Recall the summary of the previous series. First Matrix. A modest programmer and prominent hacker, Thomas Anderson, receives information that the Matrix has him. He also meets a serious man with black glasses named Morpheus, who informs Thomas that everything around is an illusion created by a computer intelligence called the Matrix, and that in reality people are just sources of energy for this artificial intelligence, such as batteries, and the illusory the world around them is created so that little people do not completely wither away.
Morpheus explains that Neo (this is Mr. Anderson’s hacker nickname) is the chosen one, who must help people hiding in the underground, living outside the illusory world of the Matrix, get rid of all these machines. And in order for Neo to cope with the damn irons, he must learn karate, aikido, jiu-jitsu and the wrestling of the Nanai boys – only then can they win.
In general, then they sort of won, although it was not clear who and how. At the same time, Neo promised to open the eyes of all people, after which he flew off somewhere.
In the continuation of the matrix reboot, we were shown the whole city of Zion, hiding somewhere in the depths of the Earth. The Zionese staunchly resist the attempts of the Matrix to capture them: a vile artificial intelligence sends terrible flying curlers to the city. Morpheus continues to believe that Neo is the chosen one and that he will save them all, which even Neo himself does not believe. But, by the way, Neo is not idle: he is looking for the main server room, where, in his opinion, it is enough to register the main server – this is where the pindyk will come to the Matrix.
Well, in the revolutionary matrix, the agents of the Smiths completely unbelted, the hacker Trinity, with whom Neo had unearthly love in all three films, was finally knocked down completely (she was knocked down there in every film, but Neo resurrected her, and in the third film he no longer resurrected , tired), well, and Neo, like, sacrificed himself in the name of the valiant Zion, keep his artificial intelligence from flying curlers.
And here is a new, resurrection, matrix. Neo (Keanu Reeves), of course, resurrected, and in the form of a proud son of Belarus named Jordani Jovanovich. Neo is now not a fucking hacker, but a game designer working for Deus Machina, and the best of the best, sir, the best in the world, as his boss and leader Mr. Smith (Jonathan Groff) tells him. And Neo even has eyes, which he lost in the previous film.
In this world, The Matrix is a computer game created by the genius Neo. And the first game, and the second, and the third. And now Neo is working on the fourth Matrix game. But Neo is somehow sad and painful: he is visited by vague visions and vague doubts. And he sometimes tries to go for a walk off the roof, from which he is still kept by a sympathetic psychotherapist The Analyst (Neil Patrick Harris).
Every morning Neo comes to drink coffee at Simulatte cafe. And one day, drearyly sipping this simulated latte, Neo sees Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), who also went there to buy coffee. In this world, Trinity’s name is Tiffany, she is married to a man with unkind, deep-set ears (Chad Stahelski) and has two unsympathetic, abusive children.
And then in the toilet, Neo meets Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who is exactly the same as the old Morpheus, but different, and he offers him to gobble up a red pill to start all over again. Especially since Neo, as it turned out, is the chosen one, so this bodyaga will never end.
***
You ask, why the hell did Warner Bros, twenty-one years after the release of the first “Matrix”, need to dig up this stewardess, happily buried in 2003? Well, of course, I really wanted to earn money, so they dug it out. The fanbase is huge. And the fans will still go to watch, they will not go anywhere, regardless of whether they go to scold or praise.
Moreover, back in 2003, it was clear that The Matrix had to be buried and forgotten about: the first Matrix had a rating of 8.7, the second had 7.2, the third had 6.8, and this is a rather low rating. for a $150 million superblockbuster. But money, as you know, defeats evil, so Warner decided to re-enter the muddy rivers of the Styx, deja vu cat in their drawbar.
The creators of the original Matrix, the Wachowski brothers (who are now sisters), have repeatedly said that they are not going to return to the world of The Matrix: they say, finished and finished. However, they took part in the production of the video game The Matrix Online, which was announced as an official continuation of the franchise. (And the super-expensive promo for which, apparently, is The Matrix: Resurrection.)
So when Warner decided to restart the franchise in 2017, the sisters’ candidacies as directors were not even considered somehow: the studio said that they would just get their blessing, and then, blessed, with God’s help, they would cope on their own .
In 2019, quite unexpectedly for everyone, it was announced that Lana Wachowski would take over the project, but Lilly Wachowski would have nothing to do with the production.
The script was written by Lana with David Mitchell, with whom she worked on the film “Cloud Atlas” and the TV series “Sense 8”, and Alexander Hemon. They didn’t have any clear ideas about how to breathe new life into a story that completely fizzled out sixteen years ago, so it was decided to cram a little of everything into the film.
