A common trope in stories of resurrection is that the body comes back to life, but the soul does not come back resulting in a moving but lifeless corpse, a zombie. The Matrix Resurrections attempts to revive a long dead franchise with imperfect results. It's not a bad film, the plot holds together, there's some neat effects and some good jokes, but it doesn't really have a pulse. There is no purpose or meaning. It moves, but it's not really alive.
While watching this movie I kept thinking about Isn't It Romantic, a rom-com parody starring Rebel Wilson. In that movie, Rebel plays a woman who hates rom-coms who finds herself living in a world that runs on rom-com rules. It's a delightfully meta movie that never forgets that as much as it pretend to hate the genre, it is very much a rom-com and ultimately a love letter to the genre. The Matrix Resurrections frequently parodies its own status as an overly late franchise revival, but unlike Isn't It Romantic, it thinks it's better than the glut of reboots that have taken over Hollywood in the past decade. But like the rest of these movies, there just doesn't feel like there is any reason for this movie to exist other than to sell movie tickets by capitalizing on established brand. The Forky Problem is taking over Hollywood and it shows no sign of relenting. In a moment of self-parody that does not feel intentional the movie devolves into a zombie movie with no acknowledgement that the movie itself is a zombie.
Philosophy has been an important part of the franchise from the beginning. The original film was an unabashed retelling of The Allegory of the Cave with touches of Simulacra and Simulation. Reloaded's philosophy could be summed up by that scene where the king of Zion looks straight into the camera and asks "What is control?" Revolutions was about learning that two side of a conflict often have more in common than they realize and there is more to be gained by cooperation than repeating the same fights again and again. There were multiple books and college courses about the philosophical depth of these films. Resurrections says that most people want to be controlled and it never actually debates the point. It just offers that some people are special and can make their own choices. There's no depth to the argument. It's just there to check the box that "this movie needs some philosophy." I don't think any professors are going to be putting this movie on their syllabus. If they really wanted to make that the theme, then they should have set the film at the start of the new matrix when the people were choosing between freedom and captivity. Give me Neo vs. Hobbes' Leviathan.
As I watch this sequel to a movie where the actor's names have changed, I can't help but to wonder when did we all become John Mayer whining about his lunchbox being thrown away and pining for 1983 (in this case, 1999)?
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