The Matrix Resurrections (2021)

Surprisingly good. - JW

Return to a world of two realities: one, everyday life; the other, what lies behind it. To find out if his reality is a construct, to truly know himself, Mr. Anderson will have to choose to follow the white rabbit once more.

From IMDB:

8/10
The Matrix Reinvigorated.
southdavid23 December 2021
"The Matrix" has a complex legacy. It's first film is one of cinema's most iconic, reinventing action films for the 21st century. Its sequels were felled by bloat, parody and a focus on pseudointellectual waffle about choice. Twenty years later, this continuation of the story was, for me, a much better sequel - but I can understand why other people might not feel the same way.

Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is a game designer. Twenty years ago, his video game about a digital world acting as an anaesthetic to hide the truth about human existence was a big hit. Since then his life has been marred by mental illness, suicide attempts and an inability to accept his world as being real. He is approached by Bugs (Jessica Henwick) who tries to convince Neo that his instincts are right and he's back in the simulation, but if the events of "The Matrix" were, in fact, real - how is Neo still alive?

I feel like the discovery of the meta way this film is dealing with the previous ones is going to govern your feelings about the rest of the film. It's not the first time that a film has played with its own mythology in this sort of way, but I felt that this was, in the context of the series, a clever way to go. It allowed this film to homage (and even directly show) the originals and ties back into the plot. The logic behind all of the films choices I thought was well done. Why the machines put Neo back in the Matrix, the explanation for why Trinity was there, the reskins for Morpheus and Agent Smith are all dealt with well. There are even meta gags for those with a deeper knowledge about the films, such as casting Chad Stahelski as Chad, a replacement for Thomas Anderson and John Gaeta as the designer arguing for more Bullet time.

There's also a couple of reasonably good action scenes. The main one, a bike chase through the streets of San Francisco is really well done and "swarm mode" a reference to horde modes that various games have now, was clever if occasionally a little horrific. I liked a lot of the new characters and having watched "Sense8" it's nice for so much of that cast to get another chance to appear for Wachowski here.

Faults mostly lie with the films slightly anticlimactic ending, for me. I'm not really sure why the . . . Villains . . (sorry, trying to remain spoiler free) stop coming after them. I'd liked to have spent more time outside of the construct and seen what's going on, but there's a chance for that if the film proves successful. (I fear one week between "Spider-Man" and this isn't enough for that to be the case though.)

I think this is comfortably the best sequel to "The Matrix" and one of the better films I've seen this year.

https://www2.zoechip.com/movie/the-matrix-resurrections-71395