Are we real or are we living inside a simulation? What is “Real”? Something my eyes see or my senses feel? Isn’t that just our brain processing some signals inside our brain and making us believe we are experiencing that? How do we know what is absolute reality then? Over two decades ago when The Matrix was first released, it was an indescribable phenomenon. It affected and touched and inspired an entire generation. It raised those questions in us and made us think. Very few sci-fi action movies can create the effect and culture The Matrix trilogy did. I have been watching the trilogy since I was a kid. Even when I didn’t understand any scientific stuff portrayed there or had any idea about computer programs or simulations. I loved Neo, I loved the actions, fight against machines, jaw dropping stunts, car chases and what not. When I started understanding the underlying philosophy of the trilogy and could grasp the technical details, I just loved it even more. Sometimes the matrix makes more sense than the real world. I love it so much that I used to binge watch the trilogy every couple of months. Just imagine my excitement and enthusiasm when I saw that a fourth matrix movie, The Matrix Resurrections, is coming. I was a bit skeptical about what they are going to do but I was hopeful too. After all it’s Neo, the ONE himself, coming back from the dead. All kind of things could happen. Was I wrong or was I wrong?
[SPOILER ALERT]
Resurrected? But Why?
First of all, the movie shouldn’t be a movie at all. The main story was so unimaginative and boring, that they could show it in 30 minutes. The timeline is 60 years after the third movie, Revolutions. Neo goes to the machine city at the end and dies there, so does Trinity. So here they showed that Neo and Trinity were brought back by the machines because they generate a large amount of energy together. Why??? No clue. Through countless iterations the new designer found out that, while when they worked together, they overpowered the system, but if Neo and Trinity are kept close to each other but without making contact, the other humans within the Matrix would better accept the simulation and produce more energy for the machines. Why??? No clue.
A World Without Oracle and Architect
In the main trilogy there was this Architect, who used to design the Matrix. He was the father of the Matrix whereas The Oracle was like the mother. In this version, there’s no Architect, no Oracle. There’s this Analyst, who created the new version of the matrix where he imprisoned Neo and Trinity again. The Architect was very hard to reach to. In fact, to reach him Neo had to fight through the entire second movie, The Matrix Reloaded and in the end he got to meet him and got answers to his questions. In that conversation the Architect says that there had been many more “The One” before Neo and there will always be more. The job of the One is to select handful of man and woman and rebuild Zion, the last existing human city. Neo didn’t want to accept that and he ended up saving Zion from the machines anyway. Unlike the Architect, the Analyst isn’t unreachable or unapproachable at all. In fact he is Neo’s therapist. Within the simulated reality of the Matrix, Neo is a successful video game developer, creator of a trilogy of games based on his dreams from his faint memories of being Neo. At a coffee shop, he keeps encountering Tiffany, a married mother who reminds him of Trinity. He struggles to separate his perceived reality from his dreams, and his therapist a.k.a. the Analyst prescribes him blue pills to keep his sanity. However, he stops taking the medication, and continues to confuse his reality and dreams. He is eventually freed by some new characters, who were grandchildren of the people Neo fought with in the Machine War. Neo sees that his sacrifice was fruitful, because people could grow fruits now 😛 .
What Happened to Zion?
Zion was eventually destroyed because they believed in Neo!!! They didn’t see any disaster coming. The city that fought for so long against machines and had a leader like Morpheus in the counsel, didn’t see a disaster coming because they had blind faith in Neo. I found that a bit hard to understand. Nevertheless, some machines switched side and helped humans now. They built a new city called IO where human and machines worked together for the betterment of everyone. Fine, I don’t have any problem with that. Machines are logical creature. If they believe that some other machine’s protocols don’t make sense, they can choose to help humans. Just like Oracle helped Morpheus and Neo. That’s the only thing that made sense to me in this movie. Now coming back to IO, the leader of this city is now Niobe from the main trilogy, who was Morpheus’s ex, who also fought alongside Neo. I loved seeing her, I mean the character itself. She was bold and brave and clever. It makes sense that she became a General in the new regime. My problem is, I have never seen such a ridiculous makeup job in such an important character in such a movie.
