It’s been nearly two years since The Matrix Resurrections torpedoed the franchise’s canon, and the most glaring flaws stand out on a rewatch.
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It’s been nearly two years since The Matrix Resurrections came along and torpedoed the franchise’s canon, and the unnecessary sequel’s most glaring flaws really stand out on a rewatch. Directed and co-written by Lana Wachowski, The Matrix Resurrections picks up 60 years after the events of the original trilogy with Thomas Anderson back in the Matrix, working on a video game based on his experiences as Neo (which he’s been convinced are all fake). This story buried the franchise in several layers of meta as Anderson begrudgingly created a sequel to The Matrix trilogy at the behest of Warner Bros.
When it arrived in theaters in 2021, The Matrix Resurrections bombed at the box office and received mixed reviews from critics. But in spite of that failure, Warner Bros. is still determined to earn more profits from The Matrix franchise, so The Matrix 5 is in development. The Matrix 5 will have to do a lot of heavy lifting to get this series out of the mess created by The Matrix Resurrections. From its recasting of icons to its lackluster action sequences, The Matrix Resurrections’ biggest problems are painfully apparent on a cold-light-of-day rewatch.
10The Matrix Resurrections Openly Admits To Being A Corporate Cash Grab
Lana Wachowski famously only agreed to make a fourth Matrix movie because Warner Bros. threatened to make one without her involvement if she didn’t. The Matrix Resurrections doesn’t exist because a new story needed to be told; it exists purely because Warner Bros. executives wanted to squeeze a few extra dollars out of one of their most popular I.P.s. And Wachowski is very upfront about that within the movie itself.
Early in the movie, Thomas Anderson is called into his boss’ office and told, “Our beloved parent company, Warner Bros., has decided to make a sequel to the trilogy.” When Anderson protests the idea, his boss tells him, “They’re gonna do it with or without us.” So, Wachowski begrudgingly made a cash-grab Matrix 4 for Warner Bros. about a creator begrudgingly making a cash-grab Matrix 4 for Warner Bros.
9The Matrix Resurrections’ Storytelling Feels Aimless & Undercooked
Despite having the authors of Cloud Atlas and The Lazarus Project on its scriptwriting team, The Matrix Resurrections has really aimless plotting. It follows Neo in and out of the real world – and in and out of mirror portals within the Matrix – like the bored and/or baffled player of an open-world video game with too much open space and not enough narrative. It’s more like a collection of disparate concepts than an actual story.
This movie has a lot of interesting ideas up in the air. In the Matrix, Thomas Anderson has been convinced that The Matrix trilogy was his own creation and none of it really happened. In the real world, the humans and the machines have miraculously started working together against a common enemy. But there’s nothing pulling these threads together in a cohesive way.
8No One Can Replace Hugo Weaving As Agent Smith
Jonathan Groff is undeniably a fine actor – he proved that with his captivating turn as Holden Ford in Netflix’s grisly crime drama Mindhunter and any number of acclaimed Broadway performances – but he’s no match for Hugo Weaving in the role of Agent Smith. Groff’s Smith is twice as smarmy as Weaving’s without any of the sly charm. Weaving managed to imbue this hateable, monotonous character with enough personality to make him endlessly watchable.
Part of the problem is that Groff’s Smith isn’t immediately introduced as Smith. He’s introduced as a corporate suit answering to Warner Bros. executives, and when he’s revealed to be Smith, Groff has to reconcile those two different characters. But the biggest issue with this character is simply that someone else was cast to play a role that is intrinsically tied to its original actor.
7The Matrix Resurrections’ Action Scenes Are Really Underwhelming
One of the most disappointing things about The Matrix Resurrections is that its action sequences are really lackluster. While The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions certainly have their fair share of flaws, they could both be counted on for some awesome action sequences. The Matrix Reloaded has its high-octane freeway chase, with Trinity zipping in and out of speeding cars on a motorcycle, and The Matrix Revolutions has Neo battling an army of Agent Smiths in the pouring rain.
The original Matrix movie is one of the greatest action films ever made. Its unique blend of “gun fu” with programmable superpowers was truly revolutionary. The lobby shootout and the helicopter crash still hold up as two of the most mind-blowing action scenes ever filmed. By comparison, The Matrix Resurrections’ action is a huge let-down.
