The Matrix Resurrections Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

4. The Totally Messy Script

If you thought Reloaded and Revolutions were crammed full of overly verbose expository dialogue and half-formed, ill-explained ideas, Resurrections basically takes these criticisms and mirrors them back as self-parody.

The amount of exposition in this film - both reminding casual audiences of what happened in the original trilogy and stating new ideas - is exhausting, such that it might make more sense to view the film on HBO Max with subtitles, where the dizzying word salad becomes a little easier to parse.

Wachowski races through the near-nonsensical mechanics of the narrative so speedily it's easy to get confused, at which point audiences might just decide to switch their brains off and enjoy the schlocky action.

There are absolutely some neat ideas in this film - particularly about Hollywood's dearth of creativity - but as a functional A-to-Z story it's all over the map in a way liable to frustrate as many as it intrigues.