The Ringer-Verse - Diving Into 'The Matrix Resurrections' | House of Midnight

Episode Date: December 27, 2021

Joanna, Charles, and Van jack back into the Matrix and decipher the code in 'The Matrix Resurrections.' They begin with the reception of the film and where it can fit into the legacy of the franchise (13:13). They discuss what it means for bringing back Keanu Reeves and the "John Wick-ening" of Neo (34:58). Hosts: Joanna Robinson, Van Lathan, Charles Holmes Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: TD St. Matthew-Daniel and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From reviews to rankings, the big picture is all things movies. From in-depth analysis of the latest flick to sit-down interviews with some of the biggest movie stars and filmmakers on the planet, Sean Fennessee and Amanda Dobbins have got you covered. Check out The Big Picture on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks.

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Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Tramphiator Radio.com. This episode is brought to you by Borris Head. What if we told you the taste of deep-fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Borishead just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that. indulgent taste that usually means planning your whole day around it, presenting the Friars turkey breast only from Borshead. Backyard tradition now available behind the counter. Visit your local

deli today. Discover the craftsmanship behind every bite. Borgeshead committed to craft since 1905. Welcome into the Ringerverse, the Ringer's Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Today we have my favorite kind of mashup. It is House of Our working title and the Midnight Boys, Poo Poo! Poo! Together is! House of Midnight! House of Midnight!

It's a House of Midnight episode. Joining me here, hot from their second viewing of the Matrix, Resurrection, Stan Latham, hi, Van. How are you? Yes, I'm doing well. How are you? Oh, I'm wonderful. I'm exquisite. Thank you so much. Also joining me, Charles Holmes. Hello, Charles. How are you?

Yo, Coke, baby. We're ready to get negative. Just kidding. Swindler. We're ready to get mixed. Mixed is the name of the game. Our pal Mallory Rubin is not here with us. She has decided to take the blue pill and remain in the Matrix.

But the rest of us have taken the red pill. And I don't mean it in the Q&ON men's rights activist sort of way. I mean it, of course, in the original matrix. I don't know. Have you heard? Vance and in Cell. You never know. Encel.

In cell. is what it even called. We're going to talk about The Matrix. Before we get it into all of that, some program of reminders, this Wednesday, the Midnight Boys will give their reactions to the premiere of Book of Boba Fett. How excited are you guys for this new Star Wars series? I'm pretty excited.

I like to get into the Star Wars type of situation. So I'm pretty excited about the Book of Boca Fett. I'd say I'm very excited by it. Charles, are you excited? after being in the multiverse for so, so long, I'm ready to go to a galaxy far far away. I'm ready for that. I'm ready.

Beautiful. And then on Friday, what better way to spend New Year's Eve than listening to yours truly and Mallory Rubin talk about Boba Fett for maybe two, maybe three hours, who knows? That's the way you can close out the year. That will be on Friday.

Today, though, we're not going to a galaxy far, far away. We're going into a galaxy far far away. We're going into, the Matrix, quick spoiler warning before we get to the Matrix Resurrections, and that is that we will be able to talk about all of the Matrix movies and the Animatrix and the online games

and anything ever related to the Matrix that we want to talk about is FairPlay. That's the spoiler warning for today. Do you all agree? You all agree? I do. I do because you have to. All of this stuff, it's all inside the Matrix. It's all on the table.

We're taking the pill to get into the Matrix. Other people want to get out of it. We're getting into it today. We're staying. Oh, I wouldn't get out of the Matrix. We'll talk about that later, but my ass is staying in the pod. I mean, yeah.

I mean, you got to love beautiful San Francisco. All right, so let's get into it. Today we are talking most specifically about Matrix Resurrections, which was released in theaters and on HBO Max on Wednesday, December 22nd. It's broader than that. We're going to Galaxy Brain Matrix level.

with like what the matrix as a franchise as a concept means to us. So, Van, I'm going to start with you. Take me back to 1999. So I'm watching a commercial one day. I'm watching commercials. And a commercial pops up and it shows Keanu Reeves and he's doing the thing where he leans back in the bullet time to avoid the bullets. And it says, no one can tell you what the matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

They gave you absolutely zero about the plot. they gave you absolutely zero about what was happening, why he could do that, what he was doing, how he was doing it. The movie was in this weird green gray scale. And I'm like, what is this? And it didn't look like anything I'd ever seen before in my life. And just that way, without knowing anything about The Matrix, which is like unheard of today,

I sat in a theater and had my mind blown. singular film-going experience that has not since been recreated in that way. All of this other stuff, I kind of know what the deal is. The rhythms of the comic books mirror themselves in the movies, right? It's kind of the same thing. That's what you want. You want movies that resemble something that you already know.

It's comic book stuff, you know? But with The Matrix, it was sleek, sexy, to the point. It was novel. It was a Kung Fu movie mixed with this high concept science fiction thing. It was, for me, one of the single greatest moments of my life sitting in the movie theater. And it's like that first high. I'm like a train spotting matrix guy. I'm trying to recreate that first high every time I sit down for new Matrix content.

Charles, I don't know exactly how old you are, but I'm pretty sure you were, in diapers when this movie came out. I was not in diapers. I was cognizant. I was alive in the world. My relationship to the Matrix is different in the fact of like imagine a child like sitting at home like Google Gaga.

I'm just watching Nickelodeon, blah, blah, blah, blah. And seeing your parents come home after going to like a date night and seeing the Matrix and their minds blown. And then every single adult I would talk to as a child, their minds were blown. Like, Newzler, black people love them, the Matrix. So every single time I'd be in the car with like aunts and uncles, they'd be like, y'all see the Matrix yet?

And then my parents were like, Matrix, we're in the Matrix? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then it finally came out on like VHS and they're like, they sat me down and you're like, all right, you're going to watch the Matrix. And I've been waiting. And every adult in my life had been like, the Matrix. I'm like, what is this? And I did not get it as a kid. I was just like, I was just like, I was just like, oh, cool, like Kung Fu.

And then, and then shortly after that, my uncle is like a master martial arts. So to discipline me, my parents would make me, like, wake up as a teenager and, like, learn kung fu from him. Like, I'd have to ride, like, ride to the beach at 5 a.m. and, like, sweep the whole boardwalk, like, karate style. And then once we had done all that as a treat, he's like, all right, your next martial arts lesson is you're going to sit down and you're going to watch the matrix and you've got to study the martial arts.

Oh, wow. So then I fell in love. That's amazing. That's amazing. That's the best punishment ever. Teach me how to be a lot. Shaolin Monk. What?

That's great. I love it. Sure, I love the Matrix. It is, I don't believe in perfect movies, but it is a perfect movie. And we'll talk about this later. Reloaded Revolutions. Went back, not as bad as we originally thought. Movies hold up.

What about you, Joe? Where are you at in your Matrix fandom? Thank you so much for asking. I think my strongest memory of what the Matrix meant when it came out was that this is the first time that, like, popcorn cinema met something that you know, PhD doctorate people could write books about. You know what I mean? It was this big thing where it would meet you on whatever level you wanted to meet it at. If you just wanted to go and watch incredible fight scenes, you could. And if you wanted to delve into the philosophy and the psychology

and all that sort of stuff or, you know, Y2K anxiety, all of that stuff that was sort of simmering in the pot at the time. It just had everything. It was so stylish, incredible stuff from Lawrence Fisherman, and Carrie Ann Moss. It wasn't just like Keanu doing Keanu stuff. And this is sort of before Keanu was fully Keanu. You know, he'd done speed and he had done Johnny Nemonic. Like those were all in there. But like this was a cementing of the Keanu legacy.

So yeah, I think what's safe to say about all three of us is that we revere the matrix where it deserves to be revered, which is like high in the mountain of holy content. And so like our expectations of what a matrix thing should be. It's pretty high. And that's where we are today, which is, well, actually, before we get to this movie, let me ask you quickly about the Wachowski's, Lana and Lily, and what they've done since the Matrix. Like, are you guys in, like, how do you feel about a speed racer, a Cloud Atlas, a Jupiter ascending, a Sense 8? Like, where are you with all that stuff, and?

Cloud Atlas is one of my favorite movies. I love Cloud Atlas. Yes. I'll be honest with you. Like, first of all, there's a lot of problematic shit in Cloud Atlas. Yes. All right. Let's just, let's take a minute.

