After rewatching all the movies in The Matrix franchise, it’s clear why the worst film is as bad as it is in comparison. In the ranking of all The Matrix movies, two films make a fairly evenly matched case to be the worst: The Matrix Revolutions and The Matrix Resurrections, but the latter is the worst. Over the years, the original sequels to The Matrix – Reloaded and Revolutions – have been reevaluated, and they’re not as bad as they were originally received. Resurrections, however, hasn’t had decades to stew, and it doesn’t have nearly as many positives to soften the blow of its problems.
I rewatched all the movies in The Matrix franchise, and that rewatch made it clear why Resurrections deserves to be considered the worst of the series. Watching the original trilogy is, admittedly, a bit confusing, but it’s still an exciting and entertaining experience, and Neo’s journey is just as thrilling as ever before. Watching Resurrections, however, completely deflates all the excitement of the first three films and sucks a lot of the joy out of the franchise. I’ve pinpointed exactly why that is, and it’s not the overly meta nature of Resurrections‘ story.
The Matrix Resurrections’ Action Doesn’t Come Close To Matching The Original Trilogy
Resurrections’ Action Doesn’t Live Up To The Innovative & Beautiful Fights Of The Matrix Trilogy
Putting aside the way The Matrix: Resurrections rehashed the same plot points as the original Matrix and added in a divisive meta-commentary, there’s one major difference between the most recent movie and the original trilogy: the action. In the original Matrix trilogy, the action was utterly astounding. Neo and Agent Smith’s punches felt like bullets, the martial arts choreography was impeccable, and the Wachowskis even invented a new technology just to make the “bullet time” slow motion as awesome as it is. In Resurrections, however, all the action feels flat and canned in comparison, like everyone was just going through the motions.
Slow-motion sH๏τs were special in the original Matrix trilogy, but in Resurrections, they felt like filler for half-baked action sequences.
Where The Matrix had fast-paced martial arts filled with impressive acrobatics, Resurrections had stiff fight scenes filled with shaky-cam and endless cuts. Perhaps the best example is the slow motion: the original trilogy used slo-mo for stunning sH๏τs, like Neo dodging bullets or Morpheus jumping into the helicopter, while Resurrections over-used it for mundane moments, like people just normally jumping. Slow-motion sH๏τs were special in the original Matrix trilogy, but in Resurrections, they felt like filler for half-baked action sequences. They’re also a microcosm of what broadly went wrong with Resurrections: it had the style of The Matrix, but a fraction of the substance.
Take, for instance, Neo’s fight with the horde of Agent Smiths in The Matrix Reloaded versus the swarm chase scene at the end of The Matrix Resurrections. Reloaded‘s mᴀssive fight scene truly felt mᴀssive: Neo was doing superhuman things, there were actual stakes, and each move he did was even more interesting than the last. In the swarm chase, however, Resurrections felt like a pale imitation of a zombie chase scene that everything from 28 Weeks Later to The Walking ᴅᴇᴀᴅ already did better. Much like those zombies, Resurrections‘ action just had no life in it.
The Matrix Reloaded & Revolutions’ Action Helped Redeem The Divisive Sequels
Reloaded & Revolutions’ Plots Proved Divisive, But Their Fight Scenes Were Just As Entertaining As The Matrix’s
Both The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions were divisive when they came out, but they’ve stood the test of time much better than Revolutions has. Again, it’s because of their action scenes. Reloaded and Revolutions faced a lot of criticism for their convoluted stories, their less-than-stellar CGI, and just not being what people expected to see out of The Matrix‘s sequels. What they weren’t criticized for – at least not to the same extent – was their fight scenes. Reloaded and Revolutions both featured great action, and it helped them survive long enough to be viewed more favorably now.
Reloaded and Revolutions had some very valid criticisms, but they also had awesome and exciting bits of action to fall back on. Even the most divisive and alienating scenes – like Reloaded‘s Architect speech – were buffered by genuinely enthralling fights. Even if the sequels lost viewers with their convoluted plots, they were still fun to watch because of their action sequences. That let Reloaded and Revolutions be fairly good, even if they didn’t live up to the original. Resurrections, on the other hand, didn’t even have the entertainment of fight scenes to soften the blow of its derivative plot.
Matrix 5 Must Get The Action Right After The Matrix Resurrections Disappointment
Exciting Action Is The Most Important Part Of The Matrix 5
The lesson the upcoming movie The Matrix 5 needs to take away from Resurrection is that it can’t skimp on the action. No matter what The Matrix 5 is actually about, whether its an earlier version of “The One” or another way for Neo to return, it has to have enough well-made action sequences to get those points across. The Matrix franchise is endlessly fun to ponder and brings up many worthwhile questions, but it’s still an action franchise. The Matrix Resurrections is an example of what happens when the Matrix franchise fails to give viewers great fight scenes, and it can’t repeat that mistake.
The Matrix
- Movie(s)
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The Matrix, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, The Matrix Resurrections, The Matrix 5
- First Film
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The Matrix
- Cast
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Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano, Jada Pinkett Smith, Monica Bellucci, Lambert Wilson, Harold Perrineau, Gina Torres, Collin Chou, Neil Patrick Harris, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jessica Henwick, Jonathan Groff, Priyanka Chopra Jonas
- Character(s)
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Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, Agent Smith, Niobe, The Merovingian, The Oracle, The Architect, Seraph, Persephone, Ramachandra, Sati, The Analyst, Bugs, The Keymaker
- Video Game(s)
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Enter the Matrix (2003), The Matrix: Path of Neo (2005), The Matrix Online (2005)
