
scene during the brainstorming of the new Matrix game where it seems the people who made it were
annoyed that the original trilogy is remembered for the action scenes and not the philosophy.
They were taking the *** out of bullet time and other stuff throughout the movie,
almost as if maybe the director is bitter and turning your franchise into a satire
is sticking your middle finger up at the fans. So yeah, it was pretty crap, and I give it a 4/10.