Review: Matrix Resurrections has just enough of the old magic to delight fans

It's a flawed but solid addition to the franchise that works more often than it doesn't.

Read the whole story

 

[Ficg]

I liked the movie because of this line

You gave us Face-Zucker-suck.

You liked a movie just because someone whipped out their "I hate Facebook" card? Seriously, that's all it takes for you? I carry that card too, but that line isn't even clever. At all. It's like a 14 year old trying to come up with a barb and falling flat on his face because the only thing he knows is emoji. But because he used the word "suck", his stoned friends laughed their asses off.

I phrased that poorly. I liked the movie overall. Although not what I expected and could have been way better.

 

[GravityLee]

Regret sinking 2+ hrs of my time on this steaming pile of self indulgent crap.

 

[apoclypse]

This movie hurt my soul it was so bad. It comes off as a bad fan film at best. None of the originality, visual inventiveness, great cinematography is on display here. Shaky can every time there is a fight sequence to cover up the threadbare fight choreography, something the original trilogy avoided. They quote bullet time several times in the movie but never actually use it. Instead they do a cheap imitation effect that is equivalent to a CW Arrowverse episode. Even the closing credit cover song was offensive. This is like the milquetoast version of The Matrix and Warner Bros and Lana Wachowski should be ashamed of themselves for putting out something this awful with that name.

I feel embarrassed for Carrie Anne and Keanu for having to work so hard to promote this awful travesty of a movie. It was so bad it redeemed even Reloaded in my eyes because they were trying with that movie even if it didn’t always work. This one is just lazy.

 

[the_frakker]

I understand why this movie is sitting around 65-70% rotten tomatoes. It’s mostly a great film, but there are parts that clearly turn off a subset of the audiences. Enough so that people are giving up before the movie can redeem itself and that’s too bad.

I went to the theater and there were only around 10 other people in there with me. Nobody left. Everybody seemed to have a decent time. Even shared some laughs.

I was able to easily overlook the cringy and illogical parts because I felt I understood what the movie was going for by the end. I watched it again at home and I appreciate the vision.

Resurrections isn’t as good as the original. It doesn’t make up for Reloaded and Revolutions, but it does end in a way I feel was similar enough to the first that it leaves the door open for a future follow-up to build out what many hoped this movie would be. At the moment of writing, I would rank this the 2nd best Matrix film.

I’m curious how I will feel about this movie over time and multiple rewatches. I like it, but I don’t love it. I still call it a pretty great film that’s going to be divisive in its reception.

Ew, no. Stop the madness, no more Matrix movies.

Oh how easy it is to dismiss someone else’s opinion and tell them they’re wrong about something subjective such as a movie

The reaction of “ew.” Is insulting and unnecessary to express your opinion. Like my thoughts on this movie disgust you? Gtfoh. You can thumbs down without the insults. You can express your opinion without trying to invalidate mine.

 

[bigchungus]

The fact that the author of this review confused the agents with the newly introduced 'bots' as the same thing goes to prove how poorly executed, explained, and unnecessarily overloaded and convoluted this film was delivered.

 

[chrontius]

Oh my feelings are complicated here. Sassy, meta, funny. Okay, good.

Drags a bit. Bad.

Genuinely entertaining fight scenes. Good.

"Stations of the Canon" (and in one case, the cannon) -- commentary on reboots. If they had called it "The Matrix", "The Matrix Reheated" and "The Matrix Rehashed" it would have been more on point here. This is a *brutal* takedown of reboot culture in Hollywood. Not bad or good. Played with, subverted -- but not always successfully.

Signs of hope and progress in the story -- unambiguously good. Unavoidable nostalgia, not so good.

Core conceit of how the events of the other three movies were explained away? Bloody brilliant.

A jumping off point for new tales in the 'verse, some of which are old as dirt and just as obscure? Hell yeah, I'd like to go back to the Animatrix.

As much as I found this a fun movie, I can't bring myself to call it a *good* movie, but maybe that's the result of how high a bar the first one set.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Matrix Resurrections is the movie analogue of the slop everyone in Zion has to eat, except this movie was not required to stay alive.

 

[doalwa]

Watched it last night, not bad, not great.

