LM23 Rating: An okay film but not anything earth shattering
When I heard a Matrix 4 was in the works, I was really excited at its potential. You think that if it’s a reboot or some sort of continuation of a classic and the main stars are attached, you expect they’re going to raise the bar beyond expectations. There’s no way Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss would return so many years later unless it’s an amazing script.
I just watched The Matrix Resurrections and I can’t say it was beyond amazing the way Shang-Chi or Spiderman No Way Home was, but it was alright. What work really well are the themes and the meaning of what the matrix is in real life.
When I watched the first Matrix, I was still in school and didn’t understand much about what life truly was. I was still in that mindset that if you worked hard in school, got the good grades, and did all the right things, I too would be able to enjoy the good life.
Twenty years later, I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of life and done the corporate ladder climbing. And I’ve done my damn hardest to fit into what society expects out of highly intelligent, good looking, and well-adjusted people who recycle, give to charity, and don’t cause trouble. Now I realize this is a system we’re all in with rules and expectations that we’re not sure why we follow along with, and which “the right side” can be however you make it to be.
The movie starts off with introducing us to Thomas Anderson’s current life. He’s a corporate soldier who is a highly successful video game creator. He sits in mind numbing marketing strategy sessions. He lives in a cold but fancy looking condo. He goes to the gym like every other rat in the race. He visits a psychiatrist or therapist to talk about his stressors so he can be a normal person. And he regularly goes to a Starbucks-like coffee shop every day. There’s a bazillion Thomas Anderson’s in the world who live the same life and do the same thing day in and day out. Everything is fine until you start to question your existence and what really is real.
And so Thomas Anderson finds his way back to being Neo when he meets Bugs (Jessica Henwick) and Morpheus (Yahya Adbul-Matteen) II. This is where some of the confusion of Matrix comes in. I’m not quite clear as to why or who Bugs is and why she is the guiding force to find Neo and bring him back to his true self. Neo of course eventually realizes what has happened to him once he chooses to take the red pill and he remembers who Trinity is.
It was pretty funny that Trinity or Tiffany, has two kids and is married to a generic guy named “Chad.” I don’t know if it meant anything, but the two kids look racially mixed as if they could be the product of Neo and Trinity instead. Anyways, the way Neo and Trinity meet again in the coffee shop seemed a bit too forced and random. And the rest of the movie really is about Neo and team trying to rescue Trinity from her married life in the Matrix. I did like that Tiffany/Trinity talked about how she wasn’t certain as to why she was married or if she even wanted to. Just that it was a societal thing.
That is basically the main theme of the Matrix. That society is a set of rules and expectations that we all just follow blindly because it’s just what we’re used to. The villain who’s supposed to represent that evil, The Analyst (Neil Patrick Harris) is Neo’s therapist and he does his best to tame Neo’s individuality and need to rebel with the blue pills. The villain is surprisingly not Agent Smith, reborn again here by Jonathan Groff. Agent Smith at one point even sides with Neo and fights against The Analyst.
The climatic fight scene was really well done. For anyone who said there weren’t any memorable fight scenes. I think I know what they mean. There weren’t any extended choreographed fight scenes featuring Neo or Trinity. I also noticed that neither ever used a gun this time. Perhaps a weak point would be that there was never really a time when Neo and Trinity became themselves again and went into kick ass mode. The other characters did the shooting and kicking and acrobatic fighting for them.
However, the last major action scene was very well done. I loved the allegory of the swarm mode being activated and random people started catapulting themselves out of their high rise buildings to try to stop Neo and Trinity but dying as they crashed to the ground in the process. It was pretty much the saying if someone were to jump off a bridge, would you follow them, too, in action.
When the end of the fighting comes to a close, it almost felt as if they just cut it off. We’re just told that Neo and Trinity are going to get a second chance to start over, but start over with how they want to live in the matrix as. I thought that ending was fine, but there was definitely a lack of a strong villain and a momentum building show down with a villain. The Analyst didn’t really rise to the occasion to be a formidable nemesis for Neo and Trinity. And a lot of the story was pushed through by telling and exposition. There was never really a doubt or barrier to Trinity coming back.
There was even a end credit scene similar to the Marvel movies. Even the end credit was a bit too quick on the draw. And the end credit basically confirms what most people will realize what the Matrix is really about. It really is about the system we’re in and how everything is just manipulation and coercion. And if you go against the grain, you will be met with resistance or maybe even be destroyed. The end credit brought us back to the marketing strategy session where the creatives were talking about making cat videos called The Catrix. I thought that was clever since the black cat is shown a lot throughout the movie. But, there was no cat video shown and the black cat wasn’t seen again. The movie just ends after that.
All in all I think the action sequences deserve a theatre experience. The themes and what the Matrix represent are all on point and especially now with The Great Resignation and people standing up to fight for what’s right in society. However, there should have been a more creative way for us to be reintroduced to Thomas Anderson and how he finds his way back to his true self, Neo.
The villain should have been stronger. At one point, Warner Bros. is literally named as basically a bad guy. They should have stuck with Agent Smith who was now Neo’s boss as the true bad guy. Most people these days will point to corporate greed and the managers who fall in line as the true evil villains of today. I think that would’ve made for a more interesting showdown. The Analyst could have been the corporation appointed therapist, which a lot of companies do have those services these days.
Finally, it was also disappointing to not see Neo and Trinity fight in good form. There were times where their fighting seemed slow and amateurish. Instead, there was too much reliance on their supernatural powers to protect them over their fists and weapons.
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