Matrix Resurrections

[tjmackey]

Nothing will ever touch the stand-alone brilliance of the original movie, but I had a great time with this in the theater

It gave me something the original movies never did; making me get emotional over Neo and Trinity's romance (which always felt a bit obligatory to me, which makes sense for the story to a certain extent).  My eyes watered and my mouth trembled from the emotions hahahaha

Wonderful!  SO wonderful that it got me to overlook how weak the action clearly is (intentional or not)

I thought Keanu and Moss were great.  Love their scenes together in Simulatte

[tjmackey]

No, there is no 2nd-level Matrix in any of the films. Neo having powers in the real world was just poor writing.

Personally, I feel that Neo's ability in the real world was very consistent with the ethos of the original movie.

If Neo could suddenly fly and stop bullets in the real world with ease, I would consider that poor writing.

But him feeling a connection to the machine world after touching 'The Source', and collapsing unconscious the moment he stops just a few Sentinels?  I think that's the beginning of a story-point that leads to the eventual truce that Neo makes with the machines once he becomes blind and learns to 'see' their golden spirit.  This is a movie series in which the first movie's climax features someone being awakened as Cyberpunk Jesus with the POWER OF LOVE.  The sequels showing Neo learning that programs that feel love use the Matrix as a haven to live their own lives without a specific purpose, and eventually fighting for peace instead of DOMINATION, is very consistent with that sentimentality.

I think Zion literally being another 'dreamworld' within another simulation would've been awful.  It's the kind of twist that I easily considered back in high school.  But Zion being revealed as an expected resistance that is kept in check via the Prophecy of The One being another more insidious system of control?  That is a much more interesting way to approach a similar idea.

A twist that Zion is just another simulation in another Matrix is so thematically and narratively redundant in a way that I just don't think the Wachowskis would ever be interested in.  That said.... if you're interested in Matrix within another Matrix, the new movie does actually play with an idea that was explored in the Animatrix short: MATRICULATED.  And it's way more interesting than 'another matrix' twist.