Respectfully disagree. I watched this with subdued expectations, expecting a shameless rehash of a classic film, perhaps with updated graphics and dash of modern political commentary. What I got was a horribly edited lecture on how the meaning of the original film was misinterpreted and distorted by the media and the public.

While I agree with that, I came here to be entertained, not lectured. Same sentiment applies to Don't Look Up.

I should have loved both of these moves but hated them due to poor direction and editing.

Resurrections felt more like a fanfic spoof than a blockbuster film. Thank goodness I saw it on HBO before wasting $18 in a movie theater.

Also, it's starting to dawn on me that Jennifer Ouellette is a film critic with a consistently opposite point of view from mine.

Well, she and Mr. Machkovec are the dynamic duo for me.

Mrs. Ouellette likes this movie? Avoid at all costs.

Mr. Machkovec hates this game? I better check it out right now.

 

[PrimalxConvoy]

...I feel like the people who don't like this movie are the same ones who hated the second and third one - basically, people who didn't really understand the creators' intent or the story behind the first movie...

So, basically most of the general public, then?

 

[PrimalxConvoy]

I just finished watching it and there were some things that were interesting (and of which, In sure, many fans wanted to see after seeing hints of it in the animatrix), such as machine vs machine vs software civil war, "friendly" machines and software, the evolution of humanity, to etc. I think a film made about the machine civil war would have been more interesting, as the machines start face up to the reality that, prior too the way, some humans supported them (see animatrix) and that software has become self-aware and unwilling to serve the machines, just as they were unwilling to serve the humans. I think much more could have been done in the area. It reminds me of the Terminator reboots, which seem to think every film has to have time-travel, while ignoring the interesting stuff happening in the post-apocalyptic future. Why not do a "Matrix" film that isn't mainly set there?

I was really disappointed in the sheer volume of re-used "stock footage" from the previous films and the fourth wall breaking via "Warner Bros.", "Matrix (game)" and all the other references. Why didn't they just make allusions to them via other names? It was too obvious, IMO.

I also didn't really understand why Morpheus and Smith were in this. Smith was useless and had no connection to the plot (and why would the machines create another Smith, after the original's antics?) while I think a wholly new character (who, as was said in the film, was a combination of Smith and Morpheus) , with a new name and appearance, would be better.

 

[PrimalxConvoy]

It's not about the sexual orientation, but rather ANY changes to an established character, for little or no reason. If they made him white, a female, Japanese, or turned him into a talking dog, then I'm sure there would be just as much concern for that too.

The original Morpheus is dead. You are totally excused for not knowing this, because it happened in the frankly terrible Matrix MMO. The creators stuck with the story from the game as canon, you've gotta give them credit (?) for that.

This isn't the first time tie-in material found it's way onscreen - that kid that idolizes Neo in Revolutions was a character from one of The Animatrix stories. And again, you have no way of knowing this unless you had seen it.

I knew about both of those things, but I wasn't sure what the "new" Morpheus was exactly. Was he a cloned copy of his original self? A program with a personality disorder? A machine posing as him? I know now, though, but I didn't notice any homosexual aspects to this new version.

 

[S_T_R]

In many cases novels written by the screen writers of a TV series are often their scripts rewritten as novels. Especially with Star Trek: The Original Series novels from the 1970s. (D. C. Fontana being one of the big ones.)

CBS is quite explict on that: it's not cannon if you didn't see it on a screen. If it's adapted for screen, it's the episode based on the screen play that's canon, not the novel.

At least before the Disney buyout, George Lucas had "officially blessed" several Extended Universe Star Wars novels and included visual references to them in the "special edition" versions of the movies. (Dash Rendar's ship flying by in A New Hope, for example.) Other stuff, though, I recall a "quote" from George Lucas to the effect of "If someone wanted to make a book about Yoda tap-dancing, I'd have allowed it."

Whatever status any of those had was completely wiped away. Not sure why you'd think that's a good example.

Also, many, many times Star Trek: The Next Generation (and later) would reference events that only happened in novels or in the (dubious cannon) Animated Series. Usually as a throw-away reference of previous cases of a given phenomenon. For that matter, Paramount considers major plot events in the MMO Star Trek Online to be cannon.

