Renata Appel

Finally! A good horror movie! But the horror-label doesn't do this movie justice. The grotesqueness of the Cronenberg-style scenes is justified because it touches on that deep and desperate need for appreciation and love, and the fear of getting older. Just beautifully done in my opinion. I laughed, I cried, and at times I looked away.

I have never so grossly misunderstood a movie in all my life. I would like to stress that I had no prior knowledge of the film before watching it, just stumbled across it, really and so had no expectations at all. The movie's visual's reminded me slightly of Stranger things TV show - a glow-y retro vibe. The TV show, The Pink Opaque kind of reminded me of the 90's TV shows that you cannot watch anymore because nostalgia makes you remember them as better than they actually were, like Charmed or 90210... And so I completely missed the whole analogy this movie tries to make between the "wonderful, glow-y" TV show and trans identity. Instead, I am ashamed to say, I thought that the TV show was a sort of escapism from reality. I thought that when Maddy says she cannot distinguish real life from the TV show anymore it means that she is experiencing some mental breakdown. The fact that she later disappears for a few years and comes back seemingly completely detached from her past experiences, reaffirmed that this movie, in my view is dealing with a sort of schizophrenia that Maddy has and the main character sort of identifies within himself too, but cannot come to terms with it. So at the end when he cuts himself up and sees the TV glow, it was for me a sign that he has this longing for some other reality inside him, like a dormant mental illness he is not facing and which prevents him from embracing life and it is the reason why everything about him is so dull and subdued. I later read an interview with the director and I was 100% off mark. The TV glow and the TV show which I perceived as an ominous, escapist fantasy together with its own mythology and everything is actually the trans identity the director wants his characters to embrace. I am giving it 2 stars because the movie I thought it was was actually quite good.

It sucked. It sucked so bad. I don't know what I was expecting. The very existence of this movie is an obvious money grab (a 4th movie in a trilogy). But curiosity got the better of me and I watched it. The third movie's culmination was very final, so I guess that the writers of this movie decided that if the plot cannot go forward, it must go up to a weird meta-referential realm of absolute BS. Imagine that the Netflix "the Flash" wanted to do a homage to The Matrix - the result is somewhat similar to The Matrix Resurrections. It feels like this movie is made grudgingly, without any joy or inspiration. Which might explain the lackluster beginning, meandering middle and tired ending. The equivalence that the movie makes between the "bad machines powers-at-be" who created the Matrix and Warner Bros. was probably the only honest moment in the movie, but this analogy, as clever as it may be, is just not enough to justify the existence of this high school reunion !#@#^^ of a movie. It works to erase everything that the three movies in the trilogy established - the plot feels like a forceful brainwashing session drilling again and again "wasn't the Matrix really really good? Remember this scene? How about that character?" It panders to the audience so obviously, so shamelessly that it made me feel uneasy and embarrassed for everyone involved. All the philosophical ideas of the first movies? Unnecessary, we can reference those in a two-line dialogue. All those achievements in cinematography and incorporating ideas from Eastern cinema to create a brand new style that will impact generations of movie-makers? Why work so hard if we can re-skin some of your favorite characters from the first movies? It's as lazy as the new Space Jam and as necessary as the latest Fast and Furious (don't know what number we're at now). It's tone is all over the place - are we serious now? Cynical? Is this a Matrix parody? An out of season April Fool's joke? The Matrix Resurrections is a reminder that some things should be left dead. Pleeeeeeease come up with new and original ideas. I promise that I will watch original stories from now on. No more sequels and reboots for me. I had enough of these blue pills. Sorry.