I think they saw the script and thought better of having such a stain on their resumes. Did they have a budget of 10m and a timeline of a week to make this film, it certainly looks like it. “I’m back where I started,” Neo says, sounding as mystified as he did when Morpheus opened his eyes the first time, while perhaps inadvertently summing up one of the structural flaws. The principal additions are Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as a new version of Morpheus, Jessica Henwick (“Iron Fist”), Jonathan Groff and Neil Patrick Harris, with Groff enjoying perhaps the juiciest of those parts and clearly relishing it. Wachowski has also included several cast members from her Netflix series “Sense8” in smaller roles. Spoilers are understandably a concern with this sort of eagerly anticipated genre movie, but the one benefit of “Resurrections” is that it’s not entirely clear what there is to spoil.

We have Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Jada Pinkett Smith reprise in their roles from previous films as Neo, Trinity and Niobe, respectively. Meanwhile, they are joined by new cast members including Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jessica Henwick, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Christina Ricci, who play characters both old and new. If you’re wondering if you should rewatch all three original movies, we highly recommend him to catch the jokes.

The Matrix Resurrections, the fourth entry in the franchise, has also jangled around my skull for weeks now without any sign of abating, but for different – but no less compelling – reasons. An ambitious shift in perspective that winkingly skewers our chase of the next IP high, the next “rebootquel,” The Matrix Resurrections inspects its own place in pop history while thumbing its nose at the very system that birthed it. symbol for icelandic krona The Matrix Resurrections is a film which is lifted by the nostalgia factor. The Keanu Reeves and Priyanka Chopra starrer is set to hit the theaters this Wednesday and the jury is out for the film already. Most prominent reviewing platforms have given the film an above average review. Interestingly enough, some reviewers have praised the film’s self-awareness in its intentions, while others have panned the same thing.

While The Matrix Resurrections struggles to find the right footing for its self-referential elements, the same can’t be said for its action. The first trailer is packed with images riffing on the original Matrix movie. The Matrix Resurrections is a riddle wrapped inside an enigma; a high-concept sci-fi thriller that tests your patience and demands your attention; a sequel that pays homage to its forebears while paving a new path. “No one can be told what the Matrix is,” Lawrence Fishburne’s Morpheus once said.

Keanu Reeves smartly eschews the calm Buddha-like movements of before, and instead plays his character much closer to what you’d expect a middle-aged game developer to look and talk like. Carrie-Anne Moss is still as commanding a presence on screen as ever, and really is the heart of ‘The Matrix Resurrections’. ‘Mindhunter’ alum Jonathan Groff, taking over the role of Smith, makes the role his own by dropping the scenery-chewing fascism of Hugo Weaving and opts to play him like a smart-ass studio executive-type.

With every passing day, the film, directed by Lilly and Lana Wachowski, seems to mean different things to different people, who all claim it as their own. To some it’s merely the groundbreaking, hugely influential, oft-imitated sci-fi action movie that’s rarely been bettered. In said scene, employees of a San Francisco video game company sit around a corporate conference table, brainstorming how to build upon the Matrix saga. “Our beloved parent company, Warner Bros., has decided they will make a sequel to the trilogy,” one says, explaining that the studio is planning to do it “with or without” the creators.

I mean, even “Free Guy” had more visually creative action scenes and ideas than “Resurrections,” take that as the damning conclusion that it is. Anderson has trouble separating dreams from reality, a condition which is kept in check for the most part by his therapist who consults him – but also provides him blue pills to keep him in the “real” world. Yayha Abdul-Mateen II’s Morpheus, though, is criminally underused. As a character who’s as beloved as Neo and Trinity, Morpheus should have had a bigger role in the new movie.

That said, by the end of the movie, both the acrobatic Bugs and surprisingly funny Morpheus have more than earned a spin-off or two. I really want to see these characters on the big screen again. Don’t sleep on Jonathan Groff or Neil Patrick Harris’ mystery characters either. As the last trailer revealed, the franchise’s main characters no longer remember each other following the events of the original “Matrix” trilogy.

The Matrix Resurrections is the fourth film in The Matrix franchise, the third film having been released almost 20 years ago in 2003. Make sure you brush up on the first three Matrix films because this is a film that can be fully enjoyed if you have followed the franchise. Well, Resurrections is, quite simply, the most meta movie of the year. Lana Wachowski, directing without sister Lilly, has peered through the looking glass, seen the reboots and sequels dominating cinema screens and decided to break the system from within. Resurrections can’t escape being part four of a beloved series, yet it frees itself from convention with heart-pounding panache.