After The Matrix Resurrections first official month released came to a wrap, I’ll be taking a deep dive into box office revenue, critics reviews, and my personal review of this new addition to the affluent Matrix franchise.

(Warning: Possible Spoilers Ahead!)

Released on December 22, 2021, The Matrix Resurrections shocked fans with yet another addition to the critically acclaimed franchise, although not in a positive aspect.

The superstar cast of this movie consists of Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jada Pinkett Smith, Neil Patrick Harris, among many others, the list goes on and on. The Wachowski siblings wrote and directed the original Matrix, the prequals, as well as Lana Wachowski with Resurrections. With all this superstardom, how could the movie flop so hard?

As of January 31, 2022, The Matrix Resurrections box office revenue reached a meager $140 million globally. Seems like quite a lot, yet it cost Warner Bros. a whopping $190 million to make! It’s going to take Warner Bros. a blockbuster to recoup from such a hard hit like The Matrix Resurrections.

Its honestly, sad to see this newest Matrix installment do so badly, after the sumptuous legacy of the others comes to light. The first installment of The Matrix made nearly $464 million globally (not including today’s inflation), upon its original release date of March 31, 1999. The budget for this movie was roughly $63 million, nearly three times less than Resurrections.

Each installment of The Matrix franchise has easily doubled Resurrections in revenue. It’s noted that these movies came out 10+ years ago, yet a movie’s revenue typically only goes up a maximum of $10 million over these years.

HBO Max signed a deal with Warner Bros. to play the movie on their streaming service. The release date of the movie on this streaming service was not disclosed with Village Roadshow Entertainment Group. HBO Max released The Matrix Resurrections on their streaming service the same day it was released in theaters, resulting in these underwhelming box office numbers. Village Roadshow Entertainment is now suing Warner Bros. for their lack of disclosure of this information and the movie doing so bad.

What left such a bad taste in my mouth in this movie, was multiple things, starting off with the CGI, also known as VFX .

CGI has had a SEVERE upgrade since the original Matrix was released and it was evident in this movie, but many iconic CGI shots were not brought back. The biggest difference that aggravated Matrix fans, was the lack of the classic Matrix “Bullet Time” effect.

An entire new way of filming slow motion was developed for the original Matrix and is one of the most notable things about that movie to this day.

“Bullet Time” typically refers to a visual effect used to slow down time during an action scene and pan around a subject. The effect allows the audience to see high speed movements, such as flying bullets, that would be too fast to see otherwise.

An example of this in the original, is when Neo is dodging bullets on a rooftop and the scene is thrown into slow motion. The audience sees Motion blur and waves are coming off the bullets as they begin to move towards Neo. That scene still holds its watch value and was truly a groundbreaking visual effect at that time, in many aspects, although a bit janky in terms of CGI today.

(A video of the filming of this scene can be seen here)

There was virtually none of this updated iconic effect in Resurrections, to much distaste of fans and myself included.

Agent Smith in the original would dodge bullet’s and as he did his body would blur with every bullet dodged, this also was not brought back.

These are just a few things I personally thought were bad about Resurrections‘ CGI, but to each his own.

Other than CGI, the story telling, just didn’t do it for me either. The Matrix is known for having a sort of ‘complex’ plot to each movie that makes you think and causes your thoughts to contradict reality; this was not how Resurrections played out. I won’t go to in depth on the story, to save the hopes you may still want to watch it after reading this.

The plot of Resurrections just seemed too bland and straight forward to be an addition to the franchise. The movie follows Neo as he tries to rescue Trinity, that’s the base of this movie. The ending of the movie was left open, making it evident that there will be another made following this installment. Critics shared a quite similar feeling pertaining to the plot.

It hurts to see such a groundbreaking and great franchise put out such a mediocre and average movie, after so many years of time to prepare for a classic film.

It is to note that nearly every franchise has a fork in the road and the Wachowski siblings have made it clear they won’t be making the same mistake twice.