The Real Reason 'Matrix Resurrections' Bombed

“Why use old code,” one character asks, “to mirror something new?” The movie critiques, even hates on, itself. In this resurrected Matrix, he’s a world-famous game designer, and the original trilogy was simply a game of his own creation, not real. “We don’t use that word in here,” the therapist replies. In other words, the being newly enslaving the masses, the villain of The Matrix Resurrections, is a run-of-the-mill therapist.You begin to see why you don’t like this film. (To escape Matrix 2.0, you literally have to hack into a mirror.) Later, the Analyst explains to Neo how he’s programmed the new simulation. All it takes to control you, Wachowski suggests, is to put the thing you want most in the world forever just out of reach.It’s an insight no less profound than that of the original trilogy, which Matrix 4 seeks to unmake and remake for a new, self-hating, overtherapized age.