This past week, I rewatched the original Matrix and then Matrix Resurrections.
My wife went to the theater to see the film with friends. I wasn't feeling great, so I stayed home and saw it on HBO. Both of us, independently, walked out after about 90 minutes had passed.
It's got to be one of the most fascinatingly clumsy films I've seen in years. Scenes transition like lightning between sterile shot-for-shot repetition of past Matrix films, characters dumping exposition like it's a first-sitting line reading, nauseating cut-ins of archival footage from past Matrix film, and wooden action scenes that only illustrate the massive chasm left by Yuen Woo-ping's absence. The action scenes often imitate the set dressing of prior movies but lack purpose, stakes, or soul. New characters seem to serve the sole purpose of pawns who must be in place to move legacy characters from scene to scene, or as expys of actors who declined to return to an aging franchise.
The meta moments did not feel like clever commentary on the nature of The Matrix as a construct, but instead as empty, winking surface-level reference, or worse, disdain on the part of the filmmakers forced to return to a franchise they wished they could leave behind.
Worst of all for me is the reduction of Trinity - a rare example of an action heroine from her era - to a prop that must be rescued. As I understand, the movie eventually allows her to reclaim her agency, but only at the end. I was not engaged enough to continue on the film's empty, stakes-free journey between flatly shot effect scenes.
I'm no Matrix super-fan, nor did I have anything riding on my enjoyment of this movie. I came in with no expectations. The original Matrix is an outstanding cyberpunk action film, and I enjoyed returning it both on its own merits and on more recent LGBT-centric readings of it. It's a film that is refreshing for its dedication to its concept and which does not care if you think it is a little bit silly.
Matrix Resurrections is a film that pats itself on the back for lines such as "I still know kung-fu."