I wanted to love this movie. I really did. The Matrix meant something to me in 1999, the way it meant something to everyone who walked out of a theater that year thinking they'd just seen the future of action cinema. For years I'd been one of those people quietly hoping for one more trip down the rabbit hole. So when Resurrections was announced, I was all in.

Having sat with it now, I can tell you that IGN's review lands on something I felt too. The film is gorgeous to look at and surprisingly empty underneath. The visual language is still there, or at least a version of it. Lana Wachowski returned to direct solo this time, and some of the imagery sticks with you. The problem is what happens, or doesn't happen, between the images.

Keanu Reeves is back as Thomas Anderson / Neo, and he gives it everything he has. There's a sadness in his performance that feels real and earned, this man who's been here before and can't quite figure out why he has to do it all again. Carrie-Anne Moss gets some great moments too. Their scenes together have a tenderness that caught me off guard. But the film keeps pulling away from its own emotion, almost like it's embarrassed by sincerity. Every time I started to feel something real the script would pivot into meta-commentary or a fight scene that didn't land with the weight of the original trilogy's best moments.

The action is where I kept waiting for that old spark. The original Matrix films, even the flawed sequels, had action sequences with physical weight and spatial clarity. You understood where everyone was in relation to everyone else. Resurrections has polish but less impact. The fights are cut faster, lit prettier, and somehow less memorable. I'd be hard-pressed to describe a single set piece in detail. That wouldn't have been a problem with the rooftop helicopter rescue or the Chateau brawl or even the freeway chase from Reloaded, scenes that burned themselves into your brain.

Where the movie works best is in its quiet self-awareness. There's a stretch early on where characters openly discuss the commodification of the Matrix itself, the way art gets turned into product, and it's funny and sharp and a little uncomfortable in the best way. Wachowski clearly had something to say about sequels and nostalgia and the machine of intellectual property. I just wish she'd found a way to say it without losing the human thread that made the original film matter beyond its bullet-time spectacle.

The film is more interesting as an essay about its own existence than as a story you invest in. It has real value. I just wanted both.

Should you watch it? If you love the Matrix franchise, yeah, you should see it at least once. There are ideas in here worth engaging with and a few performances worth your time. Just go in knowing that the thing that made the first film unforgettable, the way it made you feel the ground shift under you, isn't quite here this time. You're left with something that looks great and thinks hard but doesn't quite feel like much of anything.