Netflix movie of the day: The Matrix Resurrections is a masterpiece, and no one will convince me otherwise
The creator of The Matrix was never going to just make The Matrix again – and that’s a good thing
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The Matrix Resurrectionshas been somewhat maligned since its release, with its heavily meta first half and its drastic change in action style from the earlier movies putting off a lot of people who loved, in particular, the first film. But I think the movie is kind of an incredible achievement, a brilliant update to the themes ofThe Matrix25 years later, and the inevitable evolution of the story from a filmmaker who was never just going to rehash what she did originally – and we shouldn’t want her to. I urge you to revisit it – or watch it for the first time – onNetflixwith an open mind to where this movie wants to take you.
InResurrections, Neo is back… sort of. He’s Thomas Anderson, the creator ofThe Matrix, a colossal video game hit. He’s been working on new ideas, but all anybody wants to speak to him about is a sequel toThe Matrix. Eventually, he’s told in no uncertain terms that his parent company, Warner Bros., will make aMatrixsequel with or without him, and that it’d be better if he were involved.
This meta moment mimics the reported real-life circumstances around the development of this movie – and is so meta that it rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way. ButThe Matrixhas always been meta! The training dojo scene in the original movie has commentary about Hollywood action movies of the time. “Do you believe that my being stronger or faster has anything to do with my muscles in this place?” asks Morpheus – about a movie set as much as about the training simulation. The Matrix trilogy’s whole over-arching plot is about subverting the traditional Hero’s Journey in movies, and having Neo actively reject how he’s ‘supposed’ to behave in the story.
Resurrections' version of this Hollywood rebuke is to make the point that it’s been asked to be ‘The Matrix, again’ – and even starts with a redux of a scene from the original film – but that itcan’tbeThe Matrix, again. Not just because Lana Wachowski has changed in that time, but because the world has changed, too. The pre-millennium malaise depicted in the original movie is long gone, and even its action would be pointless to repeat whenso manymovies have copied it and riffed on it.
So instead we have a movie where people are kept in the Matrix by a system that uses their anger as the method of keeping them trapped, where expressing dissent might get you attacked by an army of bots, where the good guy’s coolest power is twisted against him, where isolation won’t help you and our power to overcome The Man is driven by coming together. It makes up for the ways the original trilogy under-used Trinity, and gives the saga the ‘hell yeah’ ending to match the first movie it maybe always should have had.
I’d rank it among thebest Netflix moviespersonally – obviously not everyone feels the same as me, but I think that partly depends on your expectations.
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Matt is TechRadar’s Managing Editor for Entertainment, meaning he’s in charge of persuading our team of writers and reviewers to watch the latest TV shows and movies on gorgeous TVs and listen to fantastic speakers and headphones. It’s a tough task, as you can imagine. Matt has over a decade of experience in tech publishing, and previously ran the TV & audio coverage for our colleagues at T3.com, and before that he edited T3 magazine. During his career, he’s also contributed to places as varied as Creative Bloq, PC Gamer, PetsRadar, MacLife, and Edge. TV and movie nerdism is his speciality, and he goes to the cinema three times a week. He’s always happy to explain the virtues of Dolby Vision over a drink, but he might need to use props, like he’s explaining the offside rule.
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