Barrett Brief Movie Review: The Meta Matrix Resurrections

Barrett Brief Movie Review: The Meta Matrix Resurrections 

Summary: Return to a world of two realities: one, everyday life; the other, what lies behind it. To find out if his reality is a construct, to truly know himself, Mr. Anderson will have to choose to follow the white rabbit once more.

Genre: Action, Sci-Fi

The Matrix. Simultaneously the most groundbreaking and disappointing franchise of all time. A franchise that spawned an entire genre of films involving leather, martial arts & “bullet-time”. Having the chance at a fleshed out trilogy, the Wachowskis failed to close the deal and this franchise has existed in the “what if” section of movie history. However, in the age of reboots, sequels and reimaginings, it was only a matter of time before Warner Bros. dusted off this IP to give it one more shot. Of course we all chuckled at the actual title – The Matrix Resurrections because that is literally what they are doing. Word had gotten out that the one word to describe the film was “META” and boy they were right about that one. While not coming close to the original Matrix, The Matrix Resurrections is the best sequel the franchise has, but despite it’s attempts at bringing something different, it is caught in the same traps that previous films suffered from. 

When Being Meta Becomes Ironic

Meta- “showing or suggesting an explicit awareness of itself or oneself as a member of its category : cleverly self-referential”. The Matrix Resurrections is aware that it is a film trying to reignite a 20 year of franchise and it spends the first half of the film letting you know that. Even down to the conversion on rebooting The Matrix video game “Warner Bros is going to do this with or without us.” Everything from what the initial films meant to name of the company Keanu Reeves (Neo / Thomas Anderson) works for, the Deus Ex Machina, is a callback/inside joke/reference for us to point and say “I remember that!”  The writers seemed very pleased with themselves with the amount of meta commentary they were able to slip into the film. Unfortunately it gets old very quickly. 

Something Old, Something New

Only when Neo meets up with Jessica Henwick (Bugs, as in Bunny) does the film actually start to introduce new concepts. Why did it take so long? What happened to Neo and Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity / Tiffany)? Did the war between humans and machines start back up?  Once we get back to the point where Neo is outside of the Matrix and we have to go through all the old beats of training and Neo discovering who he is. However we get some different things introduced to us which where a nice expansion on the world we had previously seen. We see different machines, different ships, a different base for the humans to be in, a different outlook. These ideas and concepts would have been great as a direct followup to the original film. 

I find this film difficult to review, on the one hand it is exactly what we all thought. It is a retelling of the first film. At the same time there is just enough in here for me to see some potential. Then again, that is the story of all the films that follows the first. Great ideas, just cannot get them fully flushed out. 

 The Cast

Keanu Reeves & Carrie-Anne Moss slide right back into their roles. I enjoyed Keanu as he struggled to navigate the first part of the film. When he gets freed from the Matrix the script doesn’t require him to do anything more than go through the motions of his previous work in this franchise. Moss does gets some moments here and there, but she is relegated to the third act of the film. Jessica Henwick does a good job at carrying the film when she is asked to. Jonathan Groff (Agent Smith) is more whimsical than he is intimidating, why they couldn’t get Hugo Weaving back is just a huge mistake. I think he would have brought a lot of depth to this interpretation of Smith. Speaking of giant holes, no offense to Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, but this film needed Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus. it was wrong of Warner Bros to ask Mateen II to even try and it comes off as cheap cosplay. Neil Patrick Harris (The Analyst) does a fine job as the antagonist, or maybe it was just nice to see someone other than Smith be the bad guy. My favorite moment was when Lambert Wilson (The Merovingian) showed up and started ranting and raving because of his current circumstance. I ended up nodding my head in agreement with him and it was the most fun I had with the film. Jada Pinkett Smith (Niobe) who was the least interesting side character from the first films, takes the paycheck and says her lines. Literally anyone other than her would have been better. Oh and Priyanka Chopra Jonas (Sati) showed up for 10 minutes. 

Highs & Lows

Highs: Some new ideas, a different antagonist, Jessica Henwick’s enjoyment at being in the film, seeing Reeves & Moss back together. 

Lows: No Hugo Weaving, No Laurence Fishburne, lots of new ideas – that get buried underneath the expectations of the original story, Jada Pinkett Smith. 

Overall

The Matrix Resurrections is the best sequel the franchise has, however it is caught in the same traps that previous sequels suffered from and fails to push the franchise forward. 

Score:

2 out of 4 briefcases