This new Matrix film is less a resurrection, more intellectual property necrophilia. It doesn't just break the fourth wall, it bursts through the screen and slaps you around the face with franchise merchandise! While a boardroom montage gibbers about how mind blowing a 4th instalment would need to be...
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| I'm gonna stop you right there; don't watch this! |
A major reason the first film seemed so creative is the Wachowski's cobbled it together from a lot of pieces of other great sci-fi works, which most views won't have known: anime, e.g. Ghost in the Shell (1995) lent much cyberpunk look and feel, with small sequences recreated shot-for-shot.
A shocking amount of concepts, plot arc and specific terms (e.g. "Matrix" and "Squidies") came from Dan Simmon's 1989 novel "Hyperion" and its sequel "Fall of Hyperion". Which I read recently and think still stands up OK today. Recommended, for historical genre significance.
But in Resurrections, they seem to be feeding, ouroboros-like, exclusively on their *own* works. Thematically, the result is mediocre fan fiction, vomiting up clips of the original's more memorable (and more inspired) bits.
