The Matrix Resurrections Thread - Woah

Welp, having just gotten back from seeing the film, I can honestly say that the AVC's interview with the writers was complete bullcrap. The film was, thankfully, not filled to the brim with attempts at being woke, and the character with blue hair that I was worried about also wasn't a spotlight-stealer, or even a shoe-in for the director. Instead, that character, Bugs, was meant more as a stand-in for the audience, and the film wisely left the heavy lifting to Neo and Trinity.

As for my further thoughts. Eh, it was entertaining enough. It could've definitely used more distinct action setpieces, as there weren't really any stand-outs barring the extremely physical fight between Neo and Smith (on that note, while Jonathan Groff gave a good performance, Hugo Weaving is still the superior choice). Like, I was hoping for, at the very least, some sort of epic gunfight akin to the first film's, or maybe something like the one seen in the very Matrix-inspired Madoka Magica Rebellion. What was on screen here was still fun, but didn't have that same sort of epicness.

The main issue I have with it though is that I felt the pacing of the film was too slow at times. The film is basically suffering from Bad Boys 2 syndrome; it's two and a half hours long, and doesn't exactly have enough of a plot to really justify it. Several scenes I think could've easily been trimmed down more, and the story still would've been clear. Like, as interesting as all the meta-narrative stuff was at the beginning and middle, we didn't really need several of those moments, such as the montage of Neo's boring life, which should've been shortened.

On the whole though, I was at the very least entertained. It knew to not go heavy-handed with the messaging, and kept the focus squarely on Neo and Trinity, which was definitely the right call. It was also amusing to see it take many, many nods from Rebuild Of Evangelion, given that that series's fourth film was a straight up retelling of The Matrix Revolutions in many ways.

So yeah. Not perfect, but still a nice try from Lana Wachowski.
 
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Just finished it. It's a meh. Not good, not overly bad. It's an average movie, which sucks for WB cuz It's going to get murdered by Spiderman.

Honestly not the wokefest I was apprehensive about. Even the buzzwords that AVC was talking about didn't feel out of place and fit the movie incredibly well. Now that may be because I agree with them and that is what anyone manipulating humanity would conclude is why it fit seamlessly but I digress. It's a w/e movie. The action isn't the best. They all look slow/cgi ish which was surprising since I remember the first 3 movies have good action scenes. This was in the same style just slowed down which kills it. The music isn't as good, the style and look of the movie isn't as good or iconic and the costumes aren't as good although I'll probably pick up a couple pair of the sunglasses people had on.


My biggest gripe, besides them dumbing down the the Matrix to a basic love story and this movie being the first one to make me think about how stupid the universe is and how it cannot follow its own rules(how is Neo number 7 and he looks the same when irl he is getting decomposed and fed to some random baby) is what they did to Morpheus. Casting someone new rubbed me the wrong way, but then turning the guy who had the most interesting arc and most impactfull character into a basic bitch machine, the thing he'd hate. Not cool. Imo.

But see it on HBOmax if you have nothing else on your list and your drinking /smoking/or doing some other drugs. I'd recommend almost anything else. Like Indiscreet, Butch Cassidy, Bonnie and Clyde, or Terms of Endearment.
 
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Yeah, like I said, the pacing is rather wonky. It does take a bit too long for the film to really get into gear, and that opening is indeed where most of the cheesy stuff happens.

They really should've cut some of that drivel out.
 
I agree with that. Jonathan Groff does do a pretty good job, and I thought that Smith was still one of the best characters, but Hugo Weaving will always be the definitive actor for that role.

Shame scheduling conflicts occurred that prevented him from coming back. Because I actually found Smith's connection to Neo in this film to be surprisingly more interesting than in Reloaded or Revolutions.
 
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I really don't understand what they were trying to do with this movie. NPH's Analyst says something like "the worse we treated you, the more docile you became" and acts like it's so profound, but that's exactly what the Architect said in the second movie. "The first version of the Matrix was a paradise. It was a disaster. Whole crops were lost."

When they're arguing with Niobe, Neo says to blame him and not Bugs, to which Niobe tells him not to "take away her agency and her choices." Fair enough, but then later in the movie when they're going to disconnect Trinity, Sati says "the most important choice in Neo's life isn't his to make."

Trinity having magic makes no sense. She was always just the chick that Neo fell in love with, but they splice in a half-second scene from Matrix 3 in a sad attempt to say 'see? she was always special too!' and now she's his other half in every meaningful way. She's no longer Lois Lane, but Wonder Woman.

I can see where they were coming from with the Last Jedi comparisons. Specifically that it's been 60 years and basically nothing has changed and everything our heroes fought and died for was utterly meaningless. Expect now they have CG robot buddies to hang out with I guess. But the Machines are still keeping people sedated, still connected to the Matrix, lying about the nature of their reality, there's still a resistance trying desperately to free people's minds, only one free city in the entire world, etc.

ToddleDoddle said:
All the Agent Smith stuff really fell flat without Hugo Weaving playing the character.
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Yeah it felt like he watched specific scenes 20 minutes before filming and then did his best impression.
 
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Los Pollos Hermanos said:
I can see where they were coming from with the Last Jedi comparisons. Specifically that it's been 60 years and basically nothing has changed and everything our heroes fought and died for was utterly meaningless. Expect now they have CG robot buddies to hang out with I guess. But the Machines are still keeping people sedated, still connected to the Matrix, lying about the nature of their reality, there's still a resistance trying desperately to free people's minds, only one free city in the entire world, etc.
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That's one of the confusing aspects of this for me. If the war ended 60 years ago, then why is there still a Matrix with people hooked into it?

