The biggest surprise of ‘The Matrix Resurrections is how much I liked it

Posted on January 7, 2022

By MARK VIOLA

“The Matrix,” which hits theaters in 1999, is (in my humble opinion) one of the best action movies of the 1990s and one of the best sci-fi films of all time. Thanks to a marketing campaign that asked, but did not answer, the question, “What is the Matrix?” my friends and I entered the theater desperate to find out.

Four years later, the Wachowski sisters delivered not one, but two sequels, “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions,” which greatly divided audiences. Having rewatched all three films in preparation for the new movie, I can say that “Reloaded” overall works quite well, even though it took the huge risk of taking everything we thought we knew after the original movie and turning it all on its head. Unfortunately, “Revolutions” suffered from some serious pacing issues, and it didn’t nail the landing that “Reloaded” laid the groundwork for months earlier.

Now, 17 years after those films, we have “The Matrix Resurrections,” directed and co-written by Lana Wachowski. I tried to avoid the trailers, but ended up seeing them in front of other movies. However, even after watching three trailers, I still had no clue what to expect going into this new film. If I’m being honest, the one thing I truly didn’t expect was to actually enjoy the movie, but that’s exactly what happened.

Strictly from a story perspective, I’d call “Resurrections a redemption movie in the vein of “Ocean’s 13,” which, while not nearly as good as the original movie, provided the franchise with a much more satisfying conclusion than “Ocean’s 12” did.

Likewise, “Resurrections” delivers a much better ending to the story of the Matrix than “Revolutions” did. And, because it does, I can mostly forgive the film’s other flaws, most notably with the action.

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