Oh, boy. Here we go. The Matrix: Resurrections is basically The Last Jedi of Matrix movies. If you hated The Last Jedi, then you'll probably hate this for much the same reason. Similar to The Last Jedi, The Matrix Resurrections is all about the creative pressure to live up to toxic fandom expectations, and it's predicated on a twist that a lot of fans might consider to be "unfaithful" to the original trilogy.

Personally, I liked The Last Jedi much more than most. I think it's the best film in the sequel trilogy, even if it does make a lot of very hard missteps. And the stuff that I liked most about The Last Jedi happened to be the stuff that most other people were most offended by.

Despite the similarities, I doubt that The Matrix Resurrections will be received with the same level of vitriol as The Last Jedi was. For one, we've seen a lot of these sort of cynical deconstructions of fandoms and sequel expectations since The Last Jedi released, and so I think a lot of the public is desensitized to it now. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, The Matrix Resurrections doesn't commit as fully to its cynical view of the franchise. While that might appease many fans who just want to see another "Matrix" movie, it's probably the biggest reason that I felt disappointed by The Matrix Resurrections.

Personally, I enjoyed the first half of the movie, but was immensely disappointed with the second half.

© Warner Bros., 2020.

© Disney, 2017.

The Matrix Resurrections reminded me a lot of The Last Jedi, but without the guts to commit to its polarizing twist.

This review will be pretty spoiler-y, as I will be talking about the plot twist. So consider yourself warned, and watch the movie before reading further if you don't want to have it spoiled. Though at this point, just telling you that there are spoilers at all is probably already a spoiler, so what's the point of the warning?

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If you care enough to not be spoiled, have you watched the movie yet? If not, then I'm assuming you don't care. OK. Good. Let's continue.

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If Infinity War was the Empire Strikes Back of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, then Endgame was poised to be the MCU's Return of the Jedi. RotJ was a "good enough" capstone on a legendary film series, and that's pretty much where my expectations for Endgame sat. Endgame exceeded my expectations. It's far more than just a "good enough" sequel, though it's still not as good as Infinity War.

Endgame could very easily have just been a movie about all the heroes picking themselves back up after being knocked down in Infinity War, coming together, going after Thanos, and beating him up for two hours. Then they get the Infinity Gauntlet and snap all the dead heroes and people back into existence. No harm done, happy ending for everyone.

Not the case.

Several of my friends suspected that Thanos would remain the point-of-view character, and that he, himself, would be overcome with grief and regret over having killed Gamora. That Thanos would actually be the one to undo everything, redeeming himself in a way similar to Darth Vader. That didn't happen either. The point of view has shifted completely back to our heroes -- what's left of them.

Thanos' grief is not the subject of the movie, nor does he spend the movie gloating. Grief is, however, the overarching theme of Endgame, which handles the subject with maturity and nuance -- at least, up until its morally muddled ending (more on that later). The Marvel movies have always included themes of family, and the lengths one would go for family. Endgame explores how we deal with the loss of family, the grief and depression that comes with tragedy, the trauma and guilt of failing to protect those you care about. It's powerful stuff, and it pulls no punches.

And I totally cried when the movie went full-blown Star Trek VI with its end credits. It's too bad they didn't include the Stan Lee marvel logo that was included in Captain Marvel. This being the capstone MCU movie that everyone is going to see, I feel that tribute would have served this movie well. Or maybe put that tribute at the end of the movie, along with the other credits. Ah well.

It's hard to talk any more about this movie without going into spoiler territory. So I'm going to start with minor spoilers and work my way up to the more major ones. If you haven't seen the movie yet, then you can close this page now and know that I give it my fullest recommendation. Otherwise, feel free to read on, but know that things are going to get increasingly spoiler-y as I go on. Feel free to stop if you feel like you're about to read something you don't want to hear.

The remaining heroes must deal with the grief and guilt of having failed to stop Thanos.

With the Silent Hill HD Collection being lambasted by fans and critics (my review now available here!), I thought I’d take a moment to discuss exactly why I feel it was so important for the original voice acting of the games (Silent Hill 2 specifically) to be retained. And it isn't just a matter of personal preference based on my familiarity with the original actors; although, that is definitely a contributing factor.

Critics tend to make a simple equivocation fallacy when describing the voice acting of Silent Hill as "awkward" and then calling it "bad". But "awkward" does not necessarily mean "bad". In fact, the awkward voice acting of Silent Hill 2 is actually a benefit to the game's narrative and mood. This is something that should be apparent to anybody who is actually paying attention to what's happening in the game.

Let us first take a step back and look at the design principles that went into Silent Hill 2.

Silent Hill 2 is a particular kind of horror game. It differs from other horror games at the time - such as Resident Evil and even its own predecessor Silent Hill - in that it is a very emotional brand of horror. The horror doesn't come so much from being "afraid", but rather, from being depressed, confused, and unsure of what is going on around you. Silent Hill 2 is a very dark and gloomy game, and definitely deserves its "M for Mature" rating with its story and themes alone. Team Silent accomplishes this by immersing the player in decrepit environments and introducing elements of surrealism to the game's reality. They then supplement this by slowing breaking down the foundational pillars of what the main character thinks is real, and then forcing the character and the player to wonder whether their own senses can be trusted.