Matrix 4 Coming Soon

[The Dark Knight]

Of course, the other way of looking at it is that Lana Wachowski never believed in this movie but doesn't have the clout this time around to refuse press. Hence, the awkward interview. When you bumble a big softball interview like that, shyness can't be the only explanation. Wachowski just doesn't seem to accept the legitimacy of the movie's existence.

I can't stand Grace Randolph and I'm disappointed Snyder gave her a platform and a sense of legitimacy. All we are hearing about is if Lana really wanted to make the movie, and the meta commentary, while the real guts of the movie sit on the sidelines. I like the meta commentary but it really is a small component near the start, with the central plot being waking up Neo and rescuing Trinity. People need to look at the plot threads and with a straight face tell me this isn't a respectful continuation. Because it is.

The Machines started losing power with an increase in minds being freed, so a civil war started. The Merovingian really does look like he lives on the streets of San Fransisco because he's a true survivor as most other programs were deleted or reskinned. The social commentary that humans don't care about facts, only fiction and the world that exists in their mind. Desire and fear controls people. And so on.

It seems like a negative cloud was dumped over the brand ever since the sequels. Almost like some believe they have to react that way, because only the original could ever be deserving of praise. The reaction to Resurrections is hysterically absurd, as if it dances on the grave of franchise and abuses the fans. Like with Batman Returns or Dawn of Justice, people either get it or they don't. And a lot don't. As for myself, I see the franchise as a four part series with all segments being important to the whole. A much more enriching experience.

[thecolorsblend]

I can't stand Grace Randolph and I'm disappointed Snyder gave her a platform and a sense of legitimacy.

You shouldn't read so much into it. That was a marriage of convenience. Snyder needed a friendly outlet to reach the fans and Randolph needed something to attract a bigger audience. They both benefitted from the arrangement. Still, when access journalists forget their place, well, Grace Randolph is basically what you end up with.

In that industry, nobody minds a shill. But at the same time, nobody likes a shill who thinks they're more than a shill. And Randolph at some point started thinking she's more than a shill.

All we are hearing about is if Lana really wanted to make the movie, and the meta commentary, while the real guts of the movie sit on the sidelines. I like the meta commentary but it really is a small component near the start, with the central plot being waking up Neo and rescuing Trinity. People need to look at the plot threads and with a straight face tell me this isn't a respectful continuation. Because it is.

The meta commentary is the low hanging fruit. The other stuff you mention requires thought and reflection. As you know, I won't be remembered for my unbreakable faith in the intelligence of the common man. Therefore, I have no hesitation in saying that people overlooking the gems that Resurrections has to offer in favor of gossip comes as no surprise to me.

And yet...

The Machines started losing power with an increase in minds being freed, so a civil war started.

This is one thing that I enjoyed about the movie. I suggested that hardliners would exist on both sides. And that was somewhat born out.

But the sequence in Io where the humans and the machines team up to reengineer life and ecology was a total reversal of The Second Renaissance. The fact that more people aren't commenting on that is a crying shame. It's one of the most powerful moments in the entire series, for my money.

Machines are now affecting humans. But humans are also affecting machines. When Neo gets unplugged again for the first time, a machine snuggles up to him like a dog. Then Neo pets him like a dog. Why and how did a machine ever acquire the instinct to do that? And yet, they did that. The two sides are no longer alienated from each other and they have affected one another. This is a sneak preview of the unified future that The Oracle dreamed about.

The social commentary that humans don't care about facts, only fiction and the world that exists in their mind. Desire and fear controls people. And so on.

One underappreciated element of the movie that works for me is how Neo and Trinity argue against that premise through their actions. Both of them had every conceivable reason to accept the lie. But they instinctively knew that there was a deeper truth being hidden from them and that made all the difference in the end.

Embracing the truth led to their freedom and empowerment. That suggests there is hope for the rest of mankind. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But eventually. And once the rest of humanity accepts the truth, there might be a beautiful real world waiting for them.

