The Matrix Resurrections Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

1. The Frustrating Lack Of Stakes

One of the most common complaints about modern blockbusters is the crushing lack of palpable stakes - we hear it said so often about superhero movies, and this being the first Matrix film released since the onset of the MCU, it's perhaps apt that the same criticism basically applies here.

Though Resurrections smartly centers itself around the dichotomy of Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), the sense of gravity and life-or-death stakes are laid out so haphazardly that it's tough to get too invested in what's going on.

There's never the sense that failure will be truly disastrous, compared to Revolutions in particular which, despite its many flaws, boasted a major urgency and feeling that the world's end was imminent.

The messy soup of ideas doesn't give the film a clear throughline for audiences to get a bead on, despite the somewhat laudable decision to focus the narrative around the Neo-Trinity love story rather than another generic blockbuster apocalypse scenario.

But these tricky issues aside, here's what The Matrix Resurrections gets right...