Matrix Resurrections

One of the singular best movies I ever saw in a theatre was the first Matrix movie. At this point I have it memorized and I can watch it and the two sequels anytime they show up on the TV. The fact that we can enjoy another go at this universe with the eternally young Keanu Reeves is a gift to me. If he signed up to make another sequel it must be something special. At least that is my hope going into this one.

First of all there is no reason to make a fourth Matrix movie without bringing something new to the table and I felt that the set-up to the story as well as the execution was very well done. Neo is back to his Thomas Anderson identity where he lives in the Matrix as a game developer who is famous for creating a series of popular games based on the Matrix. Get it? He is under a psychiatrist's care because there is something tugging at him that he can't let go of. He often feels like he is going insane and is unable to tell reality from fiction. He is primed to take the red pill and journey back down the rabbit hole.

60 years have passed since the first film and a whole new caste of characters join old ones to draw Neo back to the Matrix and back to Trinity. Those scenes are full of great nostalgia and call backs to the original series in a nearly seamless way. I was totally invested in the adventure and was just as thrilled with this story as I was with the original trilogy. It's thoughtful and full of all kinds of interesting ideas about the nature of self. It's all very meta and self aware.

I enjoyed it.

Its emphasis on the romance between Neo and Trinity allows Resurrections to become a devastatingly sincere movie about how love is the best weapon we have to make sense of a world that fills our heads with the white noise of war and conflict on a forever loop. – David Ehrlich, IndieWire