I meant to make a huge post a while back about my thoughts on Resurrections but it ended up being a long post mess that has sat as a draft for months. Here are my frozen cold take remnants.
Neo stumbling through his horrible mundane existence was pitch perfect for my life over the last year. As someone who used to obsessively pick apart the choreographies of the originals, I never really considered the character’s inner lives when first watching it (why would I, I guess?). There isn’t a lot in these characters who are mostly stock. Limited dynamism at the behest of their arcs. But the placing of cool action characters we grew up with in an explicitly self-reflexive first act felt really tragic (when it’s treated as celebratory badassitude in other reboots). Neo having to tolerate his facile co-worker’s nonsense while having a fleeting feeling of something simple he really wants to break free for. Mm.
The body horror and expanded lore went harder than I thought it would, which I appreciated.
Strawberries.
Working on a fan theory that I’m sure some Youtube essayist has beaten me to. The film’s first act is certainly an echo of the original but I remain convinced there are enough superficial similarities between enough of the beats in Resurrections that the Animatrix, Reloaded and Revolutions are also echoed in chronological order through act 2 and 3. Look forward to the upcoming one-man conference I’m chairing (don’t).