At the beginning of the movie, Neo is tinkering with the source code from the Matrix video game he made in 1999, and creates an alternate version where Morpheus is Agent Smith. Bugs hacks into this sub-Matrix and convinces Morpheus-Smith, who is apparently sentient, to come with her.
I’m in the “enjoyed the first 45 minutes” camp. From the previews, and the first 45 minutes, it seemed like they were trying to do something different with the Matrix. Not just a straight sequel, but an in-universe retcon, where everything we thought we knew about the Matrix was wrong. And then…it was just a straight sequel, with the same nonsensical backstory. And the new stuff didn’t make much sense, either.
I really don’t understand how the creators of The Matrix don’t seem to actually understand their own creation (and yes, I know this was only one of the Wachowskis, but the first two sequels seemed to miss the point just as badly). I guess maybe I just completely missed the point of the first movie.
“Are you telling me I can dodge bullets?”
“I’m telling you that when you’re ready, you won’t need to.”
And then, at the end of the first movie, sure enough, Neo doesn’t need to dodge bullets anymore. He’s transcended the Matrix. The kung-fu and bullet time and all the rest are completely irrelevant. Neo has achieved true Gnosis.
And then promptly forgets about it. Because apparently that wasn’t what the first movie was about, after all.
I don’t know. It all seemed kind of disjointed to me. And I didn’t really get the “plan” to retrieve Trinity. Also didn’t really see the point. Like honestly it just felt like another “20+ years later reboot”. It seems like there could have been a much more interesting story there. Like what happened to the “peace” after the third film? They kind of touch on it a bit with some machines aligning with the humans and whatnot. And NPH is great as usual. And they basically replaced Morpheus with Young Morpheus and Agent Smith with Kristoff from Frozen with Mr Andersen’s tech company more “late 2000s tech startup” than “90s Office Space cubicle farm” to appeal to a younger generation. But at the end of the day, it all just sort of felt like a setup for a new crop of Matrix films.
Watched it last night. This mourning I couldn’t remember how it ended.
Saw it. It was fine. About as good a way to resurrect the franchise as I can think of. A few WTF things.
I didn’t get Bugs. So Neo is on some loop. In one of his incarnations, Bugs sees Neo step off a roof and it starts her on the process of walking up. Then he is this other guy with a completely backfilled life that has made 3 Matrix video games, and so little time has passed that Bugs is still young? Huh??
Also, the machines had the presence of mind to immediately see Trinity’s importance and go find her body before it deteriorated too much? Right…
Criticisms: The action could have been better. Too much tight camera fighting. The action in the original was better.
I also couldn’t understand Bugs most of the time and it’s not because of her accent. She seemed kind of muffled, spoke too fast, and didn’t enunciate very well. Maybe the sound was just not that great at the theatre. This would have been okay, except she talked. A lot.
Wishes: They should have just had it been 20 years later. They should have at least offered the part to Fishburne, on the condition that he get in shape. And I wouldn’t have had to see a laughably bad old Naiomi.
With the action of the first two movies, this would have been amazing. I feel like Lana Wachowski needed to hire a better person to help plan out, visualize, and then film the action sequences. Nice ideas, generically filmed.
I’m stunned an original Matrix director messed up such a key element of the movies’ success.
I’m picturing the “swarm motorcycle” sequence at the end as amazing if it outdid the motorcycle chase in Reloaded. Uh, it did not. At all.
No, he’s the same Thomas Anderson before and after Bugs leaves the Matrix. They mentioned earlier on that the entire reason he was seeing a therapist in the first place was that he had had a mental break and jumped off a ledge thinking he was Neo and he could fly.
Huh. That’s weird since they both looked completely different.
They are the One. Hmm, interesting twist. Interesting pronoun, given the Wachowski’s personal subtext.
I enjoyed it. Mostly. It was fun getting the band back together. I found the sound to be muddled at times but maybe that means I need better speakers. Couldn’t understand half of what the Merovingian was raving about. Many elements of the motorcycle chase scene would have worked better had it been filmed in daylight. Also, it’s San Francisco. Where are the hills? They should have been romping all over the city on that bike. All in all a trippy and pretty cool movie…they can keep making these films. I’ll keep watching.
Well half of it was French.
I thought the first half was interesting and fun. The second half was a confusing mess, with Deus Ex Machina all over the place – suddenly, Neo can force-push people away from him, Trinity can fly, the Analyst can stop time, but Smith is immune from that, etc. I don’t even understand why Neo and Trinity were saved and then had to be killed.
But, the first part was fun!
Seeing the original “Matrix” in a theater, back when it was a new release, was maybe my favorite moviegoing experience as an adult.
“Resurrections” was among the greatest disappointments, up there with the Star Wars prequels and sequels, and the Hobbit trilogy.
It had the ADHD-like plot and editing of a Transformers movie, and nothing that made the original movie so fantastic. It did, however, end with the most laughable example of a Mary Sue since “The Force Awakens”.
It’s a soulless cash grab that is the norm for Hollywood these days. Unimaginative garbage.
Remind me which character in TFA is supposed to be Lawrence Kasdan’s self-insert?
No, the original Neo and Trinity are very much dead and the Analyst literally recreated their bodies using plot convenience technology, and their minds from the code that was preserved within the memory of the Matrix in order to study them. Or something like that.