What I was hoping for - a massive slice of action packed heroic nostalgia pie that would make me question the very fabric of reality when it was done, similar to the first three.
What I got - Best described by one reviewer on IMDB - 'The fan movie no one really asked for.'
Oh boy, can we unplug this one already?
I LOVED THE ORIGINAL MATRIX
No seriously, what a great entry point into the year 2000 - a great science fiction film that had us all looking for glitches in our own lives for a laugh, wanting matrix code as our screen savers and marvelling at moments like 'bullet time.' Yes I know it's nowhere near as astounding 23 years on, but like when the T-1000 comes out of the floor for the first time in T2, it blew our minds.
Reloaded and Revolutions went alright - I mean it was hard to top the first one obviously but it had some very solid foundations in terms of characters backed by really strong actors that had really come places from machines to gods to disbelievers becoming true believers and so much growth for all.
Resurrections though? Well it's brought the Matrix back from the grave alright but I reckon a fair share of the original soul of this thing was well and truly left buried in the dirt...
THERE'LL BE NO (REAL) SPOILERS HERE
Well I'll try, but no promises. It came out last year, it's on streaming (Netflix currently) so you've had enough time I feel to absorb this yourself if you really want to. And don't worry, I will unearth the good and the bad from what I recall, it certainly won't be a blow by blow account of why you really should swipe right on this offering - although there's already a couple of reviews on this blog for movies in that 'Oh god why?' category, such as Cosmic Sin and Alien Covenant if you're in that particular mood.
WHAT I ENJOYED
Carrie-Anne Moss
Thankfully they didn't feed her and Keanu a diet heavy on the salt to sport that well dehydrated look that life outside of the Matrix seems to be famous for like they did in the first movie. No here she looks like a bike loving kick ass mum who loves her chat, her coffee and the occasional bout of confusion as she comes to terms with who she's supposed to be. She's not drowning in a long leather jacket anymore, she can still throw down when she needs to and at times she gives off this generations Ellen Ripley vibes. That's pretty impressive given what she has to work with here.
Keanu Reeves
I've been enjoying a bit of his work recently, especially when he shows up and plays the absolutely smack out of Johnny Silverhand in the Cyberpunk video game. Because I played the hell out of the original RPG and knew the story about Silverhand, Rogue and the battle against evil corporation Arasaka quite well - having seen him play the role now and listened to him curse me along the way while I tried to get him out of my head, I couldn't imagine anyone doing it better. Seriously, he's that good.
He's Silverhand, he's John Wick, he's Neo and he plays them all to a tee. And he's done okay here, considering there's two major characters that I'll get to in a sec that were shades of what they should have been, characters that he would usually intertwine with so well...but not here.
He still kicks ass though, there's no one like nice guy Keanu period.
Neil Patrick Harris
Once upon a time in a review long forgotten on the net somewhere, I likened the enthusiasm of a Panic at the Disco album to be very hard to dent, even with a sledgehammer. And I liken NPH to that album because he seems to be having a loving time doing what he's doing. He obviously read the script and decided that regardless of how left of centre it was going, he was going to enjoy every damn second he had in front of the camera and that's what we've got here - a character he's poured himself right into once again.
Without revealing who he plays, let's just say that without him this film would be a whole heap empty because there really wasn't too much going on in his wake..
Bugs
It'd be very difficult to establish yourself as a new character in this long loved series but Bugs makes it, just, by virtue of not only surviving a lot of battles but also starting off this story and being more memorable than the rest of her crew (Sequoia is probably the only exception.) Oh considering what she does before she becomes a member of the resistance gives her extra matrix cred (she was a window washer originally.)
WHAT I'M INDIFFERENT ABOUT
The robots/machine crew mates
Remind me again why they're here and if they do anything other than act like retrieval dogs and mild mannered livestock? Or is that it? Yes I know Neo impressed both worlds when he was around and maybe I missed something here (undoubtedly) but this whole 'Hey were teaming up with things that used to herd us like cattle now' story seemed a little underwhelming. Especially when a tiny robot gave a fist bump - I'm having horrendous transformer movie flashbacks already.
AND 'WHAT IN THE FAT FISHES OF A PHENOMENAL F### IS GOING ON' WITH:
The exiles
Programs that do various things but suffer from glitches, so much so that people attribute them to ghosts and other unexplained things. Usually busy hiding from agents who see them as the scum of the digital earth, for whatever reason there's a bunch of them in this film...teaming up with an agent. While that was confusing enough, the guy in charge of them had me scratching my head some more for a time..
The crazy old homeless man
'Who is this guy, why is he ranting, why should I care?' all questions I asked myself as he turned up with the exiles, proceeded to get angry and that was about it. I didn't even wonder why he was ranting in French (it was French wasn't it?) until a couple of days after the fact and it only clicked who it may be when I was asking someone else who'd seen the film all about him.
'Was he the Merovingian?' Turns out he was. Seriously, if I have to ask outside a film who someone is (and then read up on a wiki somewhere for further details) then we're really in trouble.
Morpheus 2.0
Where is Morpheus? I am Morpheus! We're all Morpheus! (I'm not...) Yeah wow, what's going on here exactly? Apparently I have to ask one of the Wachowskis if I want to know why Laurence Fishburne isn't part of this effort because he's not saying and no one else is. So now we have new Morpheus, or Aliexpress Morpheus that tries but really isn't close to the real deal.
Now before someone comes along and points out that this version is a computerised simulation sandwich between Morpheus and a certain other popular digital character from the Matrix universe, understand that I get that. It just feels too much of a jump from the controlled tones of Fishburne and too hyper from the original model, like Fishburne at 1.5x. That just doesn't feel like it gels with the underground hero of yore.
Smith version...uh...whatever he's up to by now
Finally we hit in my mind peak disappointment in character development as we encounter Agent Smith in this form. Which is kind of like buying a brand new Ford Mustang off the lot with shiny shiny paintwork, only to find that for your money you didn't get wheels. Or a transmission. Or an engine actually. Oh and no suspension.
Worse, they drained the fuel tank just before you got there.
Because Hugo Weaving was Agent smith from his deadpan everything at the start to his maniacal ways towards the end. We watched as he expanded his programming and ultimately his madness exponentially, reached virtual godhood and became virtual public enemy numero uno, so much so that the machines sided with Neo just to stop him and his world running riot. Weaving was synonymous with the role, just like Fishburne was with Morpheus and KR as Neo.
This agent Smith? Doesn't feel like Smith, doesn't feel like an Agent. Johnathan Groff plays a good bad guy, but they were insanely big shoes left by Weaving (who was off doing something else at the time of feeling) and sadly with this story, John's got his bathers on for a whole heap of shoe swimming. Points for trying but you can't put a weekend gymnast in a UFC ring and hope he brings back the heavyweight title first bout.
Not a fan of this one, so it's a no for me. Did you enjoy it? Let me know below!
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