HOW TO MAKE A KILLING : Tuesday 17th March 2026

I saw the M Rated 'HOW TO MAKE A KILLING' earlier this week, and this French and UK Co-Produced black comedy thriller film is Written and Directed by John Patton Ford in only his second feature film making outing following 'Emily the Criminal' in 2022. This film is based on the Roy Horniman 1907 novel 'Israel Rank : The Autobiography of a Criminal' which in turn was used as the basis of the Screenplay of the highly-regarded 1949 black comedy 'Kind Hearts and Coronets' Directed by Robert Hamer and starring Alec Guinness playing all eight members of the family whom he must kill off to inherit the family fortune. This film was released in the US in mid-February, was released here in Australia on 5th March, in the UK on 11th March, and upcoming in France on 25th March. The film has so far received mixed or average critical reviews, and has grossed US$9M from its US$15M production budget.

Convicted of murder and waiting to be put to death in a little over 24 hours, Becket Redfellow (Glen Powell, who also Co-Produces here), recounts his story to a priest, Father Morris (Adrian Lukis) on how he came to be there in the first place. As a child, Becket (Grady Wilson) is raised by his single mother, Mary (Nell Williams), who was outcast from her wealthy Redfellow family for choosing to keep her teenage pregnancy at just eighteen years of age. As a young lad, Becket befriends the more well to do Julia Steinway (Maggie Toomey). Prior to her death in hospital, Mary stresses to young Becket that he should fight for the life he 'deserves' to have.

One day, a now adult Becket who works as a suit salesman in a bespoke tailors shop is noticed by a now married Julia (Margaret Qualley) who by chance is in the shop looking for suits for her husband. They briefly catch-up on each others lives having not seen one another for many many years. Later Becket gets  demoted from his job as a suit salesman, and pushed out to the company warehouse, whereupon he promptly resigns. Becket decides to eliminate the remaining Redfellows in order to claim his inheritance to the family fortune which runs into the tens of billions of dollars.

Becket first kills his cousin Taylor (Raff Law), an investment banker, by tying an anchor to his leg while he sleeps off a hangover on his private motor boat and tosses the anchor overboard taking Taylor with it. Becket then meets Taylor's father Warren (Bill Camp) at the funeral, who offers him Taylor's old job at his financial investment firm. While planning the murder of his other cousin Noah (Zach Woods), an artist, Becket befriends Noah's girlfriend Ruth (Jessica Henwick). After killing Noah, by rigging an explosion in his photographic dark room, two FBI agents approach Becket, discussing the two suspicious deaths, though they do not accuse Becket of murder. Becket pretends to not know whether he is eligible for the inheritance. Julia appears in Becket's office, claiming her husband Lyle is broke and asks for a US$300K loan, which he denies. 

Becket and Ruth begin dating and move in together into a lavish high-rise apartment, now that he has moved onward and upward in his new job. Despite being welcomed with open arms by Warren, rapidly promoted in his job and content with his relationship with Ruth, Becket kills three more Redfellows -  cousin Steven (Topher Grace), aunt Cassandra (Bianca Amato), and uncle MacArthur (Alexander Hanson). Warren, who Becket is unable to bring himself to kill because of the kindness and generosity he had shown him, has a heart attack and dies as they are both leaving the office one day reeling from a looming financial crisis, leaving only one more living Redfellow, Becket's grandfather Whitelaw (Ed Harris).

Whitelaw sends a personal invitation to Becket for dinner at his mansion on the night of Becket and Ruth's engagement party. He calls Ruth to explain that he must attend and she makes him promise to be home by 7:00pm which he agrees to. Julia reveals to Becket that she has photographic evidence of his murders, which she will reveal unless he gives her the US$300K she had asked for previously, and that this must be delivered personally by him to her husband Lyle (James Frecheville) at his place of work. Becket complies, going to Lyle's office to hand-deliver a cheque to him. Becket forgoes his engagement party to go to the mansion, where he meets Whitelaw, who locks the doors and attempts to kill him with a WWI pump action shotgun. Becket kills Whitelaw in self-defence using a bow and arrow taken from an arrangement hanging on the wall. This makes Becket the sole inheritor to the family fortune. At a celebratory party at the mansion, Becket is approached again by the FBI agents, who arrest him for the murder of Lyle, who was found stabbed to death in his office using a letter opener that Becket touched when he delivered the cheque, leaving fingerprint evidence.

