My The Matrix Resurrections review is going to go against what a lot of people think, because I really liked it. I’d give it a 3.4, maybe a 4. I spoke to many friends and they didn’t like it, mostly because it felt like a simple repeat of the first film. But maybe that’s exactly why I did like it. It was different enough to be unique and interesting while still bringing me the nostalgia I wanted to see. It’s better than Reloaded and Revolutions, and it’s still worse than the first, which stays the best of them. Somewhere in between those two points is where I landed, and I’m happy with where that is.
A game designer called Thomas Anderson
Thomas Anderson is back to being a nobody, this time a famous video game designer whose big hit is a trilogy called The Matrix, and the studio wants a sequel. His studio is under a parent company that’s demanding it, and the film has a lot of fun with that, because it’s quite obviously talking about itself. He’s seeing a therapist, called the Analyst, and thinks his memories of Neo are some kind of delusion. He takes little blue pills, and goes through his days in a fog, and you can tell something’s holding him back from remembering. It’s a clever way back in, and it never felt like it was only there for the money, even with the film poking fun at that very idea.
Then he starts running into a woman called Tiffany in a coffee shop, a married mother with a family, and she’s obviously Trinity, even though neither of them knows it. Bugs and her crew turn up to wake him up, and a new Morpheus, a program rather than a person, frees him from the pod. It turns out the Matrix has been rebuilt by the Analyst with Neo and Trinity kept in pods as an energy source, and that gets the whole thing going again. Jonathan Groff plays a younger Agent Smith, and Niobe is now leader of a human city called Io, where humans and some friendly machines share a fragile peace.
The way the film opens is a smart little trick. It starts with a scene that echoes the first film, with a woman in black being chased across rooftops by agents, but it’s not quite what we remember. Bugs, a young blue-haired hacker, watches the scene play out and tries to work out what it means, and it turns out she’s looking at a program that’s been rebuilt from the old one. That’s the first time the film winks at us, telling us it knows we’ve seen this before, and it sets the tone for everything that follows. I liked that it didn’t try to hide what it was doing.
Neo, meanwhile, is still Thomas Anderson, a man who’s wrestling with a life that doesn’t feel right. His therapist keeps him on a steady course of blue pills, and his office is full of people who talk about the Matrix as if it’s just another game. The game studio and the whole idea of a sequel being pressured onto its creator is the film at its cheekiest, and I couldn’t help smiling at how directly it takes on its own existence. WandaVision played a similar trick with a constructed reality although with less effects, and better for it
The thing that surprised me is how much less there is of the crazy special effects the others had. Reloaded and Revolutions piled on the effects until you couldn’t tell what was going on, and this one doesn’t. I think it’s better for it. The fights are quieter and the film spends more time talking, and that suited what it’s trying to do. There’s less of the choreography I remember from 1999, and I didn’t miss it as much as I thought I would. The action’s there when it needs to be, but it isn’t the point.
The nods to the old films are all over it, with clips from the earlier ones and a lot of winking at how Hollywood keeps rebooting everything, even the studio and the whole idea of a sequel getting a joke. Some of that is a bit much, and I can see why my friends bounced off it. For me the familiarity was the whole point of buying the ticket. Seeing the old world again, with a younger Agent Smith and a new Morpheus and a new human city called Io, scratched an itch I didn’t know I still had. It’s a film that knows you’ve seen the others, and it’s happy to play with that. It’s the same nostalgia game Spider-Man: No Way Home was playing a few weeks earlier, and Ready Player One built a whole film out of it.
Bugs, Io and a changed world
The world the film drops us into is different from the one we left, and I liked how much it’s willing to change. Bugs and her crew are a fresh bunch, and they’re the ones who track Neo down and pull him out, which gives the middle of the film a new sense of energy. Humanity isn’t just hiding in Zion any more. There’s a new human city called Io, led by Niobe, and she’s older and harder now, a leader who’s seen a lot of what the war cost. Humans and machines share a fragile peace, and some of the programs want out of the Matrix altogether, which is a nice twist on the old idea that the machines were simply the enemy.
It gives the film more to play with than just repeating the first one. The Analyst has rebuilt the Matrix with Neo and Trinity as the batteries at its heart, so getting them back together is a real problem rather than a love story that happens on the side. I liked that the stakes are about two people and not about armies, and that the Matrix itself is something they have to go back into and take on. It’s less about saving the world and more about getting these two characters back to where they belong, and I found that refreshing after how big the last two films got.
Neo and Trinity again
What I liked most was the love story being rekindled. The whole film is really about the two of them finding each other again, and that’s where it works best. Seeing Neo and Trinity back on screen together has a warmth that the middle two films never had, because it’s about two people who’ve been kept apart and want to be together. The scenes where they start to recognise each other are the heart of the film for me, and they work better than any of the bigger action in it.
I did have a hard time with Trinity just dumping her kids, which I couldn’t get past. She’s got a husband and a family in the world she’s living in, and she walks away from them to fly off with Neo. I know the story needs her free to go, but it’s a lot to ask of her. It’s the one thing that stuck with me in the wrong way, and I couldn’t shake it.
The coffee shop scenes are my favourite part of the whole first act. Neo has no idea who she is, and neither does she, but there’s something pulling them towards each other, and you can feel it from across the room. It’s a small moment compared to anything the earlier films did, and it works better than a lot of the big set pieces did. It’s the thing I’d tell friends to watch it for, even the ones who didn’t like it, because it’s where the film is most itself.
The ending has the two of them fighting free of the Analyst’s hold, with Trinity finding out she can fly, and then they take off together, having decided to rebuild the Matrix on their own terms. It’s a hopeful finish, and the kind of thing the first film left open. Better than 2 and 3, but still worse than #1. Overall, it is a surprisingly satisfying continuation of a story I thought was finished forever.
I know I’m in the minority, and I’m fine with that. I went in hoping for something that would feel like the Matrix I fell in love with, and I came out feeling like I’d had a lot of that. It’s not as good as the first film, but it’s got more heart than either of the sequels, and it’s a lot less of a headache.
The score is hard to pin down. I’ve landed on somewhere between a 3.4 and a 4 because it’s better than 2 and 3 but still worse than 1, and because I enjoyed it more than I expected to. If you didn’t like it the first time, I’d say give it another go. It’s one of those films that makes more sense when you stop expecting it to be the first one. Rating: 3.4 to 4 out of 5. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to.