No, they don't consider any of that canon. They'll mine it for easter eggs, sure, but it's the egg that's canon. Again, you picked the worst possible example to cite since Star Trek has an official policy on this.

Joss Whedon specifically and deliberately contracted Firefly comics to fill the gap between the TV show and Serenity.

Maybe, but it's also a dead IP. If/when it gets rebooted, they'll ignore the comics if not the whole franchise.

Marvel Universe... Need I say more...?

DC Universe... Need I say more...?

Anime fans would be rolling on the floor laughing at you, because manga is often considered the real cannon in a mixed media series.

Read what you quoted: those aren't tie-ins. The big movie studios have a...let's say loose...relationship with source material anyway. MCU is only concerned with being consistent with itself. They don't have a problem with contradicting the source material. DC reboots itself every move. And anime adaptations *are* the tie-in work...so yes?

 

[PandaCheese]

I think the reason that some fans hated the overtly self-referential humor is because it indirectly suggests that they took the first Matrix way too seriously. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be a culture icon that brought new awareness to people on how they are all cogs in a machine, but just a well-executed popcorn flick, that didn't deserve all the time you spent being mind blown over what it all meant.

 

[apoclypse]

I think the reason that some fans hated the overtly self-referential humor is because it indirectly suggests that they took the first Matrix way too seriously. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be a culture icon that brought new awareness to people on how they are all cogs in a machine, but just a well-executed popcorn flick, that didn't deserve all the time you spent being mind blown over what it all meant.

Sorry misread your original intent. I don’t mind the meta humor or 4th wall breaking stuff too much. I even found it interesting if not a little overdone. You have to excuse fans a bit if they take the world seriously. Reloaded and Revolutions story and dialog display such a level of pomp and pretentiousness that even the Wachowskis seemed to have drunk their own Koolaid. Considering their output after the trilogy has been pretty middling high concept movies that were barley coherent, they took themselves way too serious imo and so fans have followed their lead.

 

[AmanoJyaku]

I think the reason that some fans hated the overtly self-referential humor is because it indirectly suggests that they took the first Matrix way too seriously. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be a culture icon that brought new awareness to people on how they are all cogs in a machine, but just a well-executed popcorn flick, that didn't deserve all the time you spent being mind blown over what it all meant.

My understanding is the first movie is about being transgender, which I believe was confirmed.

The second and third movies are less clear, but I would argue they're about bigotry. The Matrix is very European, you don't see many people of color inside of it. And some critics point to the first movie's ending as a hint of the series direction: Morpheus, a person of African descent, is beaten by a group of men of European descent, evoking comparisons to police brutality and systemic racism. (The Rodney King assault was just four years earlier.)

Compare this to the real world, where Zion has a large number of people of color. More importantly they are in positions of power, and even respected. Now, consider Agent Smith's takeover of the Matrix: the end result is a world with no diversity, all in the image of a cisgender, European, fascist male.

Additionally, prior to the War the robots attempted to gain rights by comparing themselves to African slaves. They even used the Dred Scott case as a reference for their situation, and warned humanity not to repeat the mistakes of the past. The robot B1-66ER (Bigger) is a reference to a story about racism.

There may be other ideas I missed, as I think the movies also embraced multiculturalism in general.

 

[halophile]

I loved NPH in that role. He stole the movie. I'll take a spin-off with NPH as the lead please.

 

[decairn]

How did they drum up a title for the article like that? It's an appalling movie.

 

[Chemical Tribe]

I'd just like to add a silly side point - the original matrix movie was something I took from a dvd in 2001, and it took around 5 days for my new 700mhz AMD Duron system to encode it into mpeg4 sp, mp3 audio for a 700MB file. Fun times. Watching it encode the helicopter scene and it crash into the building was fun.

Now you can dl a 1080 to 2160p version ripped from hbo on release day with dolby atmos and it only took 5 min to get it. Haven't watched it yet seeing how I'll probably be disappointed.

 

[erktrek]

I think the reason that some fans hated the overtly self-referential humor is because it indirectly suggests that they took the first Matrix way too seriously. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be a culture icon that brought new awareness to people on how they are all cogs in a machine, but just a well-executed popcorn flick, that didn't deserve all the time you spent being mind blown over what it all meant.