For all of my AAPI homies out there, there's some egregious stuff that they do in Cloud Atlas. That even then I was like, why are they doing this? Because I had no familiarity with the book at all. So what I'm looking at it, I'm like, why are they doing this? And there's some weird the way they talk in the future land and stuff. But other than that, like Kalika laughs. I was enthralled with Cloud Atlas. Like, it had me, man.

There's like, there are like many different stories in there. Like, they just, they all got me. I'm trying to think of some throwaway stuff, but, and when I came out of the movie and when I started, and when I realized that people hated it, I was, I felt played. I loved Cloud Atlas. Oh, the other ones, Jupiter ascending a big mess,

Speed racer, I could appreciate, but I really enjoy Cloud Atlas. Charles, where are you? You know, I've got a... Channing Tatum is a dog. Oh, I tapped out long before that because my love of anime started with Speed Racer reruns on Cartoon Network. Like, I really was just like, yo, Speed Racer is amazing. Like, I love Speed Racer as a kid.

I went, like, I was ready. I was ready for the speed. I'm like, yo, speed race is going to be incredible, bro. It's going to be incredible. So Wachowski's like, yo, yeah. And I saw that. I'm like, yeah, I'm tapped out. Like, it's cool.

Like, it's just fool me one, shame on me, fool me twice. So, yeah, y'all can keep Jumers a Sunday, like, all that shit, whatever. I'm good. I, like, I'm fine. The thing I feel about the Wichowski's, and I know our producer, Steve Allman, is a huge Wichowski fan. Huge.

A major defender of Speed Racer, etc. They always swing for the fences, right? They're always trying to do something huge. and oftentimes, more often than not, that thing is really messy. And I kind of admire their dedication to swinging. And I think, and it's surprising, other than this Matrix thing, which we'll talk about, I think it's surprising that they keep finding people who are willing to financially back them. I think that's really cool and wild.

Like that's how far their Matrix Blink Check has got them, that they keep doing these like really messy, divisive, often-derided stuff that nonetheless, people like Netflix or whoever are forking over the money to let them do it. You know what I mean? I call it the Mike Tyson effect. Oh, yeah. So this is what the Mike Tyson effect is. Charles, you went outside when Steve brings up a nice shaman. Also, the Mike Tyson effect.

And Nas continued. Not Nas at all. That's blasphemous. Get off. That's blasphemous. Podcast over. Yeah, when Mike Tyson came out, he was such a phenomenon that everybody in the world liked him, right? Like everyone, he was the last truly beloved heavyweight champion of the world,

when being heavyweight champion of the world meant something. So when Mike started losing, we simply would not accept it. We would not accept it. He lost the Buster Douglas. He came back. He fought well. He went to jail. He came out of jail.

Even what he went to jail for at the time still did not make people come off of him. because you look at something like that and you say if somebody was once that dominant, once that amazing, it's still got to be in there. All it takes is the right trainer. All it takes us the right fight camp. All it takes us the right opponent

and you will one day again see that guy. And it's just hard to accept that it won't happen again. And so even with some filmmakers, if your high is the Matrix or if your high is the Sixth Sense or signs, we just not going to accept that you could be whack. Ban, we have to do a science podcast someday because I love signs. I love it too.

Yeah. I mean, with M-night, there was that moment when Split came out and I really loved Split. That Splits great. And I was like, I was like, Eminet's back. And then he was gone again. Anyway. And this is my very good friend, Thomas Anderson. He is a bona fide famous person and considered by Boast to be the greatest game designer of our generation.

I'm sorry about this. She's right. She's right. Hi, Thomas. Everyone calls me, Chip. Hi. Have we met? Let's talk about this film.

This is a film that has gotten, it's safe to say, it's gotten mixed reviews. Some people really love it. And some people not so much. Really? Uh-huh. Yeah, it's got some really, really, really, really. It's gotten some really positive reviews, some really tough critics. And then I read those reviews.

And I was like, I see what you needed out of this. And we'll talk about that. in a bit. But let's start with Charles. Where are you on this movie? The Matrix is something like it meant so much to me as like a teenager. And I truly do like every I was watching the original one today and I was like, oh my gosh, it's still perfect. Everything about this movie is perfect. So it like hurts my heart. Like it hurt. Coke baby Chuck is hurting right now to say that like I was miserable in my screening. Like I was sitting next the van. Like I was like what is happening? Like what is going on in the screen?

Like the moment where like my brain finally kind of broke, where I was just like, you guys just can't explain this away to me. There's a moment in this where there is like a little robot. There's a little CGI robot. And he gives the driver of the ship a high five. And I just like I put my hands in my like, I put my head in my hands. I'm like, what's happening? Like you massacred my boy. Like I just, I really, it hurts me to have to be like.

this harsh on the movie, but man, Van knows both of us walked out of that first screening, like, what the fuck is happening? Like,

Van, you were distraught. Yeah. Is it okay if I go, Joe? Please go. Please. So, with respect to Wachowski's,

with respect to Carrie Ann Maws, with respect to Karenna Reeves, with respect to Neil Patrick Harris, with respect to Yaya, this movie is absolutely fucking terrible. I'm sorry I like

I'm sorry and I don't mean to be in any way nobody sets out to make a bad film everybody went into the movie with the best of intentions and they're all hyper talented creatives

everybody involved this is just a bad movie it's a bad movie both on its own and it certainly becomes a worse movie if in any way it is compared

to the original Matrix movie. Like, there was a moment in the screening. I went twice. I went once with Charles, when once with Calica. There's a moment in the screening, in the screening, where there's a moment of silence

towards the middle of the third act, and you could hear somebody snoring in the front row. I promise you. Shut up. Shut up. I swear. I swear. You can hear somebody snoring in the front row.

The theater laughed, and then the Warner Brothers lady had to go over there and then wait the woman up. I thought it was absolutely terrible. One of the worst theater going experiences I've had in a long time, and I did it twice. Tough stuff.

Tough. Okay. Tough but fair. I respect everyone's opinion. We are missing, like, Mallory Rubin, our resident Ray of Sunshine, in this podcast. So I'm usually the hater in that equation, but I'm here to represent seeing something positive in this movie. And I think there's some positive aspects in this movie.

I'm willing to be converted. Let's do it. And I want to start with the meta stuff, which is not my favorite part of the movie, but I think it is interesting that the context is this, right? Warner Brothers has been dying to make more Matrix movies despite how people felt about the two that came out in 2003, which is mixed. Mixed neg. They've been dying to do this because this is valuable IP for them, right? And so they've been after the Witchhouskies every year after year after year make us more Matrix content. the Wachowski's are like, no, thank you very much.

We're done. And then the Warner Brothers comes to them and they're like, well, we're going to go ahead and make this movie without you, right? And we're going to get Michael B. Jordan to be in it. And we're going to have Zach Penn. Zach Penn's a really nice dude, actually. But he's got some stuff on his resume like Ready Player 1, X-Men the Last Stand, The Incredible Hulk, and Elektra, all of which, like, not well-received movies.

Didn't he do a Superman script as well? I think he did he draft, but not like, anything. Right. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. So that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, comes to the Chalcese and they're like, we're going to do this. We would love your blessing, but we're going to do it with or without you. That's something that gets a, like, a meta nod in the movie itself when Jonathan Groff's character says, they're going to reboot our video game with or without us.

So let's just go ahead and do it. Lily is still out. So this is Lana by herself, which I think is the first time they've worked separately. The Coen Brothers also worked separately this year, so it's an interesting time for partners to split up. So Lana goes ahead and is like, all right, I have an idea for this. I'm going to go ahead and do it. But I'm going to inject all this commentary about reboots and sequels and retreads and what this all means. I think that is an interesting way to do something that you feel maybe like you need to do if you feel protective of your franchise. I think the way they did it was really obvious and ham-fisted and they could have done in a way that was really

much more subtle and brilliant. Charles, what do you think? How do you feel about the meta? Oh, the meta stuff. Van and I disagree on this. The meta stuff was what took me out of the movie, which is really bad because it happens within like the first 30 and 40 minutes. The super meta part where all of the developers are sitting around the table and going back and forth about what the matrix means, you know, bullet time. It's, capitalist exploitation, trans allegory, all that stuff. I know it's supposed to be

this big joke at Warner Bros. and all of these big places and what all these people and generations have thought about the original Matrix, but the writing of it, the humor of it, rang really hollow for me because, yes, do corporations

destroy everything creative that they touch? Absolutely. But I think the genius thing of the original Matrix and how good it was and perfect it was as a story is that it does mean so many different things to so many different people and yeah, that part just did not land for me at all.

