Matrix Resurrections Review Thread

[gomipile]

No spoilers, but there's an extended chase scene in Resurrections that is quite long and involved (and, truth be told, really well executed) but nothing is ever said about where they're going or what they're going to do when they get there. Nothing is established about what counts as 'safe' and how we'll know it when we see it. So it's a chase with no rules and no finish line. So while it's all very pretty, it's just noise.

I have a lot of thoughts on this film, but for now, I think I have the clearest response to this quoted point about the chase scene.

Spoiler

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The setup for the chase sequence is that the horde of bots is in the way of getting Neo and Trinity to a mirror. The goal is to be able to get them out of the Matrix past the bots' interference.

One character even says that if Neo could fly, they'd be able to do this easily, but at that point the characters don't think of it as a realistic goal.

As the chase sequence develops, the bots get harder and harder to deal with (I assume this happens as the Analyst gets more and more frustrated.)

That development escalates the tension more and more until a brief respite on the roof when the helicopter threat is partially dealt with using telekinesis on the missile. That moment could be seen as a partial twist. I'd argue that I see a narrative structure here where everything from the helicopter's destruction onward is the twist or subsequence that brings resolution to this part of the plot.

The twist continues as Trinity has an epiphany about her dream while watching the sunrise, which could be seen as payoff for Sati bringing sunrises to the Matrix in the third movie.

I might be reaching here, but I think at this point Trinity's dream can be read as her subconsciously having developed a plan to escape, in a similar way as Neo's creation of Morpheus/Smith might be able to be seen as his subconscious planning for escape.

When the armed troops storm the roof, we as the audience more or less know that they're going to jump off the roof and fly away. I don't think that's much of a stretch given the earlier scenes about Thomas in the past on the roof edge at some rooftop party.

The twist is completed when it is revealed that Trinity is the first to learn to fly and control her flight.

The overall sequence concludes with them having been safely extracted.

I may be wrong, but to me this whole sequence around the chase seems to follow something like a Kishōtenketsu four-part narrative structure.