Warner Brothers's The Matrix Resurrections

First off, the disclaimer: I am not, in general, a fan of the current practice of reboots, remakes and sequels that should have been made years or decades ago. (Although I will make an exception for the Battlestar Galactica reboot.) Not only do I see it as insulting (usually) to the original material, but it stifles new intellectual properties. By and large, I think we'd all be better off with new things to read or watch instead of rehashing old stuff. This is basically the result of cowards in Hollywood who don't have the guts to take a chance on something new instead of retelling old stories that have paid before. It makes sense in a way but, bottom line, The Matrix was a new concept that worked.  When it premiered nineteen seventy-seven Star Wars was a new property. The dead mule has been kicked far too many times. My toes hurt.

That having been said, I really did enjoy The Matrix Resurrections. I will grant you that this is now an older franchise and that it's been sitting around for awhile. I'll grant you that the film's two biggest starts, Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss don't look like they did when they made the movie. (Much love to both, but they're not as young as they were twenty years ago when the last movie was made. Sucks to be them. I'm at least six months younger than I was in 2003.) I'll even grant you than I wasn't excited to see it when it first came out.

None of that matters though. Matrix Ressurections was a good movie. It may not have been the masterpiece (and don't get me started about how I just misused that term. Everyone else does it, too.) that The Matrix was, but it was a well written movie with an actual plot and characters I actually cared about. The way it was done made sense out of the missed time (Resurrections is set sixty years after Reloaded) but moved things along nicely. And, let's face it, they managed to avoid my worst fears for the movie.

I was seriously concerned that Ressurections was going to make the original trilogy irrelevant. It doesn't. I was afraid the move would suck without Lawrence Fishburne, but it's actually really good. (And I've been a fan of Lawrence Fishburne since he was "Larry Fishburne" and starred in Hoodlum.) I was afraid that that if they didn't destroy the first trilogy, they'd go all The Force Awakens with it and rip off the first flick to the point that it felt like I was watching a remake, but they didn't. I was worrying over nothing, but let's face it: Hollywood hasn't done much to make me trust them lately.

That's not to say that there weren't call backs to the first three flicks. Resurrections actually reuses some of the original footage and we get to see a new scene that strongly echoes an old one, but it works in context. but the plot was not the same as the original. There was no "Hey guys, let's go blow up ANOTHER FREAKING DEATH STAR" moment. The fight, as always, was against the machines, but it wasn't the same fight. 

I loved seeing Neo as a mental patient, medicated to the gills. I remember seeing a lot of books at the bookstore (remember those?) about the psychological aspects of the movies. I read a few snippets here and there (I never bought one. I KNOW but, I mean, there was all this cool Science Fiction and Fantasy to read, who had time for non-fiction books about how crazy I was?) and the way Neo's mind was twisted was glorious to behold. The way they portrayed his fight for sanity as a fight against insanity was cleverly conceived and executed. If it left me scared to look in a mirror then so be it. If I've been reading a ton of articles about how the universe might just be a computer simulation, so what? Good art effects people and my brain is a haven for weirdness anyway.

A lot of the old characters are here, sort of. They've been redone. With Resurrections taking place sixty years after the original trilogy, it is assumed (I guess) that most of them are probably dead. The new characters make things look and feel different but using the first cast as archetypes provides a connection that works well. And don't worry. Agent Smith is still creepy. 

Oops I didn't say that. That would be a spoiler and I have a strict no-spoiler policy that I actually follow sometimes. 

Of course, it wouldn't be The Matrix without some hair curling action scenes and Resurrections delivers. Bullet time makes a comeback and fights between Neo and friends and their agent enemies abound. That made me happy. You can't do this without the occasional gunfight or karate kick. It just wouldn't work. The subject of all of the Matrix films has always been a war. I'm glad to say that they're still fighting.

The special effects for Resurrections are, as expected, freaking phenomenal. I would have been shocked if they weren't. The Matrix invented bullet time. The Matrix Reloaded was delayed while they figured out how to revolutionize visual effects to make one scene work. I can't think of anything innovative from  The Matrix Revolutions but it looked awesome. Resurrections actually looks better, but that's probably because we've had twenty years of technological progression since Revolutions. 

I'll be watching Resurrections again, and I'm surprised to hear myself say that. I only watched it because I was bored and needed something that I hadn't seen a million times. I went into this with a negative attitude and it managed to make me love it anyway. Either that's an impressive feat or I'm a gullible rube. I'd like to think of myself as being somewhat jaded by this point in my life (I'm forty-seven) and my mind was changed once I allowed myself to become immersed. 

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 Red Pills

Matrix Revolutions
Lana Wachkowski
Warner Brothers, 2021