You feel like they were punching down at like fans? Yeah, a little bit. Or punching down at maybe Warner Brothers or all of these people. Well, so I think if you punch at Warner Brothers, you're punching up, right? And if you're punching at fans, you're punching down. You know what I mean?

But the fans, I think, a lot of fans do think all of this stuff about The Matrix. There are people who have written papers and fan clubs and all of these things. And I'm just like, is that such a bad thing? This happens all the time, whether it's Star Wars or Harry Potter. If the story is good enough, you're going to have people no matter their race, their gender, their creed, whatever, believing in this thing in such a way. And a bunch in the movie, I was just like, this comes off a little bit acidic. And I don't know.

It made me feel a little bit weird about the film where I'm just like, is it bad that people want to think about your movie in this way and really dissect it? That's so interesting. Like I hadn't thought of it as like as them punching at fans.

I thought that it was like a pretty broad punch at sort of Hollywood reboot culture. And like Van would know better than either of us in terms of being, I think, in like pitch meeting. or, you know, focus, like, just because of the work that you've done in terms of, like, being around industry people who are talking about a thing that maybe you poured your heart and soul into as a commodity.

Like, how did that sit with you? So the first thing that happened after the success of Two Distraangers, I've said this before, is they said, pick something that from the past and, like, you can have it. They're, like, pick something and then you can do it over again. I was like, well, you know, we got all these ideas, but, like, you know, It's not like a remake of Hill Shrieve blues. You know what I mean? It's like a new different shit.

They're like, that's good. If you want to cash out, this is what we're doing. And this is like where we are. So I thought that that stuff was actually funny. And so the reason why I didn't have a problem with that, and I thought there was by far the most interesting part of the movie, because leading up to this film, I kept trying to figure out how do you bring Neo and Trinity back into the Matrix?

like what would be the mechanism by which Neil could exist in the matrix and not know that he was inside of the matrix. And it made sense that the only way that that could happen is if Neil thought that he created the matrix. Right. So if he thought that it was all something that he did, there would be no way that he would really, really think, or it would be easy to talk him out of the fact that his world wasn't real.

Like, you know, the world that you're talking about, I created it. So I actually thought it was just. genius of the machines to do that. And also, like, the thing about the first matrix is they wow you first scene, right? Trinity gets up into air, camera whips around, and you're like, yo, what the fuck am I in for? You know, this movie didn't have any of those moments because you can't recapture those moments because they're two signature. So I thought those moments in this film were actually substituted by a little levity,

which there's not much of in some of the other films, right? So a little levity, a couple of moments where you get audible laughs at the screen when the guy goes, who's playing, who's the new agent Smith when he goes, you know, our parent company, Warner Brothers. And he says exactly what we all know is going on. I thought that was actually a pretty solid entry point to take us from a world, which was what the Matrix essentially did in the first movie, to take us from a world that we knew everything about and then put us in the world that we didn't know anything about at all, which was a trick that they pulled off in the first movie, which was going to be harder to pull off in this one.

So they had to ground us back and make us understand that the new matrix is something that's very, very familiar to us now. And so I didn't have a problem with that. I just had a problem with the fact that the promise of it was completely shitted on by the things that happened right after. The movie lost, it became paid by numbers after that. So that's why I didn't have an issue with it.

It's interesting. The reviews that I mentioned by people who I know who are usually really tough on things like this who really liked it, a lot of what they were loving about it was that it felt like it was punching at reboot culture. And these are friends of mine who were film critics who didn't like no way home

because it felt like to retread nostalgia for them. And I'm like, okay, that's not how I felt about it, but if that's how you feel about it and you feel like this movie is saying is giving like a strong middle finger to that, I think that's a reason why, a reason why they really liked it. For me, I would happily have that movie.

I just felt like it needed to be executed better than this one was. You know what I mean? I see what you mean. Can I ask, because I was reading a bunch of reviews, and they were bringing that up about how all of the metanus of it works in a way doesn't, for Spider-Man, No Way Home. And yes, this is like, Lana being like essentially like, fuck the fact that I have to make this movie

or the fact that for years you guys asked us to make this movie or you were going to reboot it without us. But I think it's one of those things that rubs me the wrong way where I'm like, yes, I would love a Wachowski movie that is about the torture of having to make another Matrix or always being compared to this perfect thing

that you made very, very early in your career. But to Vance point, they didn't deliver on that. They just kind of made a bunch of jokes to me that didn't really land. And let's be clear, if we're going to compare Spider-Man No Way Home to, like, the Matrix Resurrections, some of the reviews I was reading,

I'm just like, it seems like you guys are a little bit harsher on the MCU because it's kind of the only thing we get versus the Matrix, which, if you are of a certain age, it has a level of nostalgia. So you'll forgive a lot of the weaknesses where I'm like, Spider-Man, No Way Home, and Matrix Resurrections have a lot of the same problems.

In terms of like, if you stare too long at the plot, it starts kind of breaking down in front of you. Just one of them is super popular. And the other one, if we're going by the box office, let's just be clear, Spider-Man, No Way Home is going to kick the Matrix's ass. I just kind of found a little bit of the arguments

and the criticisms a little bit like, yeah, you're kind of rooting for the thing that you grew up with, which is the same thing that Spider-Man people are doing. Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying. I mean, it's interesting. I want to talk about like broader legacy sequels, like what that whole concept means right now. The idea of a legacy sequel, right,

is not like a sequel that takes place immediately after, but one where there's been like a long gap of time. And then you see spoilers for Spider-Man No Way Home starting right now. You heard me. I said it. Oh, man, Toby McGuire, like, walk out of a portal. You see the passage of time on the face of an actor that you sort of met at an earlier point in your life.

That's something that I love about a legacy sequel. So, like, Creed is, I think, one of the best legacy sequels of all time. The Force Awakens. People feel mixed about it. You know, whatever. Bad Boys for Life. Tron Legacy. Like, it's a real mixed bag.

Tron. Do you have something to say? Or are you just rebooting some IP that we're familiar with? You know what I mean? And I think that for me in this movie, there is some pleasure in seeing Keanu Reeves, who we see a lot of, Carrie and Moss, who we see a lot less of, back together again on the screen and that passage of time, meaning something to the plot. Do you guys have any strong feelings about legacy sequels in general, maybe Van?

I'm going to start with you. This is why Creed works. Creed works because it's a sequel and also an origin story. Like Apollo Creed is a very one-dimensional character in Rocky. He is cool black guy with amazing, cool. quick, unbelievable athletic talent that just can't beat the white dude whose inner whiteness just brings him to championship boxing for him. Apollo is the guy who has everything, but Rocky Balboi is just a tough, scrabbled dude,

a hard scrabble guy, he's just going to win. Pound on him, pound on him, he'll never get up. That's America for you. Now, they actually turn that on its head. If you watch Creed, Rocky says that Apollo's the greatest fighter. of all time. Says, I'd never really beat Apollo. Time did. We didn't know what Apollo was dipping and diving

off in these streets and had some good child. Like, I don't know. Like, we didn't know this. And we didn't know that this kid had emotional problems. These are all things we didn't know. We didn't know that this kid wanted to, wasn't actually, his last name wasn't Creed. We didn't know the relatability of a story of him going back to Philadelphia and

finding his roots. And Rocky Balboa becoming a surrog and fathered to them. And then on top of that, Rock gets sick. The Invisible Unbisible beatable man has finally met his match and it's something that we can all agree with. Creed was the perfect one because there was actually story out there that they hadn't mind yet.

You know what? They hadn't mind. It was different. That's the thing about these movies. The thing about these movies is if there's more story, then give it to us. And by the way, I would say that there's hell of more story in the Matrix. There's like... Oh, I disagree fully. I... No. You know why? I tell you why. just give us the arc where we beat the machines. It's simple.

I don't like, like, at the end of the Matrix, at the end of the third one, there was like this tentative, really, really fragile peace agreement. I'm like, they're not going to listen to that. And they didn't. And they didn't. I'm like, they're not going to listen to it.

