The Matrix Resurrections
The Matrix Resurrections
5.663%63%
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.
Darren Webster reviewedApril 7, 2025
I've been a fan of the Matrix since watching the first one in 1999. Being a gamer and going into technology, the tech noire behind it dragged me in, the philosophy of it kept me rewatching and analyzing. Digging at the strings of what was really going on behind all the flash and pazazz of the first films.
Now to say Resurrections is bad is disengenious, because it isn't necessarily bad. It is at first. I remember watching this during the pandemic and thinking "what a stupid piece of fan service hot garbage." Then I watched it again. I started picking up on something the film, very honestly, just flat out tells you. WAKE UP. Resurrections does what the first films never did. It told you flat out, on the nose, in your face that we live in a prison already. It literally tells you this and spells it out for you. There's no hiding behind the curtain because it burns the curtain down.
See, everyone remembers the first 3 films for ground breaking special effects and amazing set pieces and a good vs evil, underdog coming up story. But what most forget, or just flat out didn't grab on to was the message it was trying to tell you. Resurrections gives you all that special effects and mostly awesome set pieces, the good vs evil story just like it's predecessors. But what Resurrectiosn does better than the first 3 films is what they had originally wanted to do in the first place, namely, expose the lies and the trap we're all in. It's almost ironic that to tell us that we're all in a prison that it had to tell it through a medium and a piece of technology directly tied to it. It's funny that The Analyst explains out exactly how we're manipulated today to feel certain ways and why it's essenbtial for controlling the population, even though for him it's about more BTU's from the copper-tops.
Is some of it a bit... Silly? Most certainly. Replacing Mr Smith with a guy that looks like he belongs on the set of Bay Watch was silly and while I love Neil to death, he's just not that great of a villain. The shrink's the bad guy... Yeah... I'm really scared. The "real" world Morpheus, likely cause Fishbourne was like "naw fam, I don't need a paycheck" is pretty pathetic, don't get me wrong, Mateen did his best and there were a number of occassions where he nearly nailed it, but he's just not Fishbourne. Smith's return was just a crotchety shadow of her character and her reaction and treatment of Neo doesn't make sense. Some of the "friendly machine" designs were absolutely out of place, like something you'd see in an anime, not in a Matrix film. I will say this though, I really, really liked Bugs. She's a GREAT addition to the world and Henwick did a bang on job.
Okay, last part, soundtrack. It passes muster. Barely. There's some really nice throwbacks to the original soundtrack. I especially liked the easy listening version of Clubbed to Death. But unlike the original films, the soundtrack here is mostly forgettable. Maybe it was a budget thing.
One thing I really missed was the different camera treatments that you got in the predecesors. The slight tinting towards green while in the Matrix and a good use of film grain to push the idea that you were inside the simulation. Back in the real world it was all blue and cold feeling, lonesome even, bleak, desperation. This one was missin those sybtle bits of cinematography which is a real shame.
Overall, it's not bad once you've watched it a few times and looked past the fake paint job that is plastered all over it and really try and see the message it's trying to tell you.