If we have to put this in irl terms, the ending of Resurrections is basically the first brick coming out of the Berlin Wall. We haven't seen (and may never see) whatever future the end of Resurrections leads to. But the first brick has been knocked out of the wall. And in general, we know what will come out of that.

[The Dark Knight]

Resurrections leaves Neo and Trinity in a much more dominant position. At the end of the original, Neo envisions a world without borders or boundaries, rules or controls. But he says "where we go from there is a choice I leave to you." Neo and Trinity aren't waiting around now. They're going to remake the world outright. In a hypothetical future I also envision Neo and Trinity becoming the leaders of IO after Niobe bites the dust. Compare that treatment to Jake Skywalker in Jed's Last Eye.

[The Joker]

Checked this out last night at theater.

Hope to have a review posted by next week.

[The Dark Knight]

After letting the movie sit a while longer, I stand by what I've said, but the movie definitely came and went. The story side of things is fine, but there's no doubt the action is lacking, especially when you compare it to the other three films. The first half is solid but the IO content in the middle drags. If certain things were tidied up, Resurrections would've been a step above what it is. It's far from being a bad movie, but it feels flat. It's not something I'm rushing to see again. All things considered it was much better than it could've been. I don't see it burning the series to the ground even if no more films are ever made.

[The Joker]

My late SPOILER Review:


Well, it's pretty clear watching the film that Lana initially thought making this film was a bad idea, beyond which any continuation would basically feel like an asspull, but it does also appear to be a film that at least attempts to comment on the movie industry as a whole, and reboots in general.

The trailers leading up to this was pretty well executed, but I could never fully shake the feeling of unease in anticipation for this. I wasn't exactly "All In" on the notion of a Matrix 4, but I wasn't entirely "against" the idea either. Upon finally seeing the film ... ehhh .... It wasn't bad, per se, just underwhelming. I don't think the film really deserves the outright trashing it's been getting from a lot of people online. Unfortunately, I think the film definitely missed the tight controlled narrative to set up the concept that the original Matrix had. Honestly, I thought Matrix Resurrections was going to expand MORE on the mythology or concepts than it ultimately did, but oh well.

For my money, it's the meta, and subliminal commentary inserted into the movie by Lana that make this film viable. I mean, other than Warners mandating a Matrix 4 with or without the Wachowski's, I understand that the germ for the idea of a Matrix 4 has always been described as a expensive therapy session project for Lana as a means of coping with deaths in her circle of friends and family. The parts of the film that talk about a "money grab" appear to be in there to poke fun at the studio and reboots, and sequel hungry fans.

Act 1 for instance, doesn't take place in the gritty setting of the previous Matrix, but rather in a (amusingly) sunny and pretty San Francisco minus drug addicts, hobos nodding out amidst poo and piles of discarded syringes while the rich latte ilk walk over them as if they don't exist. So yeah, you already KNOW something ain't right! Now we have Neo as a game designer and the trilogy was, in the machines' new reality, as we're being told, a series of games that he created.  On top of that, he's being pushed by the company brass to make a fourth one (even with Mr. Anderson cartoonishly gulping out loud when the idea of numerous Matrix sequels is brought up. Which just simply comes across as one of the many "commentaries" about Warners' ultimatum in either participating with a Matrix sequel or get out of the way), it's really just blatant meta-commentary on how lame it would be to make a fourth Matrix movie. Now this is entertaining to a degree, and I liked the slow burn of watching Neo struggling with a psychotic meltdown he had during the development of the previous games, which led him to perceive the real world as being part of the Matrix. All that's good. It's only when the film gets into the second act that I found myself losing interest.

