The Matrix is one of the most well-known cyberpunk movies; I’m not going to argue its cyberpunk qualities. But 20 years after The Matrix was relevant, we got a cash-grab sequel in Matrix Resurrections.
My question to you is: Is there anything cyberpunk left in Matrix Resurrections? Or has the franchise been so diluted that what’s left is no longer cyberpunk? For example, in the first movie Neo was a hacker. By this movie, I really wouldn’t call him a hacker anymore. But maybe the themes of “what it means to be human” still remain?
I really wasn’t trying to make a “let’s all shit on Matrix Resurrections” post here. I was hoping for more of a discussion about at what point something stops being cyberpunk. I guess I misjudged things…
I don’t think Resurrections is a film that can be talked about plainly. Not right now, anyway.
It’s really interesting because it’s an almost objectively terrible movie, but it’s self-aware of that, as if it were mocking people for being interested in the first place, deliberately rubbing their noses in the carpet shit-stain they somewhat innocently paid to see. And so, it is a film that wields its audience as a weapon against the producers that forced its birth, and there is essentially no way this plays out without a lot of unbridled anger and resentment.
I actually like it for having the balls to be that awful. But for a lot of people, who simply do not care about the “broader conversation” this film sits within, there’s just nothing else to talk about but how boring that particular Sunday was for them.