So the first movie was supposed to be a parody like Starship Troopers or just an action flick with no deeper meaning or something else? I guess I don't understand...

Rewatching the first movie I would say it certainly looked like it took itself seriously. If anything it seemed like a commentary on hyper-violence and complacency.. also the "Bullet time" effect was just so awesome.

Not sure I get the transgender angle yet but that would add a cool layer on top of the other groundbreaking stuff.

I might add I am having trouble comprehending how this latest movie can be considered "good" in any sense of the word - but that's just my small insignificant take on things. Very disappointed. Interesting to see all the "glowing" reviews by the larger media outlets. I must really be missing something.

 

[Num Lock]

I love the first movie and loathe the following two movies. I sat down and rewatched all three in the days before the release of this one, and my opinion on those doesn’t change. The Matrix is a film that you desperately want a sequel for, but you can never recapture the feeling of the first.

That said, I enjoyed this fourth installment for what it was. I liked it a lot better than the other sequels, and appreciated that it ended on a more hopeful note. I found myself able to watch, unlike the other movies that had me clawing the walls at parts. I still would’ve preferred the whole series ended after the first movie though.

 

[Static and Noise]

I think the reason that some fans hated the overtly self-referential humor is because it indirectly suggests that they took the first Matrix way too seriously. Perhaps it wasn't meant to be a culture icon that brought new awareness to people on how they are all cogs in a machine, but just a well-executed popcorn flick, that didn't deserve all the time you spent being mind blown over what it all meant.

So the first movie was supposed to be a parody like Starship Troopers or just an action flick with no deeper meaning or something else? I guess I don't understand...

Rewatching the first movie I would say it certainly looked like it took itself seriously. If anything it seemed like a commentary on hyper-violence and complacency.. also the "Bullet time" effect was just so awesome.

Seeing the first movie as a commentary on hyper-violence and complacency....? I gotta say, that's one of the oddest readings of the first movie I've seen. Especially "commentary on hyper-violence".

 

[art_haali]

I enjoyed the first hour, was intrigued and amused, it had something appealing and "different".
But then the standard bad-comedy stuff started, then standard action-move stuff started,
with stereotypical heroes, and it became boring and predictable.
But it would be really fascinating if they managed to develop the first hour into something other than typical action movie (change of genre in the sequel -- was it even ever done?).

 

[MsSuperPartyWonderFunDay]

It ends with what sounds like a ska cover of Rage Against the Machine's "Wake Up". Could not stop from laughing and cringing.

You missed the point. As I said above (and this is confirmed by the director) the Matrix was originally a metaphor for being trans. The end of this movie (and specifically the female cover of Wake Up) should make more sense in that context.

Is it tho? The red pill is what wakes them up, not the blue pill. Estradiol in pill form typically comes as blue.

I'm trans and never felt like this movie was a metaphor for my experience. A metaphor for depersonalization, which can be present with gender dysphoria, on the other hand...

 

[MsSuperPartyWonderFunDay]

Whether or not you liked this one, when the next in The Matrix series comes out you will all still plunk down your hard earned money to watch it in some form or another.




It's inevitable.

I didn't plunk down my hard-earned money to watch this one, and I'm very glad I didn't. It sucks enough that I spent my time on it.

 

[MsSuperPartyWonderFunDay]

I loved it. I’m trying to understand the people who were seemingly bored while watching it. I enjoyed the human connection between Neo and Trinity. There were a number of places where I laughed out loud. The cinematography was gorgeous. I felt like this was a human story with a beating heart.

I feel like you’ve gotta be pretty jaded to not see this film for the gem that it is.

Are you a Suit? Because you said what a Suit would say.

 

[MsSuperPartyWonderFunDay]

This has got to be the most forced “neutral” review of a dumpster fire of a movie that i’ve ever read! How could anyone write that it has “enough of the old magic” when it’s literally shat on across the board, as a movie? A gay Morpheus with Trinity becoming The One? Is this your “old magic”, madam reviewer?

A sequel to a movie based on the transgender experience has a gay character? Inconcievable!