So that's just it. We cool. No, I want the sky back. How about that? So I thought that there was a lot more story. I'm not sure that there was a lot more story with Neo and Trinity. But I think that there was a lot more story to the Matrix,

and they missed the opportunity to tell some extra added stuff. Well, I was just going to say, let me zoom forward to a future point I have and say, I was thinking about that a lot. And I was thinking about if the character of Bugs, who's played by Jessica Hanwick, who's a character I actually really liked in the film a lot, the chick with a blue hair, if she had been the main character and Neo and Trinity were side characters,

the way the equation was balanced in like The Force Awakens, in Creed, I think I would have liked that a lot better. If Neo was here like teaching someone knew how to do something, I think there's potential there. See, I think if we got any more Matrixes, like even if it was like a prequel or something like that, the Matrix to me has the same problem that Star Wars has in movies where like the Force Awakens was dope. I remember how we were feeling.

Like I liked the last shadow. But there is a thing with Star Wars, we're like in the movies, you're like, yo, if it isn't the original trilogy, you're like, damn, the... the more we learn about these characters, the more we like, yo, just go back. Just go back. Like, I don't,

like, what are you doing to my beloved characters? And with the Matrix, I think they have the problem with, ever since the first one, the more you learn about the Matrix sometimes, little by little, it's like a magic trick.

Once you learn how it's done or you learn the mechanics of it, there's not that spark anymore. And ever since the first Matrix, every single time they add on, I'm a little bit like, man, I just kind of want that original feeling of being like,

oh, the world in my mind is way more interesting than anything else that they're ever going to explain to me. I think that was the genius of the original Matrix. And with resurrections, I'm like, all right, you guys have just told me too much. I never wanted to know what happened to the humans after the peace agreement. Like, I don't want to see old Jada Pickett Smith.

Like, I don't want to see like the CGI.I robots working. Like, I don't want this shit, bro. Like, let's be clear, the Jada shit was wild. Like, ridiculous. Ridiculous. And then they had to bet over backward to make it work that, like, Keanu only looks 20 years older and, you know, but it's been 60 years for Jada. Made no sense. Did not like that.

I think the Wichowski is just really, like, prosthetics is anyone who's seen any of any of their movies. For no reason. Yeah. Like they do. All right. I want to talk about what I think is one of the more surprising influences on this movie. And it is the once YouTube now Netflix series, Cobra Kai. I don't know if you guys are

Cobra Kai fans. Oh, yeah. I'm finishing season three as we speak. I also love Cobra Kai. Howevsky's. Cobra Kai does this thing where it takes footage from the movies to like inject flashbacks into the show, which works sometimes.

But not all, like, Cobra Kai does it a lot. They go back to that well a lot. And this movie goes back to that well a lot. And I don't know that. And I love it. How do you guys feel about the use of old footage, man? I like it in a core.

I'll tell you why I like it in a Corbyte. Because Pat's not here with this anymore. You know what I mean? That's true. They mostly do it. Those are, if you look at, those are LaRuso's actual memories, you know? And he looks at the car and he's like, oh, my God, he looks at the thing. But what is it is it way?

Corporacai, more story. They find out a way to get more actual story out of it. What happens if Johnny comes back and whatever, Johnny got a raw deal? In this, they didn't even do it right. they were flashing to it and they were, are they his memories? Because we didn't know if they were his memories. They were his memories,

but we weren't sure. They're playing the movie in the background when the new Morpheus is talking to him. Like we're trying to give you some nostalgia. You're trying to give us some nostalgia, not Neo. You know what I mean? No, it's weird because Groff is looking out the window

and they do this cut to like the original Smith. and I'm like, are you just trying to like communicate to the audience? Like, this is the same character. I was just like... Yeah. That's what it felt like to me. It felt like a tool for the audience of like

Jonathan Graff is now Agent Smith or Yaya is Morpheus or whatever it is. And like I just... It felt like just a way to orient the audience. And I felt that was disorienting. It was really clunky the way they did. I'm like, let it unfold. Give me some mission.

guys. Like I don't, like, of course, like, I know that the, the guy who's literally looking at Neo and being like, hey, man, you got to, Warner Bros says we got to do another one. They're making one without us. I'm like, I know he's the villain. I don't need you to flash Smith in front of me to be like, oh, that's Agent Smith. Yeah, exactly. This episode is brought to by Paramount Plus. Beth and Ripper back in a new series, Dutton Ranch. Kelly Riley and Cole has a return, and this time they're taking on Texas. As Beth and Rip build a future together, peace will have to wait as they face corruption, danger, and a ruthless rival ranch

willing to protect its secrets at all costs. Legacy is a beautiful thing, but only if it survives. Dutton Ranch starring Colehauser, Kelly Riley, Annette Benning and Ed Harris now streaming on Paramount Plus. Let's talk about Keanu. All right. So Keanu has a couple options for this movie. He'd come back and he could be Neo again

or you could come back and just do John Wick. And I feel like he just did John Wick. And I love John Wick, but is that what I want in this movie? Charles, how do you feel about the John Wiccaning of Neo? All right, so I got to be real. People are going to call me out for this. I'm here for it, okay? I'm here for it.

When you look that good with a beard, you don't shave that off. That's the moneymaker, okay? If we're being clear, the reason this is being made is because they saw Keato and John We'd be like, we can probably do another Matrix. He got enough left in him. So I agree with you. Is this just John Wick in the Matrix? Absolutely.

100%. I'm not cutting off the beard. I'm not cutting off the beard. You just can't cut it off. Can't cut off. I'm 41 now and I'm obsessed with these guys because I'm like, you know what? I'm going to get back in shape and I can still do it. Like the Jared Leto, I was watching the Swan song movie last night.

And I texted the Midnight Boys. I was like, yo, man, My Herschel Ali, I took this the whole group. I said, he's 47, he looks great. So, but I'll be honest with you, I kind of think that Neal always was John Wink. I kind of feel like he was. Like, you look at John Wig, John Wick doesn't say very much at all. But everything that he says is important because when he's not talking, he's whooping your ass. And Neil only does two things in the Matrix, learn and fight.

And love. Don't forget love. Let's be clear. Also, he's ridiculously horny, which I was just like, the Wachowski's like, Lana, let's be clear, my parents did not let me watch,

reloaded, because they went to it. They saw the orgy scene. That isn't for kids. And let's be clear, there was not enough sex in this. There was not enough horniness. The original Matrix trilogy,

I don't know what the Wachowski's were on, but Chef's Kiss, amazing. Where's all the love? This needed to be hornier. Okay. Joanna, you wrote in our, what did you say, like a German sex club?

You said something. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, that's the thing about the original Matrix movies. It's like, yeah, it's German bondage sex club, you know, PVC and latex. The Marikovian, how do you say is the? Maraventian. Maravigian. I always loved him, by the way.

I love the Maravangian. Yeah, they didn't bring back Monica Balucci. Like, did I know. Yeah, did it? Yeah. The Marivengian, I will say the scene in. loaded when they're in the restaurant, wildest scene ever. The chocolate cake scene?

I was just like, who did this? Who greened at this at Warner Bros? What Choskes was on one? I love it. I want to go back to the John Wick of it all because it's not just the beard. I support the beard. It's not just the long hair. I'm medium support the long hair.

It's the fighting style. And so this is like a huge, this is the question. Do you want a Matrix 4 that reminds you a lot of the Matrix? Or do you want a Matrix 4 that is very different from the Matrix? And if you want one, something that's very different, they hired the stunt coordinator from John Wick 3 and 4 to do this movie. We're not doing, I know, Kung Fu from The Matrix. We're doing brawling fighting instead.

And like, for me, I was just sort of like, that's, in the Matrix, I want, I want the elegant kicking. I don't want, like, Jonathan Groff ripping a sink off the wall and bashing it over Keanu's head. Like that's that that's that's that's that's the other Johnwick element is the fighting style. Did you guys have any, did you miss the like classic Matrix fighting style or did you not care? So much. So much.