With the clock counting down the hours until his execution, Julia visits Becket in jail. During their timed three minute meeting, she tells him that there was a suicide note written by Lyle that was withheld from the trial. Becket pressures Julia to release the note, which she agrees to only if Becket signs over the entire Redfellow fortune to her. Becket reluctantly agrees, and signs the necessary paperwork from his jail cell. Julia then releases the note as promised. With Becket's innocence now without question, he is set free. Ruth waits for him outside the prison, only to return his mother's locket to him containing a lock of her hair as a keepsake. She leaves afterwards without saying a word to Becket and speeds off in her beat up old car. Becket sees Julia waiting for him with the Redfellow family driver, and the pair travel to the Redfellow family mansion together in the comfort of a Rolls Royce.

As a big almost life long fan of 'Kind Hearts and Coronets' I left the movie theatre feeling underwhelmed by this modern 21st century set in New York retelling that is 'How to Make a Killing'. On the plus side Glen Powell gives an OK frequently smirking like the proverbial Cheshire Cat performance backed up by the always dependable Margaret Qualley and Ed Harris, with the latter being banished to the penultimate sequence in which he perishes courtesy of two well aimed arrows. On the downside however, the six murders are all wrapped up with relative ease, are totally bloodless, and are skirted over like they've been concocted by a ten year old with access to Google. The script would have benefitted too from a little more polish, and being just a tad nastier, more witty, and less predictable. In summary, the film has all the touchstones to be greater than the sum of its parts . . . it just fails to hit them.

'How to Make a Killing' merits two claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps. 

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

GLASS ONION : A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY - Tuesday 29th November 2022.

I saw the M rated 'GLASS ONION : A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY' on its final day of its very limited theatrical run earlier this week. This American murder mystery film is Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Rian Johnson whose previous film making credits take in his big screen debut with 'Brick' in 2005, then 'The Brothers Bloom' in 2008, 'Looper' in 2012, 'Star Wars : Episode VIII - The Last Jedi' in 2017 and 'Knives Out' in 2019, to which this film is a standalone sequel. This film had its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in mid-September this year and is scheduled to have a one-week limited theatrical release from 23rd November before its streaming release on 23rd December by Netflix. The film saw the widest theatrical release ever for a Netflix film generating US$15M in Box Office receipts towards its production costs of US$40M and garnering universal critical acclaim. 

During the height of the 2020 COVID pandemic when the world is gripped by lockdowns, we are introduced to a group of individuals who all receive a large and strange looking wooden box, with no visible means of gaining entry to it. There is Lionel Toussaint (Leslie Odom Jnr.), the head scientist for global tech company Alpha Industries; Birdie Jay (Kate Hudson), a former supermodel turned fashion designer; Claire Debella (Kathryn Hahn), the governor of Connecticut now running for the Senate; Duke Cody (Dave Bautista), a Twitch streamer and men's rights activist; and Cassandra 'Andi' Brand (Janelle Monae), Miles's ex-business partner. Lionel hooks up with the other recipients of the same identical box (for they are all close friends of one another) and together they are able to gain entry into the box revealing an elaborate number of puzzles and games contained therein, with the final reveal being an invitation from billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) and owner of Alpha Industries to attend his very own murder mystery weekend at his private estate 'Glass Onion' which is housed on his own private Greek island. Tagging along are also Peg (Jessica Henwick) Birdie's Assistant, and Whiskey (Madelyn Cline) Duke's girlfriend and Twitch channel Assistant. 

World renowned Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is hired by Andi's identical twin sister, Helen, to investigate her sister's alleged suicide the previous week. Helen advises Blanc that Miles jettisoned Andi from her role as CEO of Alpha Industries after Andi categorically denied his request to release 'Klear', a  hydrogen-based alternative fuel that early tests have proven to be very dangerous under certain conditions. She lost a lawsuit against him due to her inability to prove that she conceived of the company and not Miles. Helen suspects that one of Miles's friends killed Andi after she found a cocktail napkin from the 'Glass Onion' bar that they all used to frequent back in the day, on which she scribbled Alpha's founding ideas, evidence that would discredit Miles. 

Blanc instructs Helen to take Andi's place for the weekend given that they were identical twins and news of Andi's death has still not hit the headlines. Arriving on the island to help him investigate undercover as though they are unknown to each other, Miles informs Blanc that he did not send him an invitation but allows him to stay, assuming that his presence was a joke arranged by one of the other guests. 