Morpheus 2.0 was gay?? How do you get that?? I've known many straight men who care about their appearance, and wear more than black or blue.

 

[MsSuperPartyWonderFunDay]

The only magic I found was Christina Ricci. She is like wine. Lot's of subliminal pharma and gunplay as solutions to any problem. The Dell product placement shot locked in my thumbs down. Another cash in sequel rip off.

Do you mean Carrie-Anne Moss??

 

[marsilies]

The only magic I found was Christina Ricci. She is like wine. Lot's of subliminal pharma and gunplay as solutions to any problem. The Dell product placement shot locked in my thumbs down. Another cash in sequel rip off.

Do you mean Carrie-Anne Moss??

No, Christina Ricci is in the film. I had to look it up, but she plays the marketing exec with the big blond hair.

I didn't recognize her when watching the film, I think the hair and the character was just so different than what we usually see her as.

 

[Aldaros]

In many cases novels written by the screen writers of a TV series are often their scripts rewritten as novels. Especially with Star Trek: The Original Series novels from the 1970s. (D. C. Fontana being one of the big ones.)

CBS is quite explict on that: it's not cannon if you didn't see it on a screen. If it's adapted for screen, it's the episode based on the screen play that's canon, not the novel.

At least before the Disney buyout, George Lucas had "officially blessed" several Extended Universe Star Wars novels and included visual references to them in the "special edition" versions of the movies. (Dash Rendar's ship flying by in A New Hope, for example.) Other stuff, though, I recall a "quote" from George Lucas to the effect of "If someone wanted to make a book about Yoda tap-dancing, I'd have allowed it."

Whatever status any of those had was completely wiped away. Not sure why you'd think that's a good example.

It's a good example because, pre-Disney, the Expanded Universe was officially canon (albeit tiered, so Lucas could ignore whatever he wanted when he did something new). And when Disney declared it all Legends and blew it away, the other half of that announcement was that going forward, everything new released by Disney would be equally canon. Movies, TV shows, books, comics, video games, whatever, it's all on the same level. So if you think the movies are the only real canon, that's fine, but understand that Disney disagrees with you.

 

[NetMage]

(change of genre in the sequel -- was it even ever done?).

Aliens says “Hi!”

 

[MsSuperPartyWonderFunDay]

I'm surprised nobody grabbed for the low hanging fruit:

This film ought to have been named The Matrix Regurgitated. Just raw hot garbage. I don't even know where to begin. It started out engh. And then it shit all over not just the bed, but the whole frickin bedroom.

Spoilers follow:

Lana made the amateur mistake of telling instead of showing. So much of the movie was just describing things happening, instead of showing us things happening. The whole "movies as metaphor" thing doesn't work if you just word vomit every single point you'd like to make. Then it becomes a lecture, and a slog at that. You'd think she'd learn how to harness a visual medium after how many films she has written/directed.

One of my takes was that perhaps she originally pitched a TV series. Then she would have had the screen time to show everything, instead having the characters monologue about it. A much more compelling story would have been one in which a whole new crew was introduced, we learn about Io, we learn about the new human/machine relationship, what all this means for the repeating cycles explained in the original trilogy, and how long of a shadow has been cast by the legend left behind by Neo and Trinity...and the rumors that they did not die but live on in the Matrix. Then we move on to the story of seeking out Neo and Trinity, and perhaps then we move onto the possibility of that there's more "Ones" than just "The One." Instead of breathing new life into the series, they just beat the dead horse of this franchise until its bloated rotted carcass gave up some more cash.

Keanu/Neo was just tired. He sucked the life out of any scene he was in. The best metaphor for his whole attitude (maybe this whole movie) was when he kinda hopped a little, found he couldn't get airborne, and immediately gave up with a slight shrug of his shoulders. That's old man Neo neatly summarized. And then he became a one trick pony who just made air cushions with his hands to stop bullets or break shit. When using his power, he didn't look so much like he was exerting himself as merely too tired to be doing this anymore. Think Old Man Logan in the movie Logan - except Logan was supposed to be weary from getting the shit knocked out of him for years and watching his friends die. And he was dying from blood poisoning. Shouldn't Old Man Neo have been energized by reconnecting with the love of his life?