Namely, to repeat pieces from the first “Matrix” with other actors, providing this with the most ridiculous explanation “The Matrix clones itself”, although it would be more honest to say “Lana clones itself”, to revive Neo as already a game designer developing the “Matrix” in order to skip like a joke from the series “The Warners demanded to make the fourth Matrix – well, let’s do it”, and then loop everything to hell, launching the old Morpheus in a new guise with old pills, forcing Neo to choose the red pill again to “see reality”, being in a pod again by the mean machines, getting out of there, visiting Zion (it’s a different city now with a different name, but what the hell is the difference?), and getting Trinity out of the Matrix because ethereal love and all.
Alas, even the jokes from the series “We were forced to make the fourth matrix – we did it” somehow do not roll at all, because if they shot at least something worthy, it would work. And since they made a complete madhouse – here already, guys, one cannot get off with self-irony.
“The Matrix: Resurrection” is not a movie at all, it is a kind of crooked and awry fan fiction, designed exclusively for fans of the franchise. As really stupid as The Matrix 2 and 3 are (I know the fans of the franchise strongly disagree with me, but I don’t really care because I’m never a Matrix fan), but they can be I had to watch it because of the amazing special effects.
Actually, purely by script, the first “Matrix” was quite ridiculous: all these illusory worlds were invented long before it and met in dozens of films, the Wachowski brothers obviously borrowed a lot of things for their film, to put it mildly (dozens of detailed articles have been written about this), but they used absolutely revolutionary methods of filming, creating such impressive action sequences that I myself periodically review this film, trying not to pay attention to the scenario nonsense.
I have never watched The Matrix 2 and 3, but at least I watched it in theaters at the time of release, because in terms of special effects and action scenes, it was all immeasurably impressive. Yes, between the fight scenes, one had to endure these tedious conversations between Neo and Trinity and listen to how heavily bonked Morpheus once again repeats that Neo is the chosen one, although no one ever told why he was chosen at all and who he was in this position chose – but the battle scenes atoned for a lot.
In the fourth “Matrix”, even in terms of special effects, there is practically nothing. Well, in a sense – there is at least something new. Entirely drawn and re-shot pieces from the first “Matrix” (yes, I’d rather review the first “Matrix”), not entirely drawn, but almost one-on-one repeated scenes from other films of the franchise – all these wall runs, rapid shooting and other tricks – and an environment of global stupidity.
The creators of the script do not care at all for at least some kind of logic of what is happening, they do not care at all. It’s been sixty years since the revolutionary Matrix—it’s stated quite clearly (“It’s been over sixty years since you and Trinity flew into one of the machine cities,” Bugs says). For what? Only for the sake of one single scene where old Neo is shown in the mirror. (By the way, in the mirror we see Stephen Roy, the real-life husband of actress Cary-Anne Moss.)
Guys, according to your movie, Neo was resurrected inside the Matrix. It’s a digital fucking code. Yes, they could have made him at least twelve years old, what’s the problem? But then Neo turns out to be a man in a capsule again – is he ninety years old there? No, he looks like a well-worn but 50-year-old John Wick (whose creator, Chad Stahelski, plays Trinity/Tiffany’s husband here). Doesn’t look like a centenarian. Yes, and Nyobi from the second and third films, too, somehow does not pull on the centenary. And this is not a digital world, it’s like a real one.
However, there is no point in seriously discussing the absurdities of the plot, as it did not make sense initially. Moreover, the Wachowski brothers-sisters have long understood: it is enough to stuff more parasitic words like “binarity” and “modality” into the text of the characters – and that’s all, this can explain anything! And you don’t even need to explain anything – the fans themselves will explain everything, how they did it after the second and after the third matrix. And here I take off my hat without any fools: it was the fans who often cited the most interesting theories and most curious explanations that the creators of The Matrix themselves would never have thought of.
Let’s be honest, Keanu “Lemon Slice” Reeves in all the films of this franchise has always been extremely dull. But on the other hand, he demonstrated good military and political training. Why they made him here pure John Wick from the third film with his long hair and thin beard – I honestly don’t know. John Wick walks back and forth, suffers without his submachine guns and cannot even remember the old kung fu properly. (The scene of his sparring duel with Morpheus is just some kind of disgrace.)
