I am unsure of how to say this … so I’ll just say it. The Matrix Resurrections was garbage and offensive to me.
What I mean is I’m one of the first generation … those of us who experienced the original first film and were genuinely transformed by it’s messages. I’m one of the few who really understood what it was saying and didn’t go on to destroy that meaning or water it down or further transform it into something only I wanted it to be. The rest of culture … the audience that the new film is for … they did that. They created the culture that gave birth to this angry, repulsive, reclaiming of something that was originally a great gift.
So The Matrix is now this film that makes fun of the culture that destroyed it, dumbed it down, made fun of it and missed the point. Sitting through this crap and being lectured to and basically told that I’m responsible for destroying everything The Matrix was sucks. I didn’t do that. I didn’t deserve this.
Culture inevitably takes media and mauls it. That is the nature of culture … It takes art into itself and makes it into something it can control … especially art that stirs it up, speaks to politics and society and yes, even pisses people off. Culture destroys art that it is threatened by or it simply strips it of it’s power by making parodies or memes or whatever else. So this film addresses that in it’s own way and that pisses me off.
As someone pushing 50 the only thing I could appreciate was seeing Moss being Moss and being amazing as a woman of a certain age. I missed her. I like seeing women – who Hollywood says are too old to exist on screen – on screen “reclaiming their time”. I loved seeing evil Neil get his ass kicked but I hated his predictable, boring misogyny. I hated pointless fight scenes that went on for hours because the movie is made for a new generation (that it clearly hates), that has not one brain cell to think with and just wants to watch YouTube influencers beat each other up.
I hate that this is the Matrix now. I hate that new generations will never know how epic, original, deep, and powerful it was. I hate that all they know is the very garbage that this film addresses.