That's one thing about the film that bothers me more than anything. The fight choreo was terrible. The fight choreo was terrible. Wu Ping is still alive. It's still around doing this thing. And you don't go back to Wu Ping to be able to get some of this stuff together. There were no cool fights. That wasn't one cool.

fight. Like the fight between, and we're going to get to Morpheus too. Oh yeah. Yeah, but the fight between Neo and

Morpheus and the thing, terrible. That was actually the best of the bad options, I think, was that Morpheus. There was no good

stunt choreo going on. I don't mind the John Wick fighting style, but see, here's the thing that the John Wick fighting style

incorporates that you didn't have here. It's gun, it's gun food. So by the time John Wick Wick is going to you hand to hand, he's already lost his,

he's using the weapons. The weapons are the cool part about it, you know what I mean? So it doesn't quite work for the Matrix, the John Wick's style. It could have, if they'd even leaned into that harder, but they didn't. Yeah, I miss the Wirefoo a lot. Like, I just, because here's the thing,

it might look cheesy now, but I, like, I think that's part of the charm of the original movies. Like, the fighting looks so elegant. And it's something where you can, tell like these two directors love old kung fu movies. And in this, I'm just like, this just looks like every like post-John Wick movie.

And it just didn't have that character that I loved. And like, let's be clear, them saying bullet time all the time. I'm just like, I get that you're poking fun at all of the things that we love about the original one. But can we not? It just made me feel bad. I'm just like, all right. Like, I'll hate your movie now. Fuck. The thing about John Wick,

fighting style that I think is important is that when you're watching John Wick, you're watching, you're like, this man who's not a spring chicken cannot possibly sustain another punch. And yet he does and he keeps coming back and he keeps coming back. And when you're watching it in The Matrix, you're like, we're not talking about like a broken, older human. We're talking about ones and zeros. And so I want to see like gravity defying, you know, flying and kicking in the Matrix rather than like the brawl.

Was he even the one though? I'm not sure he was. Like when he does some cool stuff and blocks some bullets and has a weird telekinetic power. As far as the Neo that was whooping everybody's ass and that guy wasn't around for this movie. He's like Juan Maximoffing like he's got magic in this movie. Yeah, he's more like a wizard than he has anything else. You know what I mean?

He's blocking a bunch of bullets, but he's not really doing crazy stuff. Trinity does. Yeah, I was about to say, the only person who seems like the one is Trinity. Carrie Ann Moss. I actually like that part. I do like the fact that... That's my favorite part of the movie. Go ahead, please.

If this movie, Kianu, Kariang and Moss, like, their chemistry is still on point. Whenever they're on screen together, I'm like, yo, this is the movie. Like, she should have just been Trinity for this movie. Those two together are the heart of this. And I do think the story that works so much about this movie is this idea that Neo isn't the only one.

There is no Neo without true. Trinity. That I love that idea. I just think that like they try to shoehorn it in towards the end. And because we never really get into the interior life of what it is to be Trinity or Tiffany, I leave the movie being like, all right, so what that Trinity can fly now? Like I don't, emotionally you didn't sell this part to me. She's not Trinity until the last like 15 minutes of the movie or so, right? Like that's generous, I think. And that's, that was my favorite part of the movie is when like Carrie Ann Moss got to be fucking Trinity. And, uh, and I, I get this, the concept of the story flip.

Like, he's the one who has to wake her up and we're supposed to feel uncertainty, but whether or not she will leave like the comfort of her digital children or whatever to go with him. But then in doing so, you don't let us have Trinity for most of the movie. And that's, I think that's a huge mistake, you know, personally. Yeah. And it's also just, look, man. To me, like, I understood it.

You put Neo and Trini together, something special happens because they're in love. They never really tell us why, you know? Like, we don't really get any answers as to any of this stuff. Like, it just, it's just, it's, it's just stuff. Like, even all of these, these pet robots, they're just things. They're not even really cool pet robots, you know? Just stuff. And that's always kind of been a crack at the center of the Matrix is that like the Matrix, the Trinity Neo love has been the like, you know, kill shot of every single Matrix movie.

And you're like, but when? Right. But why do they fall in love? You know what I mean? To be clear, to be clear, we've seen each of them. It's true. I mean, lust. Words couldn't.

True lust conquers all. Sure. But like, is it true love conquers all? I don't know. I feel bad for Joey Pants. Cypher was on the Nebuchadnezzar that entire time, right? He had a thing for Trinity. Yeah.

He said that you never brought me breakfast dinner or whatever before. But Neo comes and that happens sometimes. You know, there's a girl that you like at work or school and you feel like you're right there. But then all of a sudden there's a new guy. You're like, fuck! Who was the Neo in your life then? Who was the Neo in your life? His name was Landon.

Oh, no. Yeah. Like, I worked at Best Buy in Baton Rouge, and I was seeing a girl. I was doing my thing. I was laying the groundwork. And then all of a sudden, I saw him. He was leaving for his interview. I was like, well, they're going to hire that guy, and I'm done.

And then things were going cool. And then the couple of weeks, my boy, Reggie Webb, shout out to Reggie Webb from Baton Rouge. Reggie Webb goes, hey, bro, you got robbed, bro. I was like, what? He was like, man, Landon had robbed you. And so I had to wait through Landon's reign to date her, which I did. Wow. Can Landon's Rain be like your new short film that you make?

Landon's Rain, yeah. Speaking of Joey Pants and people who weren't in the movie, Joey Pants says that he asked Lana if he could be in the movie, he never heard back. He's a crime. A cry. What? Joey Pants says he messaged Lana.

was like, yo, can I be in the Matrix 4? She was like, crickets. Damn. Lawrence Fishburn also says he wasn't asked to be in the Matrix. So let's talk about Morpheus. To be fair, Lawrence, like, you wasn't doing Kung Fu. Like, I get it. I don't know, but he could Jada pink it around and some prosthetics that they wanted to.

That is true. How much older do you think Lawrence Fishmeran is than Keanu Reeves? Oh, I don't know. I would guess that Lawrence Fishburn is in his. 60s or 70s? What do you think? Early 70s? I'm going to say he's less than five years older than Keanu Reeves.

Yeah. So he's 60. Oh, he's 60. Damn. Okay. You're right. You're right then. And Keanu is 57. All right. You're right, man. See, because he's one of these things where Lawrence is sneaky younger than you think he is and Keanu Reeves is sneaky older than you think he is. But Lawrence Fishburn has always played older.

Like, when I saw him in the original Matrix, I was just like, How old is this man? He was 29. 29 in Boys in the Hood. Gravitas. Gravitas. And Boys in the Hood, Lawrence Fishburn, he played that role.

He was 29 years old. Get the fuck out of here. He was 29 years old. So they don't, they don't invite Larry to the party. They invite Yaya Abdul Matine second. Yaya, big fan.

Big fan. The second. The second. Big Yaya fan. I think he's great in this movie. Did he need to be Morpheus? No. I think he was, like, charming.

But my man, I was just like, who are you? Like, you're not morphic. Like, who is this person on the screen that you're trying to convince me is Morpheus? Like, was the explanation that he is a fusion of Morpheus and Smith? And that's why he acts differently? He was at the beginning. But then he was just morphism. But he is just code.

He's not actually Morpheus. Is my understanding, watching it twice. What do you think, Van? This is what I think. I love Yaya. Yaya's a New Orleans brother. Uh-huh. Yaya has been grading everything.

It's just didn't work. And it's not Yaya's fault. It's not. It's not Yaya's fault. It just didn't work. It didn't work. Like, it confused Kalika. She was like, why was he dancing around with a martini class?

She was like, like, I do want to shout out his costume. His fits were crazy. Stylish. His fits were crazy, but I don't even understand. I don't think Morpheus's place in the story because Bugs is the Morpheus of this story, right? Nah, Bugs isn't the Morpheus. Like, I get, from my understanding of the plot, which is all over the place,

Neo designed this new Morpheus to help him get out of it. of this matrix. Because of the modal thing that he's running on the game. Yeah, but it's cumbersome. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it

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Bugs, this is a direct violation of the General's Protocol. I know, I know. But something is happening here. Something important. Look, we know what happens next. She kicks their ass. Let's talk about bugs. We talked about her a little bit, Jessica Henwick. She's sort of supposed to be this like audience surrogate, like neo-fan girl, sort of proxy character. I don't know if she works all the way through, but I love Jessica Henwick and every terrible thing she does, including Iron Fist and more of the worst plots on Game of Thrones and all that.

Like, she's amazing in every bad thing she does. And so I was here for her. I loved her. I would watch a whole Bugs movie personally. But, like, I don't know how you guys feel. Bugs weren't. Bugs were. Bugs of it all, yeah.

Bugs worked. Bugs seemed, I understood Bugs's motivation. Yeah. Bugs was like, bugs worked. Bugs was cool. She was like a new flare to the Matrix, a blue hair. You know, I like bugs. I liked her in when she was in Iron Fist, which was terrible.

