A Review of Matrix Resurrections: Why was this Movie Made?
WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW
The disaster that was Matrix Resurrections requires more than one review post to properly dissect. The first post focuses on the movie itself, while this one will attempt to dig a little deeper into the purpose or origin of the film, asking the important question: why was it made?
Big budget action movies need to make a lot of money to pay for the enormous production and marketing costs. So when this movie was pitched, the producers somehow were convinced this would be a moneymaker. A cynic might think the producers were pitched a Matrix sequel, an incredibly popular trilogy with a huge fan base. Any sequel, prequel, or reboot of the successful franchise has potential.
Did the conversation stop there? Was it really just, “Matrix sequel? Son of a bitch. I’m in!”
It could not have been that simple. Sequels are not guaranteed success. Hollywood knows that. The Transformers sequels performed progressively worse after Dark of the Moon. Independence Day: Resurgence, A Good Day to Die Hard, Men in Black: International, Terminator: Genisys, Terminator: Dark Fate, X-Men: Dark Phoenix, Pacific Rim: Uprising, The Predator, Prometheus, and Covenant are all examples of sequels that failed to be profitable, some failed miserably.
It can’t be blind faith in the Wachowskis. In particular, Lana Wachowski has not written or directed a successful film in a long time. Her last two movies, Jupiter Ascending and Cloud Atlas, did not perform well. The appeal of Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss may have been a good selling point but good casts can’t save bad scripts.
What about the story? How could you bring back two dead characters? What about Neo’s victory in Revolutions? Trinity died in the last film. Neo defeated Agent Smith and secured a truce with the machines, freeing everyone in the Matrix. The war was over. The story arc tied up neatly. There was some doubt of whether Neo was truly dead but most accepted it. As an audience member, you had to feel closure at the conclusion of the third film. The explanation for their resurrection and basis for the sequel are incredibly weak. Even a cynical producer had to see it…right?
Why make a sequel at all? Why not a reboot? Resurrections could not bring some key cast members back, including Lawrence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving. There is also the issue of everyone aging 20 years. So the story would have to take place much later in order to maintain suspension of disbelief. A reboot avoids all these problems. You can recast legacy characters with younger actors who don’t need to appear as they were 20 years ago. No need to de-age them with CGI tricks. Also, you aren’t chained down by the events of the previous films.
Perhaps the script blew them away in how meta it was, but how has a sequel ever succeeded by being meta, or admitting to the audience it is a cynical attempt to cash in on the franchise? Why would anyone on the project or in the industry want to draw attention to that? Parody? That is the only approach that makes sense, and there are examples, but as explained in previous post, this movie isn’t a parody.
Was it a middle finger to Warner Bros.? If the project came about just like the new Matrix game in the movie, perhaps Lana Wachowski was pressured into making the sequel. Only, that doesn’t make much sense. Why intentionally make a bad movie that potentially sullies your legacy?
If you’re worried about Warner Bros. damaging your legacy with a bad sequel, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to step in and just make your own bad sequel. Sure, it damages Warner Bros. financially but how does one get up and go to work every day to complete a project for that reason? How petty are you?
No, that can’t be it.
Maybe it was one of the other themes. Except, the philosophy of this movie is far less impressive and seems to either completely borrow from previous films or outright contradicts it.
Matrix Resurrections reverses course on some key elements of the trilogy. In the trilogy, Neo is part of the system, the remainder of an equation the machines cannot resolve without giving him a conscious choice to return to “the source.” Inside the Matrix, he is the One, a special being who can manipulate the code of the system. Outside the Matrix, he is just a man. Matrix Resurrections presents a new matrix powered by the connection between Neo and Trinity. This is a connection never encountered before in the One, and its energy potential is only observed when the two are revived.
Morpheus explained in the first film that the human body produces a certain amount of energy. This was disturbing because using human bodies to power a system sounded plausible. This is supposed to be science fiction after all, not fantasy. Yet, here we are with another “love conquers all” plot device.
More importantly, the One is not a power source. Neither Neo nor Trinity should be able to affect the machines or anything in the real world in any supernatural way. The movie expects us to accept that their love is a power source. This is a tired, played-out trope in speculative fiction. Cyberpunk is replaced with a tribute to romantic love. In addition to being a whole lot less original and interesting, it renders any philosophical exposition before it meaningless.
Then there is the Analyst’s (Neil Patrick Harris) explanation of why the new Matrix works so much better, aside from the Neo-Trinity power plant. What about humanity’s fixation on feelings over fact? The Analyst explains, “[humans inside the Matrix] crave comfort and certainty.” This also contradicts the trilogy. If comfort and certainty were sufficient, the paradise Matrix would not have failed. Wouldn’t such a simulation provide that? If not, what is the difference?
The Analyst explains that feelings are easier to control than facts. How? Exactly what in the Matrix or in our own experience would support this? There is no explanation in the film. Who can honestly say that feelings are easy to control? His quip about humans not giving a shit about facts, well that is exactly the basis of the original Matrix. As the Architect explained in Matrix Reloaded, all humans trapped inside accept the programming (which isn’t real, not facts) as long as they were only aware of it on a subconscious level.
So what is the difference? How is the Analyst’s approach to providing emotional satisfaction any less real than the simulated Matrix based on equations? Neither are built on “facts.” They’re both fantasy worlds.
Cipher once said that the Matrix can be more real because he believed he could be plugged back in and his memory erased. To him, that existence is more real, and worthy of his faith. The Analyst makes the exact same point. There’s nothing really new here.
So what makes it different? the new Matrix visually appears identical to the old. It has 2021 technology compared to 2001 technology in the original movies. So, was his innovation adding social media? Introducing the concept of subjective facts, real news vs fake news? These are part of public discourse now but groups of society believing in different things and having their own “facts” has been a feature of human societies for a long time. Humanity has always found ways to affirm their beliefs or affirm their worldview, believing in “fucked up shit.” It is rare that we find all ourselves on the same page.
Another big change in the world-building is Trinity bring granted the powers of the One. This is never explained. What part of her resurrection surgery gave her this ability? She loved Neo before she died. Why didn’t she have these powers then? Why is she granted them now? Why does it take jumping off a building to tap in to them?
Why do Neo and Trinity gladly accept the Analyst’s “go ahead change the matrix” offer? After beating the shit out of him and promising to reshape the Matrix, they fly away. The problem is, we saw this in the first movie and learned from the sequels, this was not a victory. It was exactly what the machines predicted would happened and were content to let the anomaly manifest in that way.
Neither Neo nor Trinity pick up on this. Yet both of them were there when it happened the first time over twenty years ago.
Maybe Lana Wachowski has the answers to all of this. The problem is, these explanations are not in the movie itself. Defenders may draw on postmodernist philosophy texts or Lana’s comments in interviews but if you can’t find it in the work itself, the work is a failure. You shouldn’t need to watch supplemental videos or read books ahead of time to understand a sci-fi action movie.
After thinking about it for a week, I still do not understand how producers failed to see the problems with the script, or the project as a whole. Someone had to recognize the problems here. If they did, why was this movie made? After all this, I still don’t know.