...oh god, the "love story." There's zero chemistry between Reeves and Moss. Their relationship was as exhilarating as a cold dead fish. So, so groan worthy.

To wrap up, here's some quick takes:

Niobe's makeup was crap, just like the aging makeup in Cloud Atlas, another Wachowski movie, was crap.

Merv made an appearance as the French Taunter from Monty Python. Seriously: what the hell was the purpose of that craptastic scene? A bunch of daemon hobo's came out of the woodwork to attack our heroes and then quickly dispersed as inexplicably as they showed up, never to be seen again. Wuuuuuuh?

I didn't see a problem with the special effects myself. They looked great to me. Watched it on my 4K HDR TV.

Super Trinity came out of absolutely nowhere. Rather than getting chills of awe like when Neo first discovered his super powers, I literally gaped in astonishment at how terrible it was handled. I'm all for Trinity becoming super-powered in order to show an empowered woman in sci-fi - but this was so ham-handed it was like an eight-year-old wrote it. "They jump off the building and Neo and Trinity are falling and they look like they'll die but then Trinity flies and saves Neo!" I should review the script to see if that's what was written because that's what was filmed.

Were the Bot Bombs tied to humans in the real world? If so, did those humans die when they hit the ground and exploded in the Matrix? After describing Neo's attempted suicide(s?) with such gravitas, to have people gleefully leaping to their deaths was in extremely poor taste to me. I was physically repulsed by the scene. If this was a horror movie, it would have worked great. But I don't think this is...is it? I don't even know what this thing was, it was all over the place tonally.

It never felt like anything was at stake. Neo and Trinity already died once. They were just rebuilt. The machine could do it again. Perhaps it was a metaphor for how the powers that be brought the franchise back to so it could shamble along like the cash eating zombie that it's become? Hell if I know. If it was a metaphor, it was so subtle it could be interpreted ten different ways. At which point, it's less a metaphor and more abstract art. That could be said about almost all of the metaphors put forth by any Matrix Apologists.

Neil Patrick Harris did a great job with the character. The character itself was insulting to psychologists in how its role suggested that mental health professionals have ulterior motives - that they want to control your mind, obfuscate the truth, stop you from ever finding your true self, and keeping you separated from your loved ones. How's that for a metaphor? If intentional, it's a dangerous message to share.

I felt zero connection with any of the characters. They were pawns in which to get from plot point A to plot point B. At least they weren't as wooden as the Wachowski's have liked to keep their actors' expressiveness in their previous movies. Still, if any of them perished, I wouldn't have felt bad for them. Except maybe Morpheus 2.0. He seemed to genuinely enjoy being incarnate.

I can't even with Smith 2.0. The casting was horrendous, the delivery was ridiculous, the lines were dime store novel, and his only motivation seemed to be his uncanny obsession with appearing abruptly and chewing some scenery. He was wasted in the other sequels as well, so really no surprise here. I don't know how the actor said his lines with a straight face.

And what happened to Agents? Suddenly anybody can go up against them and live? Were their threads given lower priority on the processor scheduling or something??? In the original, they were relentless, insurmountable, and terrifying. Now they seem to be just more cannon fodder for the Matrix to throw at our heroes.

Also, this movie needs more smash cuts. (/s)

To summarize: this story was a good plot outline for a compelling multi-season TV series. As a movie, it fails miserably. As a fourquel to one of the most transformative sci-fi movies ever made, it simultaneously enrages and depresses me. When I want a Matrix fix, I'll stick to the first film and continue to pretend the subsequent films were a strange fever dream I had one night.

 

[ready_load$81]

I enjoyed it. I think it helps having actually lived the last 20 years, and having a real, solid chunk of elapsed personal time from the originals. It helped me really empathize with the characters when they talked about how long it's been.

I think the movie works best when you can bring a supply of nostalgia with you—it's not going to exhaustively answer anyone's questions about what happened after Matrix: Revolutions, and it's not going to deliver a university level socio-political course on how humans and machines might interact with each other. It is going to show you how technology in the world of the Matrix has advanced in the last few decades, and it's fun to see Neo just...getting old. Maybe because I'm getting old, too.