I liked her when she was in Game of Thrones. So Bugs was a bright spot. Bugs was probably the MVP of this. Bugs and to be honest with you, we'll talk about him later, Neil Patrick Harris. I thought he was amazing. But bugs, I dug bugs.

I dug bugs. I thought bugs, why not just give bugs? The movie? Yeah. Why not just like, you know, Neo is old. Like, I mean, not old. He's 50s, he's very spry.

I don't mean to be ages. But like, going back to, that took so much creative energy that some of the fresher aspects of the movie, I feel like they didn't really get a chance to dive into them. I like bugs a lot. I don't think I got enough chance in the movie to care about

bugs because as soon as they introduced her, then it would be like Keanu's in the mix. And then they would kind of come back to her. By the end of the movie, like, they leave bugs hanging. Like, I don't think they go back to bugs at all in like the last 15, 20 minutes.

Like, she's a part of the fight, but she's not really driving any of the narrative. So I'm like, oh, you introduced a cool character, but she just didn't go all the way, which kind of, it just sucks. Give us the bug cut. Yeah. Give us some more bugs.

Give us more bucks. Give us some bugs. Jada, I don't even want to talk about it. We already talked about her. I don't even want to talk about it. So let's talk about the villains. Let's start with Neil Patrick Harris. He plays the analyst slash the,

like, he's basically the new architect of this Matrix. And he's got the, like, blue glasses. He's, like, representing the blue pill, the epitome of the blue pill. And he's trying to keep Neo there for one reason. And we'll get to why Smith cares about what Neo is doing for another reason. I feel like the movie is trying to make a commentary on like psych meds and psychiatry and it keeping us asleep and stuff like that. That feels like what the movie is trying to do.

I don't agree with that. So I had some issues with that. But I don't know if I'm reading too much into it. What do you guys think? I can be like super personal and tell people what my therapist and what some of the things that I've taken. taken in the last year and a half and really got through me. But I'm not going to do that because

I feel like people, if anyone's trying to say that therapy or psychiatry is crackpot shit, I think that's most people are like, that's bullshit, right? I do like, though, the idea that the person who you're letting into your head

is the person who's fucking with your head. I think those movies are always, so I think most therapists and psychiatrists and psychologists that I know are such amazing people. to deal with helping people with their problems all day. Having a bad one is just like uniquely sinister. So like knowing that he was in some way bad,

it gave the movie because he, even when Neo reaches through the mirror, right? And he's trying to pull him back, knowing that he's kind of like the guard dog to Neo being free. I thought that that actually worked, you know. Even though the underpinning of that, to me is a dangerous message if you really want to be,

She really want to be real about it. I thought for the movie's sake, it kind of worked. I did not like the analyst as much. The speech towards the end where bullet time and stopping time and neologically, that stuff didn't make a lot of sense to me. And his speech, like, yo, it can't hold a candle to the architect speech. The architect speech is one of the most confusing, but dope sound of shit I've ever heard in a movie. Like I still don't get it.

Like Ben and I talk about this. Every other episode. I have no idea what he's saying, but he says it so well. And when the analyst was speaking, I'm like, this is just like a we live in society monologue. This is just like a hey kid's how are you doing? You like violence?

Like I just come on. The whole time he was talking, he's like, they're not going to break free because the desire or blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, all right. Like, we needed another pass at the school. They literally have him like stroking. I'm not having a super villain cat at one point.

I have a lot of questions. I have a lot of questions about that. There's a kind of famous episode of Buffy Vampire Slayer where Buffy wakes up in this world where people are trying to convince her that she dreamt that she was the Slayer. And it's like she's in a psych ward. And it's like you're like, and I think there has been a version of that in a lot of these supernatural genre shows where there's like usually an episode where someone's like, oh no, that whole thing where you thought you were special or you thought you were

whatever, that was a dream and you're totally normal. And there's like the relief of that, of the relief of not having to be the person who has to like save the world on the chosen one. And then there's like the pull of like, no, wait, I have to figure out for myself what's real and what's not. And it's usually a psychiatrist who's like, you know, you are, you're having like visions of grandiosity and stuff like that. So it felt like one of those things, which is, which is a storyline I like, generally. I just think I agree with Van that there's like dangerous sort of underpinnings to that. Oh, super dangerous. Which brings us to Groff. Jonathan Groff as Smith did want Hugo Weaving for this movie. Hugo Weaving had a scheduling conflict, so he says, reportedly, allegedly. And I don't know if they wanted him to play Smith.

Maybe they wanted him for something else or they wanted him for this role. I don't know. But I kind of like, in theory, I like this idea of. updating what's evil from this sort of like corporate drone representing the man in that kind of way thing that Hugo weaving was as Agent Smith, turning him into this sort of like smarmy Hollywood glad-handing. He calls Neo Tom instead of Mr. Anderson. And I think Groff, if he's not, if Jonathan Groff, who I love generally, if he's not trying to do Hugo Weaving, he's just trying to do this, this like, you know, this like really smooth, insidious, buttery shit. That kind of worked for me, actually. I'm not sure all of him worked for me,

but that idea of like this is what real evil is, according to Lana, who's being forced to make a Matrix movie, she doesn't want to make necessarily. That kind of makes a lot of sense to me. I don't know. What do you guys think? I didn't hate Groff. I just didn't, I was just like he could have been a different character.

I don't know if making him Smith totally worked for me. I think the parts of it, like, when he, what does he say at the, in the beginning, he's like, he looks out at this guy, OMG. I was like, guys, I get what you're trying to do, but they want to make him the smarmy guy, but it just didn't have a lot of nuance to it, I guess. And that's probably a larger issue with the movie, where with this character who's forcing Tom Anderson to make a sequel, I'm just like, I get what Lon is trying to say about Hollywood. It just didn't. had the nuance that I expect because like here's a thing

with their original Mr. Smith. You get that what he's a stand in for without them like beating you over the head with it. They're not like, this is the man and he's evil. You're just like, oh yeah,

like of course this is any corporate suit ever. It doesn't matter what he does. It doesn't matter if he's a law enforcement. It doesn't matter if he's a businessman. You just know he's a stand-in for the man. This guy, I'm just like, oh, this is a stand-in for like your agent

or somebody at Warner Brothers. And cool for you getting that off your chest just did not work for me. Van, did you like her off though? I did, but once again, kind of like, it's hard not to compare him to Smith, right? He was cool. I thought he was cool. Yeah. But I thought he was cool.

I thought like, but like when I hear Mr. Anderson, there's only one way the line can be delivered. To me, I think the most signature character of the Matrix is Agent Smith. I think so As far as I'm going to kill you Mr. Anderson Mr. Anderson. Like he embodies

what the movie is and so it's just a it's not even once again it's almost like the Yaya I think it's not even fair This dude is Yeah

It's not a fair comparison It's not a fair comparison He I thought he was cool I thought he looked great You know what I mean He's he had the He goes with the It's good to see Smith

Not in a suit and tie but wearing the fucking upper management douchebag fucking t-shirt with the suit thing that you see. Go to the peninsula if you're ever in Hollywood. Go to the peninsula. You're going to see two types of guys. You're going to see the shout out to these guys because some of them are my agents.

You're going to see agents hanging out at the bar, suit and tie. But you're also going to see guys but they might have chucks on because they might have a meat with ice cube later or something. And they're going to be dressed just like Groff from this movie. So I thought that all of that stuff worked.

And even his sort of his thematic ambiguity, the fact that you didn't really know what he really wanted, he didn't know who his real op was. I thought that worked in the movie too. Not bad, but once again, in comparison to the original,

just didn't work. But for what he was, here, he was a cool character. Cool character. I think it would be, I would like him so much more if he just wasn't called Smith and they didn't try to make him.

