FULL & HONEST REVIEW
It’s bad. While not as bad as Revolutions (which isn’t saying much), it didn’t really feel like a Matrix movie. If it wasn’t for the lame call-back attempts (the first half was riddled with flashback scene after flashback scene), one could easily forget they were watching a matrix movie, but here’s some other reasons why I didn’t care for the film:
For starters, and not intending to be funny here, but Neo looked too much like John Wick. Like, other than the classic body plugs and shaved head following “the flush”, they didn’t even try to change his appearance, like at all. Same hair style/length, same facial hair...and wearing the classic black suit only made it worse, regardless that a black suit was Neo’s common attire for The Matrix, they really should’ve done something different to keep from giving John Wick vibes. For the majority of the movie, he legit looked like he had just walked over from the set of John Wick and started filming his Matrix scenes.
So, let’s chalk this blunder up to Costume Design and Hair & Makeup. Moving on…
Next up is the pace, or rather, the lack there of. Every time it started picking up steam and we as the audience would respond by sitting up a bit more and creeping our way towards the edge of our seats…just to have the spark fizzle out with another 10-15 minute dialogue scene. Let’s be honest here…nobody liked the original Matrix for its dialogue. Dont get me wrong, there are some great lines throughout the series (like the “there is no spoon” scene - easily amongst the best of them!), nobody is watching this movie for its dialogue. Like, this actually got annoying midway thru the movie to the point where I stopped getting my hopes up for any substantial action sequences and just let it happen, which it did eventually, but…
Lastly, when we did get good action scenes, we didn’t get much of Neo’s action. He did some of his classic stuff like bullet dodging and freezing, but nothing new that made us viewers think “wow, cool!”. If anything, it seemed like Neo’s action sequences were “dumbed down” in favor for other characters, to the point where I even found myself asking “was Keanu hurt during filming of this scene?” (I googled after. He wasn’t). So, for a guy who’s “The One”, this made no sense to me.
There’s so much more to add, but this is already long enough. All in all, poor excuse for a Matrix movie and easily lands at #3 in the overall Matrix rankings:
▪️1st 🥇 - The Matrix - hands down the best of The Matrix movies and arguably one of the best science fiction movies of all time. 10/10
▪️2nd 🥈- Reloaded - good Matrix movie. Good sci-fi. Great action sequences and choreography. 8/10
▪️3rd 🥉- Resurrections - I saw somewhere someone called it “the season 8 of Game of Thrones” 😂. Funny, but true. 5/10
▪️4th - Revolutions - absolute dog-water. Terrible in every way. Had the potential to be great and had a lot to live up to, which ultimately why it flopped like it did. This is basically Ryan Reynolds’s Green Lantern (Iykyk). 2/10
Also, I refuse to rank The Animatrix with the live-action movies bc it’s animated and thus should be ranked separately. I don’t understand those who clump it in with these when there are completely different aspects to consider like voice overs or costume design or choreography.
If you want to know my thoughts on The Animatrix, please find my Google review over there.
Stay blessed! 🙏🏼