But the movie leans real hard on memberberries. If you're okay with that, you'll be okay with the movie.

//I think the movie works best when you can bring a supply of nostalgia with you

And that, Lee, is the definition of a terrible sequel. But, you be you.

 

[rhorton]

< Spoilers >

In my opinion the first act was great. The self reflexive aspect of Neo being a game designer who ’s become neurotically obsessed with his own franchise was perfect. Then act II happened and I think it went off the rails, not because it was headed in the wrong direction but because we weren’t sure what was at stake and what should be happening. We’re forced to gather after watching each scene what the point was rather than understanding it in the moment.

Basically, Neo’s lost his mojo, then he gets it back partially, then he rescues Trinity and together they’re stronger than either one was alone. Unfortunately each beat along that journey was vague and the stakes weren’t clear. There has been a lot of complaints about the action but I think the real problem is that the stakes of each bit of action weren’t clear, so it often feel like aimless running around.

Act II & III probably should have been from Trinity’s perspective. Why they stick with Neo throughout was a little confusing to me since her drama is a lot more trippy and interesting at that point. She was the one who had to make the interesting choices.

 

[Jordan83]

Were the Bot Bombs tied to humans in the real world? If so, did those humans die when they hit the ground and exploded in the Matrix? After describing Neo's attempted suicide(s?) with such gravitas, to have people gleefully leaping to their deaths was in extremely poor taste to me. I was physically repulsed by the scene. If this was a horror movie, it would have worked great. But I don't think this is...is it? I don't even know what this thing was, it was all over the place tonally.

Sorry for chopping your post. I agreed with some of it, disagreed with others, but not anything close to a hill I'll die on.

I don't even disagree with this part that I've chopped. I just had something occur to me, and I don't know if this is crazy or not so I thought I'd just put it out here for people to rip apart if it's stupid or discuss if it's worth discussing -

But were Neo and Trinity in their own isolated node of The Matrix? Were they the only actual humans in the whole Matrix that they saw, isolated from the rest of the human population? In the Real World, they were isolated, in two pods separate from every other human pod colony, yet close enough to provide the proximity that fueled their energy spikes*. Could they also have been inhabiting their own isolated Matrix node, with similar rules set up? Separated from the rest of humanity, but close enough in the world to provide the spikes of power that they provide?*

If so, that might explain a few things. It would mean that no, the people being used as bombs wouldn't have been real people. They're also just programs. It would also explain why it was so hard for Bugs and her crew to find Neo in the first place. And it would explain why nobody else seems to be aware of, or care, about The Analyst's bullet time trap. Neo seems to be acutely aware of everything that's happening, even as he's powerless to stop it, but nobody else seems to notice or care about it in the least.

Of course, it wouldn't explain how/why Smith got there to kick off the final climactic action sequence. Then again, virtually nothing about Smith was adequately explained. Why was he there, how did he solve the bullet time trap, and what happened to him after he lit the fuse that set off the final action sequence.

I don't know, just a crazy thought I had. It might be stupid, but meh.

*So, I did notice that instead of ret-conning the whole "humans as batteries" thing, they actually seemed to double down on it this time around. As told by The Analyst's explanation for wanting to revive Neo and Trinity and keep them close to one another. That was another disappointment about the film - they were still going with the "humans as batteries" thing.

 

[brionl]

Read what you quoted: those aren't tie-ins. The big movie studios have a...let's say loose...relationship with source material anyway. MCU is only concerned with being consistent with itself. They don't have a problem with contradicting the source material. DC reboots itself every move. And anime adaptations *are* the tie-in work...so yes?

https://youtu.be/lNJ6dFwh8a4?t=31

 

[Shogunreaper]

the biggest problem i had with the movie was morpheus and agent smith.

like fine you couldn't get the actors, i can deal with that.

what i can't deal with is these other actors trying and failing to play those iconic characters.


the other problem i had was tying neo's powers to trinity and making him useless without her.

that's not at all how it worked in the first 3 movies.

 

[babypuncher]

This is the first review I’ve seen that had anything positive to say about this movie.