If he was a new character, I would have been fucking. It's just like Just like make a brand new character Like that's exactly the way That makes somebody new He's and it works perfectly Groff also I mean like it's

Telling of course of the setting in San Francisco My Beloved City You want to talk about guys in T-shirts and suits Like come to Silicon Valley Come to San Francisco Like this is a particular kind of like tech bro douchebag that I am very familiar with And I think Groff did it really well

I think it's really interesting that they hired Neil Patrick Harris and Jonathan Groff to, like, famously queer musical guys as the two villains of this movie. I don't know. It's like a very, very odd chance, uh, choice to me. But I think also they could have just waited for Hugo Weaving. That's what I think. I think if you're going to do this and if Hugo Weaving is going to show up to like rap in Elvish on Stephen Colbert, then I feel like Hugo Weaving will show. up to do a Matrix movie. He said like in years past that he would do it

if the Witch-Oeuskies were involved, he would do it. I think some people think you can't do the Matrix without Keanu. I think that's true, but I also just think you can't really do the Matrix without Hugo Weaving. I couldn't agree more. Do you think if they had one or the other, like the fact that they didn't have

Lawrence Fishburn and they didn't have Hugo Weaving made it really difficult to swallow some of this movie. Whereas if they just had Hugo weaving, I probably would have been a little nicer to yeah-ya. Or if they had Lawrence Fishburn, I would have been a little bit nicer to groff, but those two characters just being different characters, I'm like...

But they had Jada, they had Jada. Can I ask a question? This is no disrespect to Jada at all. I love Jada Pica Smith. Why not have Morpheus in that role? Why not age up Morpheus and have Morpheus as

running the whole thing? Because that's a character that means a lot more. And have Morpheus, it would have been so much more interesting if Morpheus was now the one that didn't want them to go back and find Neo because it was

going to put the city in danger. And it turns Morpheus on his head a little bit. If you're going to do stuff, that would have been more interesting to have to convince him who was so sure that Neo was the one. You know, maybe he was a little bit older than I, Obey, but I don't know why. I don't know. It just seemed like a,

I don't know. I don't know the answer, but a guess that I would have is that they wanted, that Lana wanted to make sure that she was also, like, claiming, reloaded and revolutions. And, like, putting Jada in there and talking about Zion a lot is a way to connect it to Matrix 2 and 3 and not make it feel like only Matrix 1 mattered. Do you know what I mean? That would be my guess, but, but I don't know why they didn't even, like, ask. I think it's really interesting that Lord's Fishburne says he wasn't even asked. I have a lot of questions about that.

It seems a little disrespectful. I don't want to... I don't know the reason why, but I have a lot of questions about it. So, you know, we should shout out Chad, who plays Trinney slash Tiffany's husband. That is a Matrix, former Matrix stunt coordinator, who's also named Chad. And they cast him as handsome Chad in this movie. So that's like a nice connection to the original. And I do want to mention really quickly, there are some themes that the Wichowski seem really

interested in that may or may not have to do with their trans identity that crops up in their later work over and over again. You see it in Cloud Atlas. You see it in Sense 8 and you see it in this movie, which is this idea of like no matter what you look like externally, you know, the fact that we see Neo in two different bodies, there's that like the guy on the ledge, there's that guy. And then there's the guy he sees in the mirror with the gray hair. It's two different guys who are not Keanu Reeves that are also Neo, which is a very sense. move. And this idea of Cloud Atlas, which is like

soulmates that will find each other again and again and again no matter where they are. Like that's the beauty of Cloud Atlas. And that's, I think, kind of what they're trying to do with Neo and Trinity here is like, I'll find you. No matter what the computers do, I will find you. Stay alive. Daniel Day Lewis.

I will find you. Oh. Oh. You know what I mean? By the way, a movie that like, if you want to get started on a movie that I love with the capital L. I will. It's national O'Hikas, by the way.

How dare you? I was thinking of the waterfall. You're thinking of the waterfall. Also, I just have to stay on brand and shout out the final season of Lost, a season of television that is controversial, but that I love, that is pretty much the exact same plot of this movie. The entire last season of Lost, which is about soulmates finding each other in a manufactured world and waking each other up, that's essentially what we're watching here. So just shout out, shout out to Lost.

And Lost itself was inspired by The Matrix. So it's all one IP feedback loop. Before we get into the future of the Matrix and whether or not we want to see any more matrices, is there anything else any specific thing, line, moment that you want to shout out from this, from this movie? When the guy, did I already say this? When the guy says, I was rewatching the beginning of it with this guy says, BT. Dubbs. I'm like, that was the moment when I knew this movie was on some shit. Like, that's the movie.

When they go to the Simulati, also the fact, the other thing, the fact that so much of this movie takes place in a coffee shop is so annoying. Like, I was very San Francisco, though. I'm like, why are they in this coffee shop? It's so many scenes. Like, the big moment happens in a coffee shop. Weird. What, the part that I kind of thought was like a little cool.

I'm so scared. There are things to like. A little cool is when bugs had to get like jacked back in because she had to come in and save them. That whole scene felt very matrix-ish, you know, when they had to save. And the fact, I'll be honest with you, the fact that none of the new crew died. The one thing that bothers me about the original Matrix is like Apoc Switch fucking dozer. Dozer. They just, they dozer.

They all get just murked out. You know what I mean? And so I like the fact that none of the original crew died is such a funny thing, like small thing. But I like the fact that they all survived this. I like the fact that they figured out how to make sweaters in this new future that didn't have holes all in them. All of their sweaters are intact. Great stuff. We haven't talked about I-O.

And the fact that they got strawberries. They got drinks now. They got snacks. You know what I mean? Yeah. out of sky. But, like, you know, like Zion seemed like he was, like, very cramped. I-O seemed like he was expansive and wide.

And they leveled up at least in that situation. I'm not going to lie. Seeing I owe a little bit made me a little sad. I'm like, damn, like, it's been 60 years. And this still looks depressing this out. Like, when they was eating the strawberries, I was just like, this is like, imagine such a simple life. The best thing you have in your life is eating a strawberry.

That's beautiful. Strawberries are delicious. Please stop disrespecting them. Let me shout out a few things. Number one, I'm pretty sure they named a character Jude, just so you could have Keanu and Rieus call him Jude and have it sound like dude. And I feel mixed about that. I think I still know Kung Fu is a bad line, and he shouldn't have said it,

and they should have cut it. And it didn't hit at all. And I think the line swarm mode is sick fun is stupid. But I did like the visual of like everyone's eyeballs getting the, like, the code in it and everyone being activated. I thought that was cool. And I, like, again, I just want to shout out both Venom, let there be carnage and this movie for making me nostalgic for my own city that I get

to see all the time. I just love seeing San Francisco. Why does Hollywood love setting stuff in San Francisco? I've never been. Because it's a cool place to look at. And we got some tax breaks. Yeah. Oh, for real?

There's some tax incentives. I like, I like looking at San Francisco. I like that big building that, like, was on Star Trek. track. What's that big building called? The Transamerica. I like that building, man. That building is fucking awesome.

I like also the fact that Sonic was messing around in San Francisco and stuff. San Francisco is a good movie city. San Francisco is great and it's a bummer when they try to make Vancouver San Francisco. And you're like, no, don't give me this. Don't give me this Vancouver bullshit. All right. So the future. We didn't love, we were mixed negative on this movie, I would say, as a group.

once again, shout out to our friend Mallory Rubin, who would have probably been a ray of sunshine balance on this equation. Do we three people want more Matrix? Content, Charles. More Matrix? Yes or no? Absolutely not.

Absolutely not. This is the same feeling I had. What's the movie called? Rise of Skywalker? This is the exact feeling I had after Rise of Skywalker, where I was just like, you know what? Like, let's wrap these movies up. got the Mandalorian. Let's wrap this shit up, put it on ice, and we'll come back to it when

everybody, like, has regained some composure and their common sense. How about, like, what about, like, a Matrix TV show? No, no, no, no, no, no. That's like just bugs. I just don't, because here's the thing. I agree with everyone. Like, here's the thing, I've been really, really hard on the Wachowski's, but I, as an artist, I believe in them in terms of like, hey, if these corporations are going to give you a bunch of money and going to be dicks about it, Yeah, spend that shit. Do what your heart's desires. Shout out to the Wachowski's.

But if even at least Lana is having trouble making this work, why am I supposed to believe somebody else can make it work? You know, for some reason, I always did. I also give the Wachowski's credit for V for Vendetta. I give them credit for it. You know, like they wrote it. You know, like I give them credit for V for Vendetta. Whatever.

I can do that if I want, Charles. You're very draconian with the way you let me apply my stuff. Let's not fight in front of Joe. Again, V for Vendetta, Hugo Weaving. Cloud Atlas, Hugo Weaving. Here's the deal. Don't make something without Hugo Weaving. Does he unlock the code for the Wichowski?

