Title – The Matrix Resurrections (2021)

Director – Lana Wachowski (Speed Racer) 

Cast – Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris, Jessica Henwick

Plot – Mr. Anderson/Neo (Reeves) must head back into the rabbit hole once more as the world of The Matrix returns with new and old threats alike in a battle to save our true reality heats up. 

“I have to say I’m kind of excited. After all these years, to be going back to where it all started”

Review by Eddie on 17/01/2022

Considering many walked away disappointed from the supposed final Matrix instalment in 2003 with the divisive Revolutions, reentering the Matrix once more seemingly wasn’t the worst idea, especially with original leads Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss back alongside one half of the directing team Lana Wachowski, but upon sitting through the arduous/talk heavy trite that is Resurrections, perhaps everyone should’ve let sleeping dogs lie when it came to this once bright property. 

Starting out in such a bright fashion with 1999’s ground breaking original, The Matrix series has suffered across its further three film run from diminishing returns but even the CGI fest Revolutions seems like a cinematic masterpiece when compared to this wannabe meta offering that spends 50 minutes warming the engine up in a sleep inducing and confusing way before giving way to an unexciting and bland sci-fi action spectacle that fails to provide a single decent set piece around a plot line that makes one wonder how the Wachowski’s were responsible for writing the brilliant original. 

Losing their mojo since The Matrix was first at the peak of its powers with the likes of TV failure Sense8, flop adaptation Speed Racer and the diabolical Jupiter Ascending, with only their work on Cloud Atlas reminding us all that they do in fact harbor much talent as filmmakers, the Wachowski’s have always been trying to reach the heights of their first sci-fi experience with that same try-hard nature infiltrating almost every scene and plot element of Resurrections as it tries desperately to fool us into thinking it should exist and that it’s smarter than your average Hollywood blockbuster. 

If there was going to be a savior of this bland and tiresome affair, focused around Neo’s awakening once more in a video game inspired world and place in time where Warner Brother’s are demanding more from the Matrix brand, it was the appearance of Reeves and Moss bringing their iconic characters to life once more but the two well-liked performers are unable to do much with the forced love story at the heart of the tale here while newcomers such as poor Jonathan Groff as a new iteration of Agent Smith (playing literally no point in the films story), the overdone Neil Patrick Harris as new villain The Analyst and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as a younger version of Morpheus all fail to bring anything fun or thrilling to this new Matrix tale. 

Without anyone bringing the fun in front of the camera, with a convoluted and uninspired script and a lack of anything noteworthy in the spectacle stakes, Resurrections is a dead on arrival affair that should’ve stayed dormant with it doing nothing but sullying the name cinemagoers and genre fans once were proud to love. 

Final Say – 

The proposition of returning to The Matrix once more wasn’t the worst of ideas but sadly The Matrix Resurrections is a bland, pointless and misguided outing that should bring about the death knell of this once bright property once and for all. 

1 ranting Frenchman out of 5