When facing the new instalment of a franchise we often hear questions the likes of “is it necessary” to have it. Necessary seems like a stretch to me, do we “need” movies at all? like water, food or breathable air? Probably not. So, for me the question of The Matrix Resurrections is not about if it was necessary to make it or not, the movie exists, it’s here. Questioning the existence of something doesn’t make it go away, doesn’t change it either, even if the movie itself, in this case, tries to answer this very thing. Thing is, this movie has a lot of philosophy involved and clever storytelling techniques (at least over the first part of it) yet all the charm and style, art and honesty, felt in the first one isn’t in here, we can barely feel the characters with nostalgia and the movie itself satirizes about it. I mean, what are we supposed to do when watching a movie? should we be meta analyzing every aspect, every single emotion it triggers on us? constantly devoiding ourselves from the emotions that compose our lives in an attempt at staying “in control”? I understand the need to talk about the way the world seems to work and all that nihilistic bullshit, yet I don’t believe that has to come at the expense of telling a good story, and is in here where Matrix Resurrections fails and kinda betrays itself and its legacy.

I mean c’mon! and by the way, why the fuck Keanu Reeves doesn’t change his looks in any movie he’s a part of, I don’t know if I’m watching Neo or John Wick… WTF? Where the hell did all the characterization artists go? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, cause cinematography and stylistically speaking, this must be one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a long time. I’m being honest here and you know, there’s gonna be people saying that is intentional, cause the movie self references itself many times and stuff. Like there’s a scene where a bunch of stereotype people are talking about what the matrix represents, but kind of mocking the whole thing. Where the hell did all of this cynicism come from? Doesn’t make any sense to me, was The Matrix so bad that even the director of the movie felt the need to destroy the whole idea just to convey the fact that production companies want to make money? They’re production companies! that’s what they do!

To me, only a rich bubble type of person would argue the idea of profit, and you can’t fuckin’ blame the guys paying for the stuff to be worried about returns, I mean c’mon! And why the fuck am I even defending corporations in a Matrix Resurrections review? Cause there’s something inherently wrong about the conceptions of what the world is, right? Humans are not good, okay? we have to make a big, big effort to be morally adequate, at best! And movies help us do this, they show us the path to purge ourselves from pain and suffering, which accumulated lead us to cause pain on others. And yes, in a sense Matrix Resurrections does this, it remind us or even reaffirm us about ways of seeing the world, partially because of rescuing the idea of bonding, which is a concept that is so lost in a world where people are growing accustomed to be paid attention, yet not to pay attention to others.

I don’t know… There’s nothing wrong with the movie, just that it feels cheaper and in a smaller scale to previous installments. It feels like a tv adaptation of the original trilogy and that’s it I guess. All the philosophy is conveyed here in expository dialogue and it just doesn’t work for me, doesn’t have the charm, doesn’t grab my interest in the same way. So, back to the need thing from the beginning? no, this movie was not necessary, it would have been better to just make a new movie with these ideas and probably it would have been better to give it also to a new artist who were bringing a new perspective and sensibilities to the table. So I praise Lana Wachowski for butchering her own baby to stop corporations from prostituting the idea into the future, maybe it’s better to kill a baby than to watch it being raped time and time again… what do you think? (also forget all about this dumb review!).