6The Matrix Resurrections Relies Too Heavily On Recreating Iconic Moments From The Original Movie
Rather than setting out to create its own iconic moments, The Matrix Resurrections is content to just recreate all the most iconic moments from the first Matrix movie. It has the exact same opening scene, with Jessica Henwick’s Bugs taking the place of Trinity as she realizes the Matrix is running old code in a loop. From there, the movie basically plays like a greatest-hits montage.
Thomas Anderson gets a paranoia-inducing call at his office and has to go on the run. He has to choose between taking the red pill or the blue pill. Neo jumps off the roof of a skyscraper in an epic slow-motion shot. It just feels cheap and exploitative to take all the most memorable moments from the first movie and replicate them in the fourth one – especially on a rewatch.
5Keanu Reeves & Carrie-Anne Moss’ Performances Are Squandered On A Weak Script
One of the bright spots in The Matrix Resurrections is Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss’ electrifying on-screen chemistry. All these years later, they still share just as much chemistry as they did in the original trilogy. They’re also just as attuned to their characters, as they seamlessly slip back into those roles. Reeves brings back Neo’s unique blend of messianic mystique and everyman relatability, and Moss brings back Trinity’s nuanced badassery.
The problem is that Reeves and Moss’ great performances are squandered on a weak script. The Matrix Resurrections focuses solely on Neo and Trinity’s rekindled romance, solidifying The Matrix saga as a love story. But their on-screen dynamic is far more compelling than the actual material they’re given to work with. Their chemistry is forced to elevate a by-the-numbers rehash of their romance from the original films.
4The Matrix Resurrections Has No Ambiguity (So There’s No Room For Interpretation)
The genius of The Matrix is that it’s just ambiguous enough to give the audience room to fill in the blanks for themselves. The Matrix is all about the nature of reality and how easy it would be to trick the human mind into thinking something is real when it isn’t. The film plays on this theme beautifully, with Neo constantly questioning whether what’s happening to him is really happening – or if it’s all just a convoluted dream.
But in The Matrix Resurrections, there’s no ambiguity whatsoever. There are so many dull, interminable exposition dumps that every single aspect of the movie’s lore and the gap between the third and fourth films ends up getting overexplained. Unlike the original Matrix movie, there’s no room for the audience to bring their own ideas and interpretations to the table.
3No One Can Replace Laurence Fishburne As Morpheus
Just as no one can replace Weaving in the role of Agent Smith, no one can replace Laurence Fishburne in the role of Morpheus. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II does a much better job of recapturing what the original actor brought to the role than Groff, but he’s still no Fishburne. He has plenty of charisma and gravitas, but he’s not Morpheus. The story has to go to great lengths to explain why Morpheus suddenly looks different, so surely it would’ve been easier to just bring back Fishburne.
Bringing in new actors to take over these iconic roles makes The Matrix Resurrections feel more like a remake than a true sequel. But some of the original actors did come back to reprise their roles, so it’s like a weird half-remake, half-sequel. It’s a needless distraction upon rewatch.
2The Matrix Resurrections’ New Matrix Has The Same Problem As Terminator: Dark Fate
After teasing the idea that the entire original Matrix trilogy is just an in-universe video game, The Matrix Resurrections eventually confirms that the first three films are all canonical and the fourth one is taking place in a new, rebooted version of the Matrix. Neo gave his life to end the war with the machines and free the inhabitants of the Matrix in The Matrix Revolutions, but that all became meaningless when more villains emerged and trapped everyone in a new version of the Matrix.
This is the same issue as Terminator: Dark Fate, which revealed that after preventing the creation of Skynet and the Terminators, a different tech company just created its own evil network and its own killer robots. It makes it feel like there’s no point fighting back. Every time the heroes defeat the villains, some new identical villain with an identical worldwide threat will just rise up in their place.
1The Matrix Resurrections Gets Way Too Meta
Nodding to the audience with a couple of self-aware remarks is one thing, but The Matrix Resurrections gets way too meta. It opens with Warner Bros. forcing Thomas Anderson to make The Matrix 4, and a big chunk of the movie is taken up with the development of an in-universe Matrix 4. There’s a long, tedious montage of a writers’ room trying to break the story for a Matrix 4. They try to determine how much fan service is too much, and whether they even need a new Matrix story.
Self-awareness is the hottest new trend in Hollywood, because it allows filmmakers to avoid sincerity. They make their movies parody-proof by making them a parody of themselves. The Matrix Resurrections is a very earnest movie; all the meta nods to the audience just get in the way of that.
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