On the island, Helen sets about covertly searching for clues that could potentially lead to Andi's killer, but determines that Lionel, Claire, Birdie, and Duke are all suspects. Lionel and Claire had staked their professional reputations to support Klear, only to learn of its dangerous qualities afterward; Birdie was forced by Miles to take responsibility for hiring a sweatshop in Bangladesh to manufacture her clothing line; and Duke was attempting to coerce Miles into giving him a position at Alpha News by using Whiskey to seduce him. 

On the first evening with the weekend ahead of them, Miles lays out plans for his elaborate staged murder mystery in which he is the victim and his guests need to prove who the killer is. But Blanc, before the game has even started, solves the case much to Miles' frustration saying that he even had Gillian Flynn write his murder mystery game, and she doesn't come cheap! 

So the group parties with a number of guests considering returning home the next day. Duke suddenly collapses dead after inadvertently drinking from Miles's glass. The group begins to panic, suspecting the missing 'Andi' to be the killer and discovering that Duke's pistol (which he never goes anywhere without) is missing. Then at 10:00pm right on cue, all the lights across the island go out except for the lighthouse which intermittently illuminates the house and grounds. In the resulting chaos, the group splits up. Blanc bumps into Helen outside on the steps, who has been searching for Andi's cocktail napkin which she believes the killer stole. He instructs her to search Miles's office. An unknown assailant shoots Helen in the chest, but she survives unknown to anyone else but Blanc, due to Andi's diary in her jacket pocket having blocked the bullet. 

Blanc rounds up the remaining group in Miles's art room, where he deduces that Miles committed both murders. After Miles learned of the napkin's existence from Lionel, he had killed Andi to prevent her from revealing it to the public. Immediately following her murder, he was seen speeding away from her house by Duke who was nearly 'pancaked' on his motorcycle, and who deduced Miles's involvement with Andi's death during the party, when his newsfeed revealed her death, and as a consequence he attempted to blackmail Miles. This then prompted Miles to poison Duke with pineapple juice, which Duke was severly allergic to, before using Duke's pistol to shoot Helen. 

Helen finds the napkin in Miles's office and reveals her true identity to the group, but Miles burns the napkin with his cigar lighter as she is holding it. With no evidence against Miles and the group unwilling to side with her, Helen sets about smashing all of Miles's glass sculptures before triggering the Klear-powered mansion to explode. This destroys the Glass Onion and the Mona Lisa, which Miles had on loan from the Louvre, while it was shut due to the pandemic. With Miles's reputation now in tatters due to the worlds most famous painting's being destroyed and Klear being proven as dangerous, the group decides they will testify against him. Helen and Blanc sit on the beach as they watch the Police arrive by boat as the sun rises. 

'Glass Onion : A Knives Out Mystery' is very entertaining and I'm pleased to have seen it on the big screen at my local independent movie theatre (which was packed out I might add) rather than waiting for the small screen Netflix release at Christmas. The film shines in almost every aspect from the sun drenched Greek island setting, to all the trappings of a very wealthy tech billionaire, to the performances of the cast to the script, the humour and the direction laid on by Rian Johnson, it hardly misses a beat. This is more than a worthy follow-up to 2019's 'Knives Out' and with double the budget it is clear that no expense was spared in bringing together an ensemble cast lead by the returning Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, and the exotic location that undoubtedly contributed to the film being greater than the sum of its parts and a real crowd pleaser to boot. Also starring in cameo appearances Ethan Hawke, Angela Lansbury, Hugh Grant, Natasha Lyonne, Serena Williams and Stephen Sondheim, amongst a handful of others.

'Glass Onion : A Knives Out Mystery' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.  

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE GRAY MAN : Tuesday 19th July 2022

I saw 'THE GRAY MAN', Rated MA15+, at my local independent movie theatre this week, and this American action thriller film is Directed by Joe and Anthony Russo who have previously helmed four MCU films, being 'Captain America : The Winter Soldier' in 2014, 'Captain America : Civil War' in 2016, 'Avengers : Infinity War' in 2018 and 'Avengers : Endgame' in 2019, amongst other feature films and TV series. Based on the 2009 novel of the same name by Mark Greaney, the film went on limited release from last week before being released on Netflix from 22nd July. Costing US$200M to produce it is the most expensive film ever made by Netflix, and it hopes to start a series of films based on the eleven 'Gray Man' novels. It has garnered generally mixed or average Reviews so far. 

