philo

Ditto for me.
After the trailer I was looking forward to this but what a huge letdown, especially that second half. Just a long awful slog with Neil Patrick Harris camping it up, tedious exposition and boring action scenes. Blue haired girl was engaging in the first half but then her role just faded into the background. How they could try to even replace Hugo Weaving with generic GQ guy is one example of how uninspired this was. Also no Don Davis score, just more generic forgettable music.

Rodney2187

I'd never begrudge someone wanting to make a movie, I don't care how many there are in the series or what the previous one was like. If you've got an idea, make it. I'll gladly check it out. The thing is, it doesn't seem to me like anyone had a real idea for this movie other than to simply make another movie set in the Matrix universe. I enjoyed the meta commentary, and the recalls were nice. I'd say Resurrections is worth watching, but it's so far from the greatness of the original. I don't think it even reaches the height of the second and third. Perhaps a full reboot would have been better, but I'm still not sure. They'd have to be able to do something better than the originally did to truly warrant it. I think a third Tron movie would have more potential.

Troy Stiffler

I liked it. Not much will ever top the excitement I got from the original in 1999 … when I was 16.

It doesn’t try to recreate the magic of the original. Or even the trilogy. It plays more like cannon like the video games or Animatrix. People forget that there was a lot of side stories and worldbuilding outside of the trilogy.

DJariya

I just got back from an IMAX showing. I gave it 3 1/2 stars out of 5. The auditorium was about 30-40% full. But, the theater was insane busy. I assume they were mostly there for Spider-Man. I'm not a huge fan of this franchise to be honest. But, I did like a lot of it. The effects were cool and a lot of the fight and action sequences were well done. Keanu and Moss were fine back as Neo and Trinity. I did find Neal Patrick Harris a little annoying, but I did get some laughs at that final scene where Trinity beat the shit out of him.

Was there a post credit scene? I left once the credits rolled.

E Unit

There was a scene with Anderson’s team he worked with at his company from the beginning of the movie. They talk about the direction the company should go.

DJariya

Thanks. I went back and watched it on HBO Max. Kind of a dumb PC scene. Glad I didn't sit and wait for it in the theater.

BTW, I did not recognize Jada Pinkett Smith in all that old makeup playing Niobe again. I thought it was a different actress until I looked it up on IMDB.

mwynn

They needed a reason to want to find Neo. They also need a reason to be in the Matrix. It needs to be more then there was or is a rising power.
There was no threat for them to risk going after Neo.

in 60 years with man and machine working together they could not come up with a better power source than, the human body?
What is powering IO?

DeFan

I wasn't aware that taking the red pill had turned into a right-wing meme. I found this interesting:

‘The Matrix Resurrections’ Tries to Un-Redpill America

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...america-526038

Orbi-Wan Techno

From my review page ORBI-WAN GOES TO THE MOVIES:

The Matrix: Resurrections (R) - This overlong chapter in the series has great ideas, but could benefit from some judicious editing and a faster pace.

Whoa. Really, whoa. What a year for nostalgic callbacks at the movies. “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” and the current box office juggernaut “Spider-man: No Way Home” both leaned heavily into the events of the films that preceded them, yet they both truly became events that created their own new thing, and audiences are ready for more.

Unfortunately, at least from this old Jedi’s perspective, I cannot say the same thing about “The Matrix: Resurrections”. Yes, it was kind of neat revisiting the real vs digital world scenario several decades later, though we do find out that some of the events and sacrifices of “Reloaded” and “Revolutions” had little to no impact in this, well, reboot? Is that even the right word for “Resurrections”?

In a nutshell, Neo (Keanu Reeves) did not exactly “die” in the last movie, and neither did Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss). When we next see them, they are living out lives in another simulation, Neo as game programmer Tom Anderson, and Trinity as mother and housewife Tiffany. As Anderson, Neo has created a series of successful games based on the events of the first “ Matrix” movies, only he thinks what he used as inspiration are signs on a mental disorder for which he is seeing a psychiatrist (Neil Patrick Harris is an oddly humorous role that may or may not work for you). Anderson’s “visions” are presented throughout “Resurrections” as actual clips from the original trilogy, which actually works most of the time.

We see a virtual (snicker!) replay of the events of Neo’s awakening in the first Matrix, only with a new cast of characters playing the humans who are separated from the Matrix and have been looking to rescue Neo. Do you remember how that went in the first film? Then I really don’t need to say much more about that happens in this one.

We are introduced to recreations of Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in a role that actually makes sense here) and Smith (Jonathan Groff, who is an amalgamation of the original Smith and a, uh, online game company CEO). And in some cases, we seen nearly shot for shot recreations of action and other scenes from the other films. It does make for a lot of padding that could easily have been skipped.

It was great to see Neo and Trinity back in action, and the inclusion of more humor was welcome. I liked the explanation for Morpheus’ makeover and the fact that the machines actually experienced their own revolution. “The Matrix: Resurrections” is reasonably entertaining despite some plodding pacing, so it gets 3 out of 5 lightsabers from me.