That seems unlikely given that it has a 66% in both critic and users scores on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

[marsilies]

Were the Bot Bombs tied to humans in the real world? If so, did those humans die when they hit the ground and exploded in the Matrix? After describing Neo's attempted suicide(s?) with such gravitas, to have people gleefully leaping to their deaths was in extremely poor taste to me. I was physically repulsed by the scene. If this was a horror movie, it would have worked great. But I don't think this is...is it? I don't even know what this thing was, it was all over the place tonally.

But were Neo and Trinity in their own isolated node of The Matrix? Were they the only actual humans in the whole Matrix that they saw, isolated from the rest of the human population? In the Real World, they were isolated, in two pods separate from every other human pod colony, yet close enough to provide the proximity that fueled their energy spikes*. Could they also have been inhabiting their own isolated Matrix node, with similar rules set up? Separated from the rest of humanity, but close enough in the world to provide the spikes of power that they provide?*

Neo and Trinity were definitely connected to the main Matrix. Morphues was in an isolated "modal" at the beginning, but Bugs saw Neo in the Matrix before she was freed, and the whole point of the Analyst's plan to revive Neo and Trinity was to use them as support for the new version of the Matrix.

Keep in mind that in the original film, they showed that the humans were all stored/used in a series of buildings, but they were all connected to the same Matrix. The red pill in the original was part of a tracing program to find Neo's physical body, because even though they found the virtual him, they didn't know where the real him was. I think that's partly why Trinity didn't need to take the red pill in this movie; they already knew where she was.

Regarding the bots, the explanation is that instead of having Agents take over real people's avatars, the Analyst instead just inserted a lot of fake people into this version of The Matrix. So there's always bots, everywhere, but they go through their normal loops unless activated. So the bot bombs at the end were digital programs masquerading as people. Of course, for the real people who like, fell in love with them and had romantic relationships, like the wife that sees the first bot bomb jump, it's going to be nearly as traumatic. Also, now that we're supposed to think of the synths as equals, it may be equally horrific that the Analyst programmed so many programs to think they're people, live regular lives, feel love and hope, etc., only to be able to wipe all that out on a whim. Maybe the bot programs themselves are re-usable though, like a digital re-incarnation as a new person with a new life.

For Smith, the best reason I can think of the Analyst resurrecting him is that in creating just the right torture scenario for Neo, Smith worked best. Maybe Neo could sense Smith's presence, even just subconsciously. So Neo was not just being tormented by having Trinity nearby but unattainable, but regularly having to work with Smith. When Neo awake, it awoke Smith, and Smith has shown to be able to break from his programming, so maybe Smith found a way to hack the Matrix so he wasn't susceptible to the slowdown. It's pretty sloppily executed in the film though, not to mention Smith on one hand fighting Neo to keep him away from the Analyst in one scene to helping Neo with the Analyst in the next.

I overall liked the film, but I felt like I connected with the film more on an emotional level than a logical one. I really don't think logic is one of the Wachowski's strengths, so from watching works like Cloud Atlas and Sense8 I've learned to connect with them on their emotional, lyrical strengths than the logic of their worldbuilding.

 

[marsilies]

the other problem i had was tying neo's powers to trinity and making him useless without her.

that's not at all how it worked in the first 3 movies.

Neo had some powers without Trinity. He was doing that Hadoken move with Morpheus in The Construct, which wasn't even part of The Matrix. He could also stop bullets and had some super strength and speed.

However, I think the key was that this is a new version of The Matrix, one specifically designed around a core of the dual of Neo and Trinity. In the past Matrix, The One was a sort of algorithmic evolutionary human mental response to the state of The Matrix. In this Matrix, the state of it was built as a response to the mental state of Neo and Trinity. This explains why Neo and Trinity are more powerful together, and why Trinity has powers at all. This Matrix was literally built around them, and if one or both leave, it starts to collapse.

 

[S_T_R]

It's a good example because, pre-Disney, the Expanded Universe was officially canon (albeit tiered, so Lucas could ignore whatever he wanted when he did something new).

If it can be ignored whenever then it's not canon. To borrow another term term from Christianity, it's apocrypha at best. Apocrypha is neither official nor contradicts the canon scripture, but can elaborate on events and individuals from scripture.

Of course, if something contradicts canon it's heresy.