Movie · 2021 · Science Fiction, Action, Adventure · 2h 28m · R · English
Curator score: 1.4/10 (787.5K ratings)
Return to the Source.
Overview
Plagued by strange memories, Neo's life takes an unexpected turn when he finds himself back inside the Matrix.
Ratings
Curator score: 1.4/10
IMDb: 5.6/10
Letterboxd: 2.68/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 63%
Metacritic: 63
TMDB: 6.3/10
Director
Lana Wachowski
Production
Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, Venus Castina Productions
Cast
Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jonathan Groff, Jessica Henwick, Neil Patrick Harris, Jada Pinkett Smith, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Christina Ricci, Lambert Wilson, Andrew Lewis Caldwell, Toby Onwumere, Max Riemelt, Joshua Grothe, Brian J. Smith, Eréndira Ibarra, Michael X. Sommers, L. Trey Wilson, Mumbi Maina, Max Mauff
Curator Review
Verdict
A bold, self-aware sequel that’s more interesting as a meta-commentary on franchise culture and memory than as a pure action spectacle. It’s uneven and intentionally prickly, but the emotional throughline and Wachowski’s sincerity give it real value for viewers open to a deconstruction rather than a replay.
Best for
fans of meta sequels and franchise deconstructions
viewers who like sci-fi with romantic and philosophical undercurrents
audiences interested in studio-culture satire
people who appreciate messy but idiosyncratic blockbuster swings
Skip if
you want a clean, tightly paced action sequel
you dislike self-referential or ironic storytelling
you expect the original film’s novelty to be recreated
you prefer straightforward mythology over commentary on mythology
Overview
The Matrix Resurrections is less interested in extending a mythology than in interrogating why that mythology keeps getting extended. It turns a legacy sequel into a critique of legacy sequels, with a surprising amount of feeling underneath the jokes, callbacks, and deliberate unruliness. That makes it fascinating even when it’s frustrating.
Worth noting
The action is uneven and the structure can feel cluttered, but the film’s ideas about memory, identity, creative ownership, and the machinery of IP are unusually sharp for a studio blockbuster. It’s also more openly romantic than many expected, which gives the movie an emotional center that helps it land its stranger choices.
Bottom line
If you want the original’s clean rush of revelation, this won’t replace it. But if you’re open to a sequel that behaves like a self-aware argument with its own existence, it’s one of the more distinctive big-budget science-fiction films of the 2020s.
Top Letterboxd reviews
davidehrlich (4.5★) · 6798 likes
It’s fitting — maybe even fate — that “Spider-Man: No Way Home” should be the biggest and virtually only movie in the world on the week that “The Matrix Resurrections” is released. Both are mega-budget, meta sequels that feed on our collective familiarity with their respective franchises. One is a poison, the other its antidote.
One is a safe plastic monument to the solipsism of today’s studio cinema; an orgiastic celebration of how studio filmmaking has created a feedback loop… more
matt lynch (4★) · 4269 likes
Nothing will ever approach the shock of the new the original gave us, but this is still a quintessential Wachowski huge swing, deeply idiosyncratic and defiant of expectation, cluttered but meticulously constructed and written to theme, and unabashedly dorky. Just like the last two sequels it'll probably be another decade before everyone realizes this is Actually Good.
Patrick Willems (4.5★) · 3667 likes
I never would’ve guessed this was exactly what I wanted from a new Matrix movie in 2021 but wow I guess it is
Karsten (4★) · 2787 likes
a love story that feels like it was made by an actual human being! enjoyed this movie a lot
The essential predecessor for the franchise’s ideas about reality, identity, and awakening, and the clearest contrast for how the sequel reframes them.
1995 · Action, Animation, Science Fiction · 1h 23m · NR · Curator 8.7/10 (568.8K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
A foundational cyberpunk meditation on consciousness, embodiment, and the boundary between human and system.