One part of the social commentary that I found interesting was in the film, it's pretty much understood that now people want to "stay in their pods" (an actual phrase in the script) and enjoy what the Matrix pipes into their brains. I took that as something of a clear barb aimed at terminally online people (there are scenes of people together in physical spaces but staring at their phones) and those who would rather adhere to the system, cower in their houses, rather than rebel. Actually choosing to let the governments of the world run things rather than live their lives. Something of which I wasn't expecting from a Hollywood movie these days (along with the idea of overly emotional people being useful for the bad guys. That's rather, I would say, introspective of the times we currently live in).

So yeah, the meta stuff is very entertaining, and all, but it didn't really raise the bar either. Meta can only really get you so far, and unfortunately the fundamentals just isn't there. The movie is shot in a way that is jarring in comparison to the other three films. Where the others were shot deliberately and had key elements that brought them together, the "improv" and natural lighting of this new entry do not give off the impression of a "true" Matrix film. Unfortunately, there are no camera angles or competently-shot action sequences that makes it different from any other film these days. With the original Matrix, it's true that it's very much of it's time, however at that time it looked simply amazing. In addition, there was much hinting at deeper meanings that you could get out of it if you wanted to and/or were stoned (choice, destiny, and identity, among other things...). With Resurrections, anything like that appears to be rather largely absent. The only deeper meanings would come from the meta stuff, and that wouldn't be entirely clear unless you did your research on what was going on behind the scenes in the development of this movie.

With the fight scenes, I didn't particularly find them Matrix worthy. Pure and simple. Leaving me to wonder if this would have been better animated as a consequence? Judging from how this movie came off, as opposed to the Matrix Trilogy, perhaps it was Lana who was more interested in the philosophy that was presented of the Matrix Trilogy, and it was Lily who had more interest in the action scenes? Can't say for sure there, but the movie certainly feels that way. Sure, the lack of Yuen Woo-Ping is incredibly noticeable , but the chance for adding that extra layer was still there for the fight scenes, and it just doesn't seem like there was really any priority given to which they could take advantage of it. Under the circumstances, I just found the action scenes serviceable. Not epic or big like in the trilogy, or what would one would naturally expect from a Matrix film, but just merely serviceable. Which may be another attempt to 'subvert expectations', but I've grown incredibly bored with that (for F's sake the original Matrix used their action sequence plans to pitch the film to Will Smith). After all, the Matrix movies is a series that prides itself on having amazing action set pieces, with moments that go above and beyond, taking full advantage of things such as anime aesthetics, martial arts, bullet time, and gun-fu to elevate them into things you can hardly see anywhere else. The first film in particular pulled it off masterfully, giving you such amazing never before seen action set pieces that made it worth seeing multiple times. Even if the rest of the film wasn't efficiently written, it would still be all worth it to get to those scenes.

With Resurrections, this component is entirely missing. As what you see is what you get in terms of those moments. There's not anything extra added to give spice to them, which unfortunately, only makes the tamer choreography and shaky cam stand out even more. Which is another reason they don't hit as hard. Because the film is so slowly paced in many sections, you want to be rewarded for your patience with some kind of epic payoff. On that last point, the action involves more jump-cuts, less cinematic trickery and ultimately feels slower and more bogged-down - all bad things. You don't get a sense of damage as the worst that any protagonist gets is a bleeding nose/mouth, and showers of bullets magically never hurt even the most basic of protagonists. The sheer amount of gunfire means that some, at the very least, of these characters should *definitely* be getting killed, yet it never happens. You don't get a sense that they're faster or that it was blind luck or quick thinking that saved them; they all just bizarrely survive because, well, the plot wants them to survive.

None of the main cast die; not even the main villain. A number of the protagonists should have died when the Merovingian's goons attack. After all, they're meant to be ancient and stronger, yet they kill no-one. The *new* concept of Matrix swarms and dive bombers kill no-one. Niobe didn't even die of an old-person heart attack. As a consequence, there's really no real sense of urgency in Resurrections. If everybody lives, why should I be worried? What exactly are the stakes here? It means action scenes come and go without tension or desperation, and you don't really feel like they are running out of time, or really anything compels them toward its conclusion. By comparison, it's the complete opposite of the first Matrix where damn near the entire group is killed off.

