“Matrix Resurrections” deserved better reviews. Call me crazy, but it is true. Streaming on HBO Max, “Resurrections” is a great movie that is certainly worth watching whenever you have the time. It manages to redo the first “Matrix,”while still being interesting and fresh; in some ways, it is even better than the second and third “Matrix” movies.

While the original “Matrix” movies were the Wachowski Sisters’ (who directed the movie) way of pondering the ethical dilemma of a controlled virtual reality, “Resurrections” is more of a choice-based movie: the choice of whether to go down the rabbit hole again or not.

The movie starts off with the very first scene in “Matrix One,” except it is a little… different. In that same scene, we meet Bugs and Seq, two programmers/hackers who never stopped believing that the protagonist, Neo, was still alive even after his supposed death in “Matrix Three.”

Neo is in fact still alive, albeit as Thomas Anderson, a depressed game designer who is famous for creating a trilogy of games called (you guessed it) “The Matrix.” Tom is in therapy with “The Analyst” after a “suicide” attempt, and consistently has visions from his past life as Neo; though he believes those visions are from his game. The Analyst is giving Neo blue pills for his visions — I will leave you to interpret the significance of that.

To make bad times worse, upper management tells Tom that the parent company, Warner Bros, has ordered him to make a sequel to the Matrix trilogy, and they are going ahead with the game with or without him. Things get worse until Tom meets Tiffany, who looks uncannily similar to Trinity, Neo’s girlfriend in the Matrix games, and in his past life. Tom is instantly star struck, and just like that; he has something or rather someone to live for.

Through a series of confusing but interesting events, Tom is faced with a choice that he actually remembers: a red pill for the truth about the Matrix, or a blue pill for a return to his normal life. I wonder what he chose.

After going through the whole discovery of what the matrix really is, Tom finds out that Trinity is still alive, and he suddenly has another purpose. Lots of purpose going around these days for Neo.

The rest of the movie consists of Neo trying to find Trinity and freeing her from the Matrix. The ensuing conflict (Neo trying to free Trinity from the Analyst’s grip), results in quite the nail-biter at times. It also contains a laughably high amount of spoilers and is thus not explained here. However, it is worth watching for sure.

When “Resurrections” was announced, people had extremely high expectations, maybe even unrealistically high expectations. “Resurrections” does its best to live up to the hype, and definitely matches expectations in some places. As an example, the parts of the movie that are computer-generated no longer look like a 2005 video game, and now look insanely realistic due to modern technology.

Also, hats off to whoever wrote the character development script; they deserve an Oscar. The characters and their development are well thought out, with the development of Neo from vision-having lunatic to “The One.” The way he rediscovers his abilities and confidence really impressed me. The development of other characters is great as well. They really find their purposes throughout the movie and watching them develop really intrigued me. I will say it again: the character development person deserves an Oscar.

However, the movie is lacking in the one place that the Matrix series is known for: fight scenes. While the fight scenes are certainly better than, say, your average Marvel fight scene, it cannot compete with Star Wars fight scenes like the originals were able to. Most of the fight scenes in “Resurrections’’ are very chaotic and messy, and the sole gunfight in the movie is disorganized. The hand-to-hand fighting is still good, but chaotic and hard to understand.

One thing I did not like about the movie was its use of swarms of people in fight scenes. It made scenes with those swarms very busy and violent. For instance, in many fight scenes, the protagonists had to fight their way through big groups of people (the swarms) and the fight scenes felt very closed in and halfhearted — especially when compared to the lovingly choreographed fight scenes of the original Matrixes. With all this, the swarms in “Resurrections’’ are definitely a sticking point.

Despite all of this, “Resurrections” was still a great movie, and getting HBO Max for a month is totally worth it for just this movie alone. It puts a new take on the first Matrix quite well and continues the story of Neo well, considering the ending of the third Matrix was very hard to continue off of without bringing in totally new characters. I would say that director Lana Wachowski definitely delivered with this movie.

And as for whether they freed Trinity or not? Well, you will just have to watch the movie to find out.