I had no desire to see the movie and it sounds like I'm making the right call, but this is one of the more baffling revivals for an old franchise because I felt The Matrix pretty much died with its less than stellar third entry and even if I liked that movie, where the hell do you even go after the war is over?
 
Larry > Lana

Also, the idea that the first one was stolen is reinforced in my mind now.

The movie is basically a retread of the franchise, but worse in every way.
 
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RumblyTumbly said:
That's one of the confusing aspects of this for me. If the war ended 60 years ago, then why is there still a Matrix with people hooked into it?
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Haven't seen the film, but I can see a good portion of humanity deciding to stay in the matrix, given the option. Besides how shitty the outside world is. There's learning to move again from zero will be extremely hard for most people, you might find yourself without any job because the thing you specialized in doesn't exist (and you have no money), your family might be in a different continent, and you will be the bottom of the social pole.
 
41% of troons aren't killing themselves, they're just escaping The Matrix.

A lot of really cringe scenes. I know the "Bee Tee Dubs" and "Dubya Tee Eff" stuff was SUPPOSED to be cringe and parody of current society (I hope) but still just meta cringe. The end though, with the AI spouting sexist things and Trinity beating him up was very typical cringe SJW fantasy. Why would he even be sexist?

I didn't understand or maybe I missed why exactly Neo and Trinity were necessary to somehow make a new Matrix for the machines that was better. Their longing for each other somehow made all of humanity endure suffering more and produce more energy? What? And again, why did they specifically need those two?
 
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Both Neo and Trinity make up The One. Basically a whole Yin and Yang metaphor. Their story, if I'm getting this right, was inspiring for a whole lot of the people still plugged in, and said feelings were found by the machines to stimulate brain activity, leading to more energy (geez, getting Madoka Magica flashbacks here). At least that's what I got from it. And while her beating up that AI could be seen as SJW, I saw it as just more her accepting the truth and choosing to be with, erm, the one that she was meant for.
Los Pollos Hermanos said:
I can see where they were coming from with the Last Jedi comparisons. Specifically that it's been 60 years and basically nothing has changed and everything our heroes fought and died for was utterly meaningless. Expect now they have CG robot buddies to hang out with I guess. But the Machines are still keeping people sedated, still connected to the Matrix, lying about the nature of their reality, there's still a resistance trying desperately to free people's minds, only one free city in the entire world, etc.
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See, I actually disagree with the sentiment that this film is like The Last Jedi. That film actively went out of its way to completely subvert and trash everything people loved about the originals and the main character purely for the sake of conveying the whole theme of "moving on from failure" and "always moving towards the future, no matter who you are". It completely tarnished the previous hero, Luke, by showing him giving up and having all his efforts amount to nothing, letting new characters steal his spotlight, and in general, seemed to actively try to force the new generation on the viewer.

By contrast, while it is true that some things haven't changed in The Matrix Resurrections in terms of the state of the world, it also makes it clear that Neo's sacrifice and his actions in the original films was not all for nothing. The relationship between humanity and the machines is improving, and the world is slowly but surely healing. The scene in the artificial garden with them finding a new way to genetically grow fruits was evidence of that. And it could've only happened with the unity of the two sides working together. Neo himself was also treated with much more respect, as he was very much still the focus of the whole movie, and it was his actions in it that led to the victory at the end. Rather than completely trash the past films in an attempt to move on, this film instead treated them as things to not let go of, and that the past is worth remembering and gaining inspiration from.

Again, I'm not trying to say that the film is any sort of masterpiece. But for me, I think it was a far better movie than The Last Jedi was on that end, treating the past as not something to sneer at or discard, but instead to see with reverence and wonder.
 
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honestly my favorite part is that they keep everything from the matrix online story arc. thats absurdly sweet, even if it clearly is whats pissing off everyone that isn't a hardcore fan.

Basically Lana is doing the opposite of what disney did with star wars, instead of saying "fuck it" to the EU, it said "everything in the EU happened and we're reminding the entire audience of that" which is crazy considering a vast majority of the Matrix's EU is either out of print or the websites are defunct and outside of archives and people retelling the stories like they were myths of old you won't actually be able to find the actual EU stuff. the Martix Online has been off line for at least a decade now.

Having said all that, its clear this film is flopping hard, the reviews were just above rotten on RT, and even reddit is pretty "meh" on it. the biggest criticisms being the lack of quality action scenes in whats ostensibly an action film (for fucks sake they used their action sequence plans to pitch the film to Will Smith)

between that and being able to watch this for free with HBO max wherever you want, spiderman is going to kick its ass.
 
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RumblyTumbly said:
That's one of the confusing aspects of this for me. If the war ended 60 years ago, then why is there still a Matrix with people hooked into it?
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The war ended, but in the sense that the two sides made peace rather than one side emerging victorious. The machines agreed to leave the humans alone and not to stand in the way of their removing more people from the Matrix - and I'm guessing they did the latter knowing that A) Earth's environment is too badly buttfucked for a large human population to be viable anytime soon, limiting how many people can practically be taken out of the Matrix, and B) a lot of people will just take the blue pill and choose to live in ignorance.
 
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If this film has done anything it's shown us why Keanu Reeves hasn't been seen beardless for the last ten years.

This is a funny fail though, I suspect this will be one of those films that certain people take to their 'bosom' and claim it to be a lot better than it is...much pointless arguing will ensue.

Saw this interview will the lovely 'Lana', and he clearly couldn't give two shits about this film, so why should anyone else?
 
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Just started watching, Can't wait for the Rifftrax of this. This movie is funny bad.
 
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