Now with the notion that the human/machine truce didn't hold, that's fine. It's not exactly new either. As that idea had already been introduced in the Matrix Online game some years back. So yeah, it just comes across as Lana giving us a variation of an old Matrix Online idea, which is fitting since I believe both Wachowski's wrote notes for the game well after Matrix Revolutions had came and went. Also, the idea of machines collaborating with humans already had precedent with the Animatrix. If I am not mistaken.

Now where I think this film excelled in, was the love story between Neo and Trinity. Outside of the meta stuff, this was the crux that, fortunately, kept me interested. Reeves picks up the role of Neo again like he never left, and Carrie-Ann Moss never gave me the impression of an actress out-of-touch with the original conception. The entire Neo/Trinity development and yearning for one another dynamic was done very well and was actually gratifying. But that's it. That component was so strong that it carried the weight of the narrative.

What I could have ideally done without, was Trinity getting powers and being the ying/yang equivalent to Neo. With Neo, he was meant to be "The One". Not one whole unit, or the Ying & Yang bs. He was The One. In the original film, the entire point was that Neo is an unintentional messiah with powers he didn't know he had or why he had them. That and, you know, him being THE ONE. Now Trinity was a badass, with a nice as$, who Neo fell for, and her with him, but it ultimately was originally portrayed as a tragic romance. To me, Trinity was interesting as a character because she had more personal strength than Neo. He was 'physically' stronger than her, but ultimately she was the catalyst that ultimately led Neo to deviate from the normal path that previous Ones took to reform the matrix. She wasn't a weak damsel in distress, but she wasn't a God either. She was a well-rounded character with a pivotal role in the story. With Resurrections, Trinity is no longer a very capable "Lois Lane", but "Wonder Woman". Now flying around with Neo as the new rulers of the Matrix, and painting the sky with rainbows. Because that's what a free mind does (subliminal pun very much intended I'm sure).

So ... yeah. Personally, I was more than ok with Trinity in how she was originally portrayed in the Matrix Trilogy than here. It's different, but that doesn't it's better.

Going back to the notion of tension of separation between Neo and Trinity that was a focal point, and to which was that the Analyst was striving for, I have to assume that this was Lana Wachowski's metaphor for the tension of being trapped on the binary spectrum, and the power stemming from the the union of Neo and Trinity was the power of unification of identity. The binary scale gets blown apart into a three-dimensional band that allows for a broad spectrum of non-binary identifications. Anything becomes possible. Reality can be re-written. When Neo and Trinity unite, they are symbolically two faces of one expression of self. As Queer identities, such as Lana Wachowski, I would theorize might internalize that as much as they externalize it, as a truer expression of self. Where a heterosexual point of view, might romanticized this as 'true love', halves of a whole.  Just a thought.

As for the other characters:

Bugs: She was alright. Kinda ambivalent one way or the other, but alright I guess. I could say the same thing about Niobe too in a way. Good to see her, even as a much older woman, but that's about it.

New52 Morpheus: Yeah New52Morpheus is explicitly a different character and while thin on development, I guess he was alright too. Didn't dislike him. He's a lot snarkier towards Neo than the original ever would have been, for starters. A different spin for sure, especially in contrast to that of Fishburne's more serious, no-nonsense Morpheus. Didn't think he had the screen presence or charisma of Fishburne (to say the least), but thankfully not a complete train wreck either. Just very different.