NOTES TO PARENTS (MILD SPOILERS): “The Matrix: Resurrections” is rated R for some language, a lot of gunplay and sci-fi violence, and partial nudity. The “F” bomb is dropped about 3 or 4 times. S**t, g**d**n, and other profanities are heard throughout. Like its predecessors, “Resurrections” has “Guns. Lots of guns.” There is some blood shown during firefights. Also, the humans jacked into the Matrix experience injury when their avatars are hurt. At one point, hundreds of bodies are show falling from the sky and we see many of them actually hit the ground. When Neo and Trinity are shown being rescued from the “battery” pods, they are nude and covered with tubes and slime, but nothing explicit is shown.

MID AND AFTER-CREDIT SCENES: Mid-credit scene - There are no mid-credit scenes. After-credit scene - Don’t bother, the after-credit scene is basically a joke about what captures people’s attention and has nothing to do with The Matrix itself.

LIKE and SHARE the page ORBI-WAN GOES TO THE MOVIES www.orbiwanblogs.me/moviereviews.

Orbi-Wan Goes To The Movies is protected under Creative Commons.

birdseye

I thought this was merely ok. I'm glad it was made, but this wasn't at all how I thought a new Matrix movie would be handled. The meta stuff was interesting at first but started getting annoying once I realized it was such a large part of the movie.

It was nice to see Jessica Henwick get a prominent role. I saw a Q&A on youtube between her and Simu Liu and apparently she chose this over a role in Shang-Chi. She mentioned she was able to read the script for this, but with what turned out to be Shang-Chi, she had no idea what movie or even what part she would have been allowed to read a partial script for.

DJariya

Kind of a silly reason because she's a working actress, but apparently she chose Matrix over Shang-Chi because she doesn't want to completely close the door on playing Colleen Wing from Iron Fist again.

Cellar Door

I found this pretty disappointing. I liked how it started out, but it went downhill pretty fast after the first 20 minutes or so. Visually, it didn't look 'right,' it looked cheap somehow. It doesn't feel like it fits with the original movies, despite them recreating a lot of scenes from those movies. The pacing was uneven and the payoff at the end felt anticlimactic.

It was like watching a Matrix sequel directed by Brett Ratner.

Also, as a fan of the Wachowskis' Sense8, it was really distracting how many of the actors from that show were used here.

Throwing Copper

Perhaps the Wahcowski brothers/sisters aren’t as great as everyone thought?

Almost seems like they have some great ideas but maybe not anyone to bring those home. Maybe better screenwriters or something.

Sonic

Actually you have to word that differently and put the blame on it's fans. Fans came with HUGE expectations knowing that from Matrix Reloaded is was downhill from there. None of the sequels including this one caught the intense magic, the darkness and tone of the first one. The first one was groundbreaking, ahead of it's time so to speak. Matrix Reloaded was comical. You remember the scene where Neo fought the Agent clones and they put bowling pins falling sound effects into that scene. We all knew it was a clusterfuck. The Wachowski sisters are great, they made Matrix 1999 that captivated audiences and to this day the movie still does.

JayTL

I had zero expectations.
Still thought it was bad.

mwynn

I think I talked about this in the past at the other place. If you look at Jupiter Ascending you can see the problems.
Small and compact is where their movies work, trying to do to much is a failing. Jupiter is a trilogy in a single movie.
The same happened with The Matrix, introducing to many elements with nothing to tie it all together.
With Reloaded you had a talk scene, an action scene, another talk scene and a action scene.
There was nothing tying those things together. The Chateau scene does not properly connected to the highway chase. While both were fun and exciting they serve no purpose to the narrative.

clckworang

I didn't really care for this. I often love meta and in-jokes, but it didn't work for me here. There was something that felt a bit smarmy about it in this movie and like it called too much attention to it. Most of the movie felt like it was treading water. It didn't know what to do other than echo the original, and I can't believe they were able to stretch that to more than 2 hours! I always thought that the Neo flying thing looked pretty silly, so I thought the ending note with the two love birds flying around was pretty bad as well.

And I'll also be a slight dissenter about the original. It had a decent premise and great effects, but it also basically just followed the same trajectory as most action movies. And I always thought the way they handled the Neo and Trinity love story was kind of cringe in the first. It always came across as cheesy Hollywood formula to me. I always said that the original came together far better than it probably should have, but let's not act like it wasn't riddled with problems, too. Then the sequels served to mainly make those problems more obvious.

Sonic

Every hollywood movie is riddled with problems. Matrix 1999 with it's problems was a genius movie. The sequels were fillers and cash and grab nothing else.

clckworang

I think calling it a genius movie is a gross overstatement. A genius movie doesn't have a scene as bad as the Neo resurrection scene. I guess that's the point that I'm getting at, though. People seem to gloss over many of those bad moments from the original.

RichC2

I always respected how well made the OG Matrix was, but I also always found it kind of boring.

Sonic

I'll rephrase...genius script.

The Matrix changed many people's lives and perspective in America.
Here is one of the many articles out there on the internet that talks about it:
https://www.vulture.com/2021/12/what...e-in-2019.html

Isn't Matrix 1999 the movie that birth that "woke" "woke-ism" bullshit?

TGM

this really was God awful.

Lana Wachowski raped my childhood.

clckworang

That article fails to convince me of the movie's brilliance, especially considering many of the things attributed to The Matrix in that article could better be attributed to other things. You'd have a much easier time convincing me that the movie has brilliant directing or cinematography; the formulaic script was one of its weaknesses.

Sonic

stingermck

A dud all around.

https://deadline.com/2021/12/the-mat...cy-1234902062/