Main cast: Keanu Reeves (Thomas Anderson/Neo), Carrie-Anne Moss (Tiffany/Trinity), Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Morpheus), Jessica Henwick (Bugs), Jonathan Groff (Agent Smith), Neil Patrick Harris (The Analyst), Priyanka Chopra Jonas (Sati), Jada Pinkett Smith (Niobe), and Lambert Wilson (The Merovingian)
Director: Lana Wachowski

According to rumors and, if you believe some people, heavily inferred to in a scene in this movie, Lana Wachowski drew the short straw and, as her sister tried not to appear too relieved in the background, she was forced to do The Matrix Resurrections under the threat of the show going ahead anyway with or without her or her sister’s involvement. Because of this, she basically crapped out the script with a couple of folks while probably high under DGAF and what not, and got all her friends that appeared in Sense8 and on her “folks that owe me favors” list to make an appearance on this show.

This is why the show is just not fun. It was deliberately made to be that way by the people forced to be the captain of this thing.

Of course, all this can just be stuff made up by the cult member-like fans of the Wachowski sisters, because when I look at their track record of movies, most of them are not good, let’s just say.

At any rate, it doesn’t change the fact that this show is just not fun, and worst of all, it clocks in at slightly less than two hours and 30 minutes. Who has time to endure crap that lasts that long? Oh, right, idiots like me, but my excuse is that I sit through the whole thing just to write this review for you people. That and I have some nice snacks to help ease the pain and the tedium.

Now, note that I didn’t say that this movie is bad. I think people that have not watched The Matrix may be charmed by it, because it has its moments.

For people that have been around for the last 20 years, however, and have watched the original movie and (unfortunately) the sequels, they will be deluged with things that will feel so dated and played out now. Most obvious are all the slow motion scenes of bullets flying past the head and people fighting like they are in an anti-gravity room—these have all been copied and even parodied and made fun of in so many shows since The Matrix that watching these scenes is like being forcibly reminded of fashion scares of the past few decades that one really doesn’t want to be reminded of. What was fun and new at one time just feels so, so geriatric here… kind of like the main cast, heh.

Even the story is basically a retool. The whole Matrix thing has been rebooted, and Neo and Trinity have been resurrected for study… but by whom? He believes that he is a video game developer reluctantly forced to do a sequel by Warner Bros due to contractual obligations—ahem—and he is haunted by a woman, Tiffany, who reminds him a lot of someone he once knew…

Of course, he soon discovers the Matrix, yadda yadda, Agent Smith, Morpheus, and all that jazz. Perhaps fans of the old movies may enjoy the nostalgia, but I personally find that Jonathan Groff just makes me miss Hugo Weaving’s Agent Smith, while Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Morpheus just feels tad reductive following Laurence Fishburne’s portrayal of that character. Then we have the usual heavy exposition dumps passed off conversations, and the cherry on top is the revelation that Trinity, not Neo, is the ultimate bad-ass here, with the final scene of Neo standing quietly behind her as she delivers the ultimatum that she is the final boss of everyone.

The last one seems to run counter to all the lore in the previous movies, as it presents a chosen one theme when Neo was, in the previous movies, the hero not because he was chosen; rather, he happens to be more aware than the people around him of what is happening, due to his familiarity with software and such. So how did the chosen one thing suddenly come about?

Then again, I think by this point Ms Warchowski probably didn’t recall or care about continuity as, if rumors were true, she was dragged kicking to the director’s chair anyway.

I wonder whether the purpose of this thing is to create spin-offs to pad the HBO streaming service, because that new character Bugs is exactly another clichéd “Sassy! Bewilderingly capable!” made-by-committee “strong female lead” that Hollywood these days are pooping out by the dozen per every squat over the toilet.

The fact remains: The Matrix is better off treated as a single movie, because the terrible sequels really drag the poor baby down. Anyway, let’s just shove this thing into the memory hole with all the other sequels.