Bootleg Agent Smith: Smith is a very odd inclusion here all around. On a very surface level enjoyment of the film, he's just merely serviceable. Unfortunately, the new actor just doesn't have the gravitas of Hugo Weaving, and Weaving's portrayal is SORELY missed. Bootleg Smith is a pale shadow of himself both in character and function. Agent Smith in the originals was played by Hugo Weaving and his stellar acting made him feel uncanny and robotic. He really had the perfect face, since within the logic of the fake world in the Matrix, he looked like some CIA Man-in-Black type, but Weaving managed to play the role in a way to really come across like the AI-Agent that he was supposed to be. I am not entirely sure if the case of Hugo not being in this was "scheduling" or that was his way of politely turning down the part, but it's just a shame he couldn't have reprised HIS role again. In addition, the idea of Smith temporarily siding with Neo was a curiosity that only Weaving could have sold. With Bootleg Smith, especially being so uncharismatic, I was just not convinced.

Speaking of Agents ....

There are multiple little details that make no sense like one of the reasons the bots are allegedly "superior" to Agents because their appearance doesn't change when they take over people's avatars in the Matrix... Big deal. Agents take over an avatar and minmax all stats in like one second. In the context of the Matrix Trilogy, sure, you might get lucky and kill one of them but, unless you're Neo, it would be SUPER-difficult, and an Agent would simply take over another avatar close by and be on your a$s again in like 10 seconds. In Resurrections the 'swarm bots' or whatever they are called, just come across as MCU-lite cannon fodder for the heroes to kick around. The whole chase scene that is the climax of the Resurrections is just flat out inferior to the freeway chase in Reloaded. So yeah, not impressed with this change whatsoever.

The reappearance of The Merovingian: Can't honestly say I liked seeing him back at all, and I can't believe I'm saying that. In this film, he was just simply bastardised. Sure, his being around isn't super surprising considering his past, and him having survivors of the old version doesn't surprise me either because it had sh*tload of old programs in the first 3 movies like the twins, and the fine as F Monica Bellucci. Unfortunately, his speech was so ham fisted that I felt an actual pain from cringing, and his goons didn't even do anything. I'm not even sure why they bothered including the Merovingian when his reappearance resulted in absolutely nothing of consequence. Another MCU comedic like moment.

The Analyst: Doogie was alright in the part, but I just found him a lot less interesting than how Reloaded presented The Architect in Matrix Reloaded. I couldn't help but think that having the villain performing misogynist microaggressions against Trinity was, shall we say, a bit too indicative of modern Hollywood writing, but it is what it is.

The often parroted line about Matrix Resurrections being comparable to something like "The Last Jedi" is something I am very perplexed about after watching the film. I remember writing a pretty scathing review of TLJ on the forum here, and I'll say it again, TLJ 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 "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to". It completely tarnished the previous hero, Luke, by revealing him giving up and having all his efforts amount to essentially nothing, letting new characters steal his spotlight, and in general, seemed to actively try to force the new generation on to the viewer.

By contrast, in Matrix Resurrections, the film 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 idea of healing was very much there. The scene revealing that now there is a new way to genetically grow fruits was evidence of that. And it could've only happened with the unity of humans/machines working together that stemmed from the true Neo made in Revolutions. Neo himself was also treated with much more respect than Luke, 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 like TLJ, at least this film treated the past as something worth remembering and gaining inspiration from. Some might say that all the quick cuts to previous scenes within the Matrix Trilogy was obnoxious, but I wasn't bothered by them at all. I thought they actually helped, more than anything.

As far as what the future holds? Apparently, not much. Considering that M4 is failing harder than an Alec Baldwin interview on ABC, I would be surprised if we hear anything for a number of years (we all knew releasing this so close to Spider-Man was going to result in M4 getting trounced, but getting bested by Sing 2 as well is just .... demoralizing quite frankly). Best bet *might* be a television show (live action or animated) on HBO Max, especially since the ending left open many and unresolved issues, from "the suits" still being in charge, Bootleg Smith being loose, etc., but with the reception being incredibly mixed and box office tanking, Warners may very well take this as the public not having an appetite for the Matrix any longer. We'll see. This film was always going to have a uphill climb, considering that there has literally been next to no merchandising or licensed material since Revolutions came out. Avatar is pretty much in the same boat, but never bet against Cameron.

