This fourth film makes it clear that the original trilogy has already said all that it wanted to. By wearing this note on her sleeve, Lana Wachowski has created a taunt of a film that is twistedly original and on-your-face. It packs in clumsy plans with clever callbacks. The action is uninspiring, camera more handheld as opposed to the plethora of poised, wide frames of the classic. While it does miss out on the visual flair of its predecessors, it manages to retain the sincerity of its deepest themes – choice, love, war, among others. The film particularly underlines the emotion of love all over again. Keanu Reeves and Carrie Anne Moss pick up where they left off, showing no flab of passed time, whatsoever.

The screenplay is fascinating for how it feels like the same story being repeated while presenting entirely newer ideas and self-aware philosophies about a looping Matrix along the way. The self-awareness is evident in the idea that a rehashing loop is what we’ll get if we ask for a reboot, because we are losing new ideas to the bait of nostalgia-based fiction. It’s an audacious film for saying all this. For now I can say I have as much respect for this sequel as I have for Reloaded and Revolutions. There’s so much to chew on. These films, with all their flaws, will be rewarding experiences for ages to come. I’m also rooting for the adoption of Wachowskis’ inclusive worldview in the mainstream. They’ve built an incredible world that runs around digital codes, to tell an essentially human story, one that calls for us to drop the oppressive social codes we’ve made up in our real world.