Therapist / Analyst / Designer
Enough about IO, let’s go inside the matrix. So this new designer of the matrix, the Analyst, he thought that he will tame Neo with Neo’s trick, by moving superfast or making everything around him slow, so time manipulation. There are couple of scenes where he does this. Everything along with Neo freezes, moves very slowly, whilst he moves normally and explains his evil(!!!) scheme or plot to Neo. I mean, come on!!! This was so ridiculous, hilarious and annoying at the same time. Neo was The One. He is not like other random dudes whom you can tame with programming parameters, like a cheat code in a game. The Oracle herself said once that The One’s power extends beyond the matrix. He could stop machines or squids in real world just as he could stop bullets inside the matrix. He could fly, dodge bullets and see the source code of any entity inside the matrix and modify them like he wanted. After resurrecting Neo, the Analyst brainwashed him and kept him inside a new version of matrix for 20 years. He was still plugged in to the powerplant, just as was Trinity. During this period he couldn’t free his mind or break any laws set by the machines or the Analyst, and that’s fine. But my question is, once he went back to the real world, once his mind was freed, how come the Analyst could still control him using his rules??? Apparently he couldn’t control Agent Smith. Agent Smith was a part of the system and he could still break the laws, but The One couldn’t???
Agent Smith and Morpheus
Okay. But wait, Agent Smith. Where did he come from??? The Architect agreed to call back his machines from attacking Zion because of Neo’s offer to help him defeat Agent Smith. Agent Smith became this self replicating program that got out of control of the machines themselves. At the last fight between Neo and Agent Smith, Neo loses eventually and allows Agent Smith to replicate him as well. Agent Smith thinks he won but he didn’t know that Neo was plugged in at the heart of the machine world at that time. This way the Architect got access to the source code of Agent Smith and destroyed all the copies of him. So, how did he come back in the new version of the matrix? What’s more weird is the new Morpheus. In a loading construct, Morpheus reveals that Neo created Morpheus as part of two antagonistic forces meant to help Neo become the One, the other one being Agent Smith. I don’t recall ever seeing either of them wearing colorful red or orange suits or cracking jokes that are not funny. This was merely a shadow of Morpheus and the execution was horrible.
Final Verdict about the Plot
What else should I talk about. Oh right, the main plot. The main plot is that Neo is resurrected and after he wakes up he wants to resurrect Trinity as well and he does that with the help of couple of random characters from the “Sense 8” cast and blows up some cars and helicopters along the way. Yeah, that’s basically it. I’m not sure if it would take even 30 minutes for that. Given the runtime of almost two and a half hours, the plot could have offered much more. But no, they thought they’ll bring in actors like Priyanka Chopra out of nowhere and perform unrealistic and illogical operations and give dialogues like, “right now the most important decision in Neo’s life is not his”. Wait, what??? Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore Neo and Trinity, they are one of my all time favorite couples in any kind of movie or tv show. I love their chemistry, the spark and every single dialogue or action sequence they were in. I was excited to see their reunion in the new movie. But they made the entire movie just about that, if Trinity will agree to go back to the real world or not. Neo confronts the Analyst in the matrix, demanding that he honors the agreement reached at the end of the Machine War and releases Trinity from the Matrix if that’s her will, agreeing to return to the Matrix himself if she declines. The Analyst agrees. Trinity, as Tiffany, is brought to them and when the question is posed to her, her family appears in an attempt to lure her into staying in the Matrix. At the last second, she rejects that reality and recognizes herself as Trinity. The Analyst prepares to kill them, but Smith intercedes, temporarily stopping the Analyst and giving Neo, Trinity, and the others time to escape. It could have been a great scene about them getting reunited but only if there were some other story in the movie.
I Want a Remake
I really don’t understand, why would they do something like this with such a legendary franchise. The special effects were poor in some scenes, there were mistakes in the editing that you do not expect from a movie like this and the list of things that disappointed me are actually endless. I guess just because I love the trilogy so much and had such high expectations, I just hated it all the more. There’s no sugarcoating it, David Mitchell & Aleksandar Hemon did a horrible job with the plot. Just like Zack Snyder did with Justice League, I wish the Wachowskis will come back and make a “Wachowskis Matrix Resurrection” that they write and direct themselves.