To finally wrap this up, the Matrix films are kinda like the Terminator films for me. In which, I tend to like/rank them exactly in order. So yeah, both franchises ultimately suffer from dimenishing returns, and I would definitely rank the presentation of the original Matrix Trilogy, over what we're offered with Resurrections. As far as it's placement in the lore goes, I'll probably end up considering this film as more of a "accessory" than anything else. To bring in another comparison, if I want to read some Frank Miller Batman, I'm going with Batman Year One, and Dark Knight Returns. Both are apex quintessential Frank Miller Batman. The rest, like the Batman/Spawn crossover, DKSA, All Star, Master Race, Last Crusade, and whatever the hell The Golden Child was, are all just mere accessories. With the Matrix, I'll stick with the classic Matrix Trilogy. Resurrections is more interesting to me as not a 'finale' to the Matrix world, but for all the meta stuff, and subliminal metaphors/symbolism Lana personally worked into the movie to reflect the personal trials and tribulations Lana had recently experienced. It's kinda like how I tend to have more interest in re-reading Frank Miller's "Holy Terror" as a piece of work reflecting Frank's own personal intense emotions about the tragedy that was 9/11 than as a truly advantageous (originally Batman) story.

6 and half out of 10.

[thecolorsblend]

If you ask me, all Resurrections needed to do is be good enough.

Now, I can "criticize" some aspects of it. The original trilogy floated a variety of different theological and philosophical viewpoints (causality, determinism, humanism, etc.) as well as allusions to Plato, Descartes, Socrates and others along with influences from various religious texts. Honestly, it's a pretty heavy intellectual smorgasbord. The end result is very rich cinematic literature that rewards analysis and consideration.

Resurrections has pretty much none of that. Because those points, arguments and questions were already raised by the trilogy. It wouldn't make sense to retread that stuff in a fourth movie.

I too can conjecture that the fight sequences simply aren't as engaging as the sequences in the trilogy. And this, I think, is more fertile ground for criticism, frankly. It's a bit much to expect another intellectual banquet. But asking for some decent fight scenes isn't going too far.

Still, I enjoyed myself while watching the movie, it was a fun ride, Resurrections first did no harm to the original trilogy and now Resurrections fits into the saga, not as a fourth movie. But more of a coda to Revolutions. Sort of a bow around the entire trilogy. A completely optional farewell to fan favorite characters. It's there if you want it. But it isn't mandatory viewing.

I'm also not in a rush to rewatch the movie. But I do think I'll rewatch it at some point.

[thecolorsblend]

At this point, it looks like The Matrix series is truly finished. If another movie gets made, my guess is both Wachowskis will be excluded from it. I'm guessing it'll be a reboot or something.

But even that seems unlikely right now. So, as things stand, there is a core trilogy followed by a fun little coda. I don't think that's a bad position to be in at all.

I stand by my earlier claim that The Matrix series never got the expanded universe it deserved. Tie-in novels and comics to flesh out the world would've been welcome. But you can't have everything. And I'm quite content with what we do have.

[The Dark Knight]

The Matrix and the first two sequels were projects of passion on behalf of the Wachowskis. They storyboarded everything to the last detail and had a very specific story to tell. For Resurrections, Lana effectively turned up on set and just started filming with next to no rehearsals. I do think Lana didn't originally want to make the movie, but embraced the idea and made the most of it. I'm up for expanded content like another Animatrix, or games. The movie just didn't make enough money to get a fifth off the ground, at least in the short term. As a big blockbuster I think the glory days are over. They peaked with Reloaded. I'm still a fan and I accept that nothing last forever. I'd rather something like this rather than other franchises like Die Hard or Terminator that really flamed out creatively.

[thecolorsblend]

So, Resurrections is available now for purchase on iTunes. Apparently, physical media will be released in March.