The Matrix Resurrections (Mini-Review)

The Matrix Resurrections is the fourth movie in the Matrix series. A woman nicknamed Bugs seeks Neo who she believes to be alive. But what she ends up finding is a man who thinks that his time fighting the machines is just a video game and goes by the name Thomas Anderson. Bugs and her crew must not only free Neo from the Matrix but also find out what is really going on. Have the machines abandoned their promised peace? Will there be another clash between humans and machines? The Matrix Resurrections was released in 2021. It was directed by Lana Wachowski. It stars Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.

One annoying thing that this movie does is reuse footage from previous Matrix movies. If something is being explained then footage from previous movies is used. It seems to be done to remind viewers about the series. Which just doesn't make sense as if you're seeing the fourth movie in a series, the assumption is that you'll have seen the previous installments. The first movie is so memorable that even if you haven't seen it, you've heard important plot points. Old footage being used also makes it feel like there wasn't enough filmed so they had to reuse footage to fill up the runtime.

There's a part near the very end of the film where an agent is making people fling themselves out of buildings to be used as bombs. I was in my first year in high school when 9/11 happened and there was footage of people flinging themselves out of the towers. I am glad that the sequence doesn't go on for too long, but it was in bad taste and should have been cut. The only good thing from that sequence is that it really hammers home how the machines don't view humans as anything but batteries. Something that is easy to forget as the heroes spend a lot of time killing innocent humans that the agents take over. 

Near the beginning of the film Neo is working on a game called Binary. There's also discussions throughout the film about binary choices. I find this discussion about binary interesting as the Wachowski sisters have come out as transsexual. I'm sure that this movie will help expand the trans/non-binary reading of the Matrix series.

Neo and Trinity's relationship reaches a very high point. It turns out that for the latest version of the Matrix, the machines have decided that the pair needs to exist but they can't ever form a relationship. Their love is so intense for each other that the machines can, basically, use it to get power.

This movie is the strongest Matrix sequel so far. Reloaded and Revolutions were both fun films but still lacked what made the original so good. Resurrections is not on the same level as the original and stumbles with reminding us of the previous films, but it has done the best of replicating how I felt with the original film.

I would recommend The Matrix Resurrections to fans of the Matrix series. I would also recommend The Matrix Resurrections to fans of science fiction.