It’s been a while since I wrote a review but I think this movie deserves a balanced review, but also I want to explain those who haven’t watched Matrix Resurrections why it is receiving so much hate and why it deserves a chance.
The first reason is the most basic one: expectations. The original Matrix is almost IMPOSSIBLE to overcome. You can make a better movie of course, but not a better Matrix movie for one reason: the premise was so ingenious and new that blew everyones’ heads. It also came out at a time where technology was not being used at its full potential and the Wachowskis came up with an extremely original concept such as bullet time.
All those things are one in a lifetime breakthroughs and anything that follow-up with inherently be lesser. That being said, all the three sequels have been in my opinion more flawed that they could have been but definitely not bad movies, so I have to step up when I see the last installment is being treated as an Adam Sandler bad film.
Matrix Resurrections is underneath all its flaws a very original movie, one that takes the source material and the lore very seriously and takes to the next level organically and ingeniously. The concepts, the new elements, the mythology are definitely canon and expand the Matrix universe in very interesting directions.
The philosophy feels updated and more relevant to our current world than the first Matrix. Back then, being part of the system was the thing of materialistic and conformist sheeps. Red pills were for the rebels, the anarchist, those who dared challenging the status quo and imagine a world without boundaries and bondage.
In 2021, the red-pillers are weirdos, conspiracy theorist and bigots who equally distrust science, politics, institutions and media but funily enough, trust religion, social networks and capitalism… Well, this is what Matrix Resurrections deal with; Projects the matrix cosmogony to a world where the machines already learned how to manipulate those who know what the matrix is and even those who woke up and supposedly disconnected already.
Achieving this is not a small feat in and of itself makes this movie deserving of not only a watch but the same analysis that its predecessors called for. Now, of course there are a lot of flaws in the execution, the one closer to my heart is the poor fight coreographies. Every time I saw them (except a very short one) I feel what you feel when you see your old dad trying to pull the same physic trick he did when you were a kid. Nothing to do with the protagonists age, but the terrible miss of a good coreographer.
Special effects are very decent but none of them is outstanding and some elements and characters seem out of place or purposeless, but there is plently of new stuff and fun to grant this one at least a solid 7. I’m giving it 10 just to help balance the injustice.
Also, why it’s getting so much hate: Twofold: lovers of the original Matrix mercilesly chastising it for not being Matrix 1 or not adjusting to all of their imagined expectations for de direction of the franchise, and on the other hand, self-called “red-pillers” offended when discovering (22 years late) that Matrix is woke. Oh boy big reveal for small minds who ignored all along that Matrix is the creation of two woke, rebel and extremely intelligent trasgender sisters who made these movies for those who feel like them, not necessarily for you.
Also also, this is Matrix meets Sense8 and I love it for that!