By the way, there are a lot of filmmakers who have an actor like that that just gets them and, you know, but no, so, you know, I'm torn. Like, once again, it's the Mike Tyson factor. I still haven't been disappointed with the Matrix enough to not believe that there is like amazing Matrix content that can be

made again. If there's another Matrix movie, I'm going to go see it. I just think they need, it's hard for a movie that it's hard for something that reinvented the will to reinvent the wheel again. They need to find whatever the meaning of it is going to be now.

We know what it meant in 99 and 2002 or whatever for those audiences. You know, the Animatrix is amazing. So maybe that's a way to take the matrix into the next phase of what it is. Maybe they go back to the animation sort of situation. But I still believe that it's an intriguing enough world to really get something amazing from it.

But I got to be honest with you. I don't see how. So this movie ends, I'm pretty sure. Correct me if I'm wrong. With Trinity and Neo flying off to make a new, be the architect of their own Matrix? I thought it was they were going to redesign this one. Sky full of rainbow sort of thing. Okay.

Give me that matrix. Just give me Hugo weaving to come in and fuck their shit up. That works. But can I ask you a question? Does it matter if they make a new nice matrix if human beings are still slaves to machines in the real world? Don't they got to figure that out? Well, don't they have a choice? Aren't the humans living in Io technically free?

And doesn't every person have a choice to be in the Matrix or not be in the Matrix, except for Trinity and Neo who are being held captive? Oh, I got to be real with you. If that's the thing, I fucking totally miss that. I think that's the premise. Hold on. Hold on. I apologize to everybody that's listening to Ring of Verse right now. I watch this movie twice.

and if everybody who's plugged up into the matrix has a choice. So let me ask you this. When they're in swarm mode and then they're jumping out of their windows to crash their bodies, is that a choice? Those aren't people. I think those are bots. Those are bots. Oh, wait, so they have a choice.

I thought that the new matrix was formed because there wasn't enough resources. Because all of, like, if they freed all of the humans, there wasn't enough energy anymore. Right. And the machine started fighting. I swear I swear I watched this twice and I could be wrong and please direct all your tweets at me but I swear I watched it twice.

But I'm pretty sure that Jessica Hanwick's character bugs he's like, Keanu's like, oh, it's all for nothing as did all this and it's just the same as it was and she's like, no, there is peace. There was peace. Yeah, she says that. Everyone has a choice now. They can decide to be in the

Matrix or not. Okay, look. I got to be honest with you. I saw the movie twice. If I didn't get that, I still blamed them. But even so, if that's the case, then, what's so bad about the Matrix that they were in? Just that, like, Neo and Trinity were being held captive. But how does that affect all of the other people who are happy being in the Matrix?

It affects the people who care a lot about Neo and Trinity. Or we miss the entire point of the movie. and you just listen to just. I did not understand. The fact that we're all so little confused. Jomey watched it. Jomey. Jomey.

Jomey. Jomey, please, bro. Jomey, jump in, bro. We're dying here. Jomey, please. Wait, man, you can cut this, Steve. Did the two of us watch this movie and totally die?

I watched it twice. I washed it twice and I could be wrong. Yeah. What's going on, man? What's going on? In the current Matrix in this movie, designed by Neil Patrick Harris.

Yep. Do humans have a choice about whether or not they are in it or not? No. Right? There's no way that they have a choice to be in the Matrix.

Their batteries used as power cells for the robots. Yeah. Right? No one's like volunteer like, hey, plug me in. my guy, this is what I want.

Well, maybe. It's unclear. So then here's the thing then. If everyone is still slaves, then what difference does it make if Neo and Trinity designed a better matrix? They're still slaves. They're just slaves with a nicer prison. Well, hey, I'm not supplying energy to the robots. That's good enough for me.

Plug me back in. Yeah, that is kind of weird. Here's what I think is true. Okay. But, like, Neo and Trinity are in danger of causing an anomaly that will force Neil Patrick Harris to reboot the Matrix. That will erase the virtual lives of the humans who have decided to stay in there. And the humans that decide to stay in there are like Joey Pan's in the first one where they're like, okay, your genetically altered strawberries nice, but I want my juicy steak. Like, I want the creature comforts that come from being in the Matrix.

And there are plenty of people who would, I would probably choose to stay in San Francisco and eat and drink simulates. If you knew what the choice was, a lot of people would. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but they also say at the end of the movie, that's why Neo and Trinity go back to the analyst because they're just like, well, why didn't the machines just reboot the Matrix? And he's like, because I'm the only one who understands human emotion. And that's how he's made such a better functioning matrix in terms of like energy.

Because when he's about to shoot Trinity and time stops, he's just like, I figured out a way to get more energy out of you guys is by understanding your emotions and what you want. It was my understanding of the film. Guys, this is embarrassing. For me. I would love for you to do something

that we do on the Midnight Boys here. What was that? I would love to get your midnight meter ranking. Oh, no. I was like, can we get through this without doing a Midnight Meter ranking on this movie? Love to get your midnight meter ranking. Joe.

Just in case you don't know, the midnight meters from 1 to 10, 11 and 12 are reserved for movies that are truly game changing. But for I think our purposes, this is going to be a pretty solid one out of 10 rating. And no half scores. We tried to diplomatically pick our way through the Briar Patch. No, no, no. We get in trouble. And now you put a number on it. Right.

Joanna, since you, you know. At start. You have to start. The host has to start. Okay, give me, give me some context. What's your worst rated movie that you put on the Midnight meter? And what number did you give it? So far, I think it's been Eternals and I think mine was a five for Eternals.

Yeah, I think the lows you've gone is like a five. Tough stuff, tough stuff. I'm going to give this a six out of ten. Interesting. A six out of ten. Yeah, six out of ten, Charles? Okay. Twelve.

Oh, this movie, I'm going to go four. I'm going to go four. Okay. I'm glad you guys were both great. Two out of ten. Two. I'm keeping it real. I'm glad you guys are both two out of ten.

Two out of ten, I'd rather watch Eternals ten times in a row. Eternal is so much better than this movie. Like, it's not even close how much better Eternals is. But did Eternals have Carrie Ann Moss kicking Neil Patrick Harris's jaw off of his face? Can I be honest with you? Without that scene? That is the coolest scene. That works.

Literally, all of that stuff when she catches him, I was like, oh, that's dope. All of that stuff is fine. That stuff works. Her and her snapping her fingers, she looked like such a fucking badass. And then the pure joy on her face when she was flying at the end, they got one point for that scene and one point because it's the Matrix. Two out of ten. One point for Trinity, one point for Nostov. All respect to the Wachowski's.

All respect to Keanu Reeves. No disrespect to any of the creators, man. Like, they set out to make a great movie. They just did. No disrespect to anyone. Can we just shout out. Okay, let's just shout out one thing about this movie, though. You often, in these legacy sequels,

I'm looking at you, Top Gun. They bring back the dude, and they replace the woman with someone younger. Oh, that's very true. And they brought back Carrie and Moss who's 54 years old looks fine as hell in this movie. I would argue she should have been Trinity this whole time

because like towards the end I'm like she should have been this badass the whole fucking movie. She should have been saving Kiallu like come on now. She gets on the motorcycle you're like yes. Carrey and Moss. She did her thing. She did his thing. So one point for Carrie and Moss, one point for it being the Matrix. Two out of ten

for Van. Do you want to rescore? Are you sticking to a six? I'm sticking to a six. All right. I have points like an award all over with like, like, Yaya's Fitz is one point. San Francisco is a point. I'm going to give some bonus points. Extra credit.

All right. If you want to hear our thoughts on other other content, the Midnight Boys, PiuPiu! We'll return with our instant reactions to episode one of the book of Boa Fett on Wednesday and on Friday, New Year's Eve. You can close out the year with House of Our working title and our deep dive into all things, you know, intergalactic bounty hunter.

It's happening on this feed. It's happening on this feed. I got to shout out a few people who are involved in the making of this episode in loving memory of Mallory Rubin, who is not here, who is still Tiffany in a cafe somewhere. But we got some producers, I think. We've got Steve Allman, we've got our Juno Ram Gapal. and we've got TD. St. Matthew Daniel.

And, of course, Jomey, a dinner on. Usually the explainer. Not sure. Not this guy. It's okay. We love you, Jomey. But hashtag free Jomey on social. We're going to get out of here, but first, real quickly,

Charles, we send us home. House of Midnight is a wrap. Matrix 4? Not going to lie. A little thin. But God. was this movie bad mr. Anderson? Feels like every product claims real protein these days.

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