Cary-Anne Moss in the role of Trinity looked noticeably more cheerful and even liked it, although she, in general, had nothing to play.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in the role of Morpheus looked downright spectacular, and it was just a good decision: Fishburne was not to be dragged here, especially since he worked diligently with Reeves on the second and third Wicks, and besides, Fishburne had long been really does not fit on the screen. And Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is cheerful, fit, has a certain self-irony, and even manages to look good in those parrot costumes, in which he was dressed for some unknown reason.
Promising young people tried with might and main: Jessica Henwick adequately played the fighting Bugs (who is not like “bugs”, but like “Bugs Bunny hare”), Andrew Caldwell amusingly buffooned in the spirit of youth comedies as Jude. Another thing is that the very fact of the presence of such a character in The Matrix raised certain questions, but here the whole film is one sheer nonsense, so what is there …
Jonathan Groff from Mindhunter (of course, there was a joke on this topic) was awarded the role of Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving, by the way, was called, but his schedule did not match) with extremely vague motivation: Groff, by the way, played well, although he himself the character was completely incomprehensible.
I don’t know about the trait of Merovingian – a petty, but very bantering network administrator with inflated self-esteem from the second and third films – here in the form of some kind of homeless man, in the middle of the battle scene, pushing about sequels-quadriquels, I don’t know, but there and in the battle scene itself why – some absolutely incomprehensible fighting Chinese from “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” appeared. However, it is clear that Lana needed to fill the frame with something, so she, without worrying at all, pulled such a bunch of everything from other films here (for example, from those “People in Black”), which is, you know, surprised do not have to.
I don’t know why I even watched all this crap. That’s for sure – it’s better to review the first “Matrix”, it’s cool. In this case, it’s just a waste of time. No, it is clear that this is made for the fans, and there are indeed fans who say “thank you for sweet seconds” to Lana. However, the rating is below the baseboard (this is for an expensive blockbuster) and the world’s ten-day fees of $ 22.3 million – it all looks somehow depressing. They did not officially announce the budget, but it is easy to understand that they spent at least $150 million on this, while knowledgeable people talk about $175 million – and this is purely a budget, without promotion costs. With such expenses, they should collect at least half a billion, and given the results of the rental and low reviews, they can count on a maximum of $ 50-75 million.
However, now is a different time: less than a week after the start of the rental, the studio launched this picture on the HBO Max streaming service, and this may somehow improve the situation.
However, this does not change the fact that The Matrix: Resurrection is a frankly bad film. A clear attempt, not particularly straining, to cut down the dough on the fanbase of the old “Matrix”. It seems that the attempt was not particularly successful, well, thank God!
PS Interestingly, the criticism of the film (I’m talking about Russian-speaking) is mostly positive, I quote from the site “Criticism”.
The main thing is not to ask too often, “What-oh-oh?” – and everything will go like clockwork. The Matrix, as you know, must be infused in the mind, and the viewer will have to digest it after years in order to finally understand it.
“Resurrection” is a picture more about love, as about a comprehensive, monumental feeling that conquers death, viruses and even technological robots, than about everything else put together.
A bold and unusual reimagining of the original trilogy.
The sequel, which is filmed with love and self-irony, successfully revives the cult world and heroes.
The Matrix: Resurrection is a very warm love letter from Lana Wachowski to all those who have dedicated part of their lives to The Matrix.
The film surprisingly turns into a separate independent screenwriting force. The film has a healthy and even bold, for the current unstable film business, self-deprecating humor that makes fun of corporate culture and the evils of capitalism.
Each of the “Matrices” invariably rested on the fact that the main thing is love, and the new one is no exception. This extremely intelligible message somehow reconciles with all the dramatic shortcomings of this awkward touching film.
The fourth “Matrix” is undoubtedly a film about love. It is in her search that Neo dives through the looking glass under a defiantly old-fashioned one – this is not Prodigy in 1999! – “White Rabbit” Jefferson Airplane.
“Resurrection” was filmed for its own and is actually more of a voice in a general conversation that has stretched over decades than an independent feature film. It’s just that this video is more expensive and was not filmed by a fan, but by one of the authors of the cult original.
Apparently, film critics are very special people who see what we, ordinary viewers, do not see. So deep respect for them and the roofs of their houses! Amen!
The Matrix Resurrections review
Producer: Lana Wachowski
Cast:
Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jonathan Groff, Jessica Henwick, Neil Patrick Harris, Jada Pinkett Smith, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Christina Ricci, Lambert Wilson, Chad Stahelski
Worldwide gross:
$22.3 million, USA, 2021, 148 min.