I sort of love the new Matrix film Matrix: Resurrections.  

In anticipation of its release, husby & I watched the original trilogy.  I confessed that I wasn’t sure I’d even seen the last film and couldn’t be sure I ever finished the second.  We watched them anyway, because why watch a new film,  years in the making, often denied even possible, if I didn’t understand the mythology that was the original Matrix?  Film 101, right?

The first Matrix film is dated, obviously, but I know how revolutionary it was and I certainly respected -and quite enjoyed – its philosophy on life, its vision of the matrix we are all caught in.  What it said about free will, control and power.  The second two were less impressive to me — less philosophy and a rumination on the Matrix, and more a sci-fi story about a city in danger.  I wasn’t sure — after watching them — that I would be up for the new film, but it’s me, so I knew I’d watch it regardless.

And then I began reading the articles.  Interviews conducted with Lana Wachowski over email, Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss discussing what brought them back, what intrigued them about re-entering the Matrix.

I was in.

Because I knew what it meant to lose someone and wish for them back so desperately, so intensely, that the grief never seemed to dissipate; it just clouded life, colored it in a new, inescapable way.   I knew the comfort I’d found in early 2019 when Avengers: Endgame was released and -even though it was universally agreed that it wasn’t as good as Infinity War – I identified with its theme that anything —no matter how bad it was — could be fixed, reversed.

I wanted to see how Lana brought Neo and Trinity back when she couldn’t bring back her parents.  I wanted to see how her grief informed the story of Neo & Trinity re-entering the Matrix.  I wanted to see how she used the film, and all its perspectives, to help her cope with overwhelming loss.

I was not disappointed.  I like its quirky self-awareness, the strategic re-casting of key players.  I like the new additions and the new observations made about life and living.  About energy and belief and faith.

Is it as revolutionary as the first Matrix?  

Nope.

But to me, that doesn’t matter at all.  It’s such an enjoyable ride, such a beautiful love story and tribute to characters, to a world created and destroyed and created again.

I’ll watch it a lot before it leaves HBO on January 21.

Xox, g