The film opens up in 2003 in a prison cell where Court Gentry (Ryan Gosling) is incarcerated until 2031 for the murder of his father. He is being interviewed, or rather recruited, by Donald Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton) who works for the CIA and recognises in Gentry the attributes necessary to turn him into a black ops mercenary, with the associated skills to take out all the bad guys on their hit list. Fitzroy tells Gentry that he can walk out of the prison in thirty minutes a free man, or he can serve out his sentence, and for what it's worth Fitzroy would have done the same thing as Gentry did that got him into the slammer in the first place. 

We then fast forward eighteen years to the present day. We are in Bangkok in a lavish hotel counting down the minutes to midnight on NYE. Gentry (now known as Sierra Six or simply Six) is ordered to take out a hit on a mark set to arrive shortly in time for the fireworks extravaganza. With the marks entourage in tow, and Six now poised to take the shot, he hesitates, so allowing the mark to walk outta there. But Six pursues his mark and what follows is a close quarter hand to hand fight on the ground floor amongst exploding tubes of fireworks. Six overcomes his mark, and as the mark lays bleeding out, he hands Six a medallion containing a USB drive, and says that he is Sierra Four, before he dies. Six gets the hell outta there, goes to an internet gaming joint and plugs in the USB, but it is heavily encrypted and without the necessary passcodes can't access what is contained therein. So, he is next seen posting it in a letterbox to an unknown recipient. 

Back in Langley, at CIA HQ, Dani Miranda (Ana de Armas) another CIA Agent is being questioned by Denny Carmichael (Rege-Jean Page) her superior as to the role she played in the Bangkok hit, what if anything the mark gave to Six, and for her to very seriously consider her future career if he doesn't get the answers he wants. Miranda has an obvious dislike for Carmichael and gives nothing away. 

Meanwhile, Six hot wires a Tuk Tuk and calls Fitzroy asking for him to arrange for his extraction. Fitzroy has subsequently retired but still has connections and influence. His tells Six to get to Chiang Mai where an extraction team will be waiting with a cargo plane fuelled and ready for take off with a team of friendlies on board. 

In the meantime, Carmichael has recruited Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans), a psychotic and torture loving former colleague of Six who lasted just five months in the service of the CIA before venturing out on his own and operating a seemingly very successful mercenaries for hire business. Hansen has kidnapped the young daughter of Fitzroy, Claire (Julia Butters) and is threatening to do all manner of nasty things to her should he not get the answers from Fitzroy, whom he also now holds captive. Hansen coerces Fitzroy in telling the extraction team to dispense with Six. And so whilst cruising at 25,000 feet and while Six catches up on some much needed shut eye, the extraction team spring into action with the intention of killing Six. But, needless to say this doesn't go according to plan, and more close quarter hand to hand combat leads to a stray bullet blowing a gaping hole in the fuselage, various bad dudes getting thrown out of the plane, and the aircraft steadily disintegrating as Six jumps out of it without a parachute before it explodes in midair. He of course glides toward a bad dude with a parachute, they fight in free fall and Six lands shaken but not stirred somewhere in Turkey. 

Next up Six goes to Vienna to obtain a fake ID and passport, but alas the local who is organising the said documents in secretly in cahoots with Hansen. He successfully manages to capture Six in a deep pit through a bullet proof trap door in the floor just about where Six was standing to have his passport photo taken. Six, using his best MacGyver skills, manages to create a flood of water so elevating him up the pit and rigs an explosive charge to detonate just at the right time when Hansen and his goons arrive at the scene. In the ensuing mayhem, Six comes face to face and fist to fist with Hansen, but on the way out of the building Miranda shoots a tranquilizer dart in the arse of Hansen, and then into Six before loading him up in the boot of her car. 

When Six comes round a short time later, Miranda and Six talk over their predicament and what their next move should be. It turns out that Six posted the USB drive to Margaret Cahill (Alfre Woodard), the former head of CIA Special Op's, who has now also subsequently retired and living in Prague. So, the pair head off to Prague, as Cahill seems to be one of the only people they can trust, and who would have the encryption codes to allow them to access what is contained on that USB drive. Meanwhile, Hansen is back in Croatia in a very lavish and very old villa tracking Six's every move. Hansen also takes the opportunity to interrogate and torture Fitzroy to find out his whereabouts in Prague, and who it is there whom he would most trust.

