So far it would appear that Matrix: Resurrections has earned just as much ridicule as praise, but if anyone is bound to be honest, there are a few good reasons for this. It was a good action movie, in a way, and it did tell a story that was important to many people as they took to heart the reason why Lana Wachowski decided to tell it. But the level of confusion that was laced into the second and third movies didn’t stop as this one rolled along, since the need to keep people guessing while making several obvious moves continued. Many will likely tell anyone who will listen that this movie was deep, complex, and altogether masterful because of how it used the previous trilogy and introduced it into the current era. There are moments when things are truly complex and deserve the kind of respect that people want, but then there are stories that didn’t need to be made in the first place and end up opening something that was already closed and done with. This was one of the latter moments.
The reason I say this is that The Matrix trilogy was over and done with, it had concluded in a way that people accepted, enjoyed, and agreed was one of the only ways that things could have gone in order to keep Zion in one piece. But lo and behold, this is where I’ll contradict myself by saying that where there was no story to be had, Wachowski found one, but in a manner that didn’t exactly continue the tale in a great way, and only extended a story in a type of Frankensteinian manner that had some people wondering why in the world this would have happened. A machine civil war, which would have been far more interesting in a way, broke out a while after Neo and Trinity died, and apparently, the Analyst thought it would be a good idea to revive the two and keep them in stasis, back in the Matrix where they could continue to power the system he was running.
Then comes the matter of choice, or rather the absence of it, or the choice that we don’t, I mean, the absence of the act that we choose…oh hell with it. Wachowski’s take on choice, destiny, fate, and the existential nature of it all has been insightful in the past but became more and more confusing as time went on until one finally steps outside of it and realizes that she’s not unlike a person twirling a ribbon for a cat, who will continue to follow what they think is the main point until it becomes too much for them to simply grasp the desired object. It’s a weird analogy, isn’t it? But the truth is that Wachowski, despite her intentions, turned what was a finished and beloved story, into something that many are already hoping will not spawn another movie, even if others are clamoring for it. The downside of it all is that Warner Bros. might have made this movie anyway with or without Wachowski, so one way or another, this metaphysical mess of a movie would have been delivered to the people anyway.
I did say it was a good action movie, right? I stand by that since some of the fight scenes were actually quite nice, but the swarm method appears to be a streamlined way to combine the Matrix with a zombie movie, just less effective since Neo can easily push them out of the way with his abilities. Plus, the train scene definitely has a ‘Train to Busan’ vibe to it, if anyone missed that part. But the modals, Io, and many other parts of this movie left a lot of people saying ‘huh?’ as they tried to navigate their way through it. While the word might be that there’s no intention for a sequel at this moment, it’s not something that people should decide to trust implicitly, since more than one rumor in Hollywood has been misleading as of late in order to keep people from guessing the truth about one movie or another. It’d be nice if this fourth movie was it, especially since one would have hoped to gain some explanation of why Trinity can fly now and why she’s just as powerful as Neo.
Yes, that part was a bit irritating, to say the least since one would have hoped that if such was the plan that it would have made its way into the original trilogy gradually at some point. Then it might have been entirely acceptable and pretty cool to think about since Trinity and Neo could have been wiping the floor with Smith and the other agents. But given that it didn’t, this retcon of Trinity being so powerful at this point was yet another sticking point that felt out of place.
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