Arriving in Prague Six and Miranda meet with Cahill who tells the pair that she has terminal cancer and has been given three months to live. But that doesn't stop her from opening up the USB drive and revealing that Carmichael and Hansen have been involved in some nefarious crimes around the world as their own very secretive and covert army of mercenaries taking out the Who's Who of people of influence. Needless to say, as Hansen watches on from Croatia he orders his assembled team of assassins to converge on Cahill's apartment and wreak havoc with all manner of firepower. As Cahill remains in the apartment holding onto a hand grenade, she allows Six and Miranda to escape via an underground tunnel leading out into the street, whilst providing the pair with her armour plated bullet proof glassed Audi car. What follows is a blood bath in down town Prague, as Miranda evades various other vehicles behind the wheel of Cahill's car, while Six is going head to head and toe to toe with numerous goons inside a tram. It doesn't end well for the numerous local Police killed in the conflagration, the assassins who also meet their swift demise courtesy of Six, and the tram which ultimately hurtles sideways and off track into the sandstone columns of a building causing much destruction, on top of the trail of mayhem left behind in the wake of Cahill's apartment being destroyed. 

Next up we find our intrepid rogue agents heading to Croatia to take out Hansen once and for all, rescue Fitzroy and his daughter, and regain the USB drive which has subsequently fallen into the hands of Avik San (Dhanush), and Indian assassin working for Team Hansen. Six and Miranda go in heavily armed to the villa under cover of darkness and while Miranda takes out all the external gun placements Six concentrates his efforts on the internal goons and getting to Fitzroy and Claire. Needless to say its all in a days work for the pair who successfully overcome their foes, leaving Miranda to battle it out with Avik San, and Six to guide the Fitzroy's to safety, although Fitzroy takes a bullet to the stomach and orders Six to take his Claire with him, leaving him with a single hand grenade which he pulls the pin on when Hansen and three of his goons are upon him. Of course the blast takes out the three goons, but Hansen scrambles to his feet and continues to give chase, culminating with Hansen holding Claire at gunpoint inside a maze within the grounds, while Six trails behind in search. The three come face to face around a fountain in the centre of the maze, and Six tells Hansen to let Claire go, which he does, leaving the pair to fight to the death. In the end it is Suzanne Brewer (Jessica Henwick), Carmichael's off sider, who plugs Hansen in the chest with a bullet and kills him dead. She also plugs Six with a non-life threatening bullet wound, just to add to his stabbings, slashings and beating he took from Hansen. 

We then fast forward two weeks to a heavily guarded private hospital in which Six has been non-responsive, and Claire is being held. Brewer and Carmichael plan on paying a visit to Six, with the latter questioning Brewer as to why she let Six live. Because he's a valuable asset and one of the most capable operatives they have she responds. As they exit the lift, the pair are confronted with the bodies of several guards and Six's now empty bed. He is next seen in silhouette passing along the windows of the room where Claire is being held taking out a number of goons. He then enters the room, rescues Claire and the two are seen speeding out of the hospital grounds in a SUV. 

'The Gray Man', which for the most part I enjoyed, is a mash up of Jason Bourne, Ethan Hunt and John Wick with a little bit of James Bond thrown in there for good measure. It's an entertaining ride for sure with plenty of exotic locations, wide sweeping aerial drone shots, action set pieces, gunplay and close quarter combat, solid enough performances from the ensemble cast, and sarcastic quips aplenty to raise the occasional smile, but what it lacks is a fresh approach and sufficient intrigue to make this film stand above all the others in this increasingly overcrowded genre. Watch it from the comfort of your own sofa at home when it lands on Netflix this week, chow down on a big bowl of popcorn, leave your brain in the kitchen and strap in for a high octane super charged globe trotting journey that sees two Hollywood fav's go head to head. What's not to like?

'The Gray Man' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS : Tuesday 28th December 2021.

'THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS' which I saw earlier this week is an M Rated American Sci-Fi actioner Directed, Co-Written, Co-Produced by Lana Wachowski and based on characters created by both Lana and Lilly Wachowski, who between them both Wrote and Directed the three previous instalments in this hugely popular film franchise back in 1999 with 'The Matrix', then its first two sequels 'The Matrix Reloaded' and 'The Matrix Revolutions' both released in 2003. Those first three films grossed at the global Box Office US$1.63B off the back of a combined production budget of US$363M, but at the time the Wachowski's were adamant that the franchise ended with 'Revolutions' with the Writers/Directors going on to helm other film and TV projects together. However, in late 2019 a fourth film in the franchise was announced with Lana Wachowski returning to Direct but this time without her sister. This film saw its World Premier showcasing in Toronto, Canada on 16th of this month and was released in Russia on the same day, before its worldwide release this week. Early indications are that the film has garnered generally positive Reviews and has so far grossed US$69M from its production budget of US$190M. 

Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is a successful video game developer and the creator of The Matrix video game trilogy based on faint albeit recurring memories of Neo. At a local coffee shop, Anderson comes into contact with Tiffany (Carrie-Anne Moss), married to Chad (Chad Stahelski) and with two young boys but with no recollection of her past, on which Anderson based Trinity, a character in his game. Anderson struggles at times to differentiate between what he perceives as his reality from his dreams. His therapist (Neil Patrick Harris) prescribes him blue pills to suppress such occurrences, which one day he just stops taking.

Anderson operates a programme simulation called a modal, a testing environment, created to develop game characters. A girl named Bugs (Jessica Henwick) learns that the modal is running old code in a loop, that shows when Trinity first found Neo within the original Matrix. Bugs discovers a programme manifesting Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), and helps free him before Anderson's business partner, Smith (Jonathan Groff), can erase the modal. After discovering his location, Bugs and Morpheus extract Anderson from the Matrix and learn that Smith is actually Agent Smith (as portrayed by Hugo Weaving in the first three films).

Neo wakes up in a pod covered in a gel like substance and with wires and probes protruding from his arms, chest, back, neck and mouth. He observes Trinity confined in another one nearby, as machines dispatched by Bugs to retrieve and transport him to Bugs' ship, and into the human stronghold, Io. There, he meets Niobe (Jada Pinkett Smith), who tells him that sixty years have passed in the real world since the Machine War, and that human survivors have joined forces with machines that defected to join human society. Though Neo is adamant he wants to rescue Trinity, Niobe opposes and orders Neo to stay out of the Matrix and imprisons him. Bugs and her crew disobey the order and bust Neo out of his cell in order that he can free Trinity.

Neo, Bugs and the crew enter the Matrix, where they are confronted by Smith and other exile programs including The Merovingian (Lambert Wilson) who want the Matrix restored to its earlier format. A fight breaks out in an abandoned warehouse, and Neo battles Smith, ultimately gaining the upper hand as he steadily regains his hand to hand combat capabilities. They leave and locate Tiffany working in her motorcycle workshop, but just as Neo begins talking to her, his therapist appears and immobilises Neo by manipulating time to slow motion. He reveals his identity as the Analyst, a programme designed to study the human mind. He explains that after Neo and Trinity died, he was able to resurrect the pair to study them, by rebuilding their bodies, which explains why they have only aged twenty years in the last sixty. In doing so, he found that suppressing their memories but keeping them close produced an efficient, power-producing Matrix, resistant to the anomalies that resulted in the previous versions failing. Neo's release has destabilised the system and threatened a reboot of the Matrix, according to the Analyst, who has bought time from his superiors, whom he convinced that Neo would voluntarily return to his pod to avoid putting Trinity's life at risk.

Neo and Bugs forcibly exit the Matrix when another ship sent by Niobe brings their ship back to Io. Niobe takes Neo to Sati (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), an exile programme he previously met, whose parents were killed by the machines. Looking to avenge their death, Sati helps concoct a plan to free Trinity. Back in the Matrix at the cafe where Neo and Tiffany first met, Neo offers a deal with the Analyst that if he fails to convince Trinity to remember her past and voluntarily leave the Matrix, he would agree to return to his pod. The Analyst accepts. As Neo tries to convince Tiffany she's part of the Matrix, her family appears tempting her to stay. She initially gives in but before she has exited the cafe she rejects their pleas recalling her true identity as Trinity. As the Analyst attempts to kill her, Smith appears seeking revenge for his own imprisonment, which gives Neo, Trinity, and the others the chance to escape. What follows is a high octane chase through the streets with a swarm of sentient computer beings hot on the tail of Trinity and Neo riding on the back of a motorcycle as sentient bodies are shot, crushed, run over, mowed down and obliterated and cars explode all around them. 

Being the last waiting to be extracted, Neo and Trinity become stranded on the roof top of a skyscraper as heavily armed helicopters shoot off countless rounds of machine gun fire at them. Holding hands, they leap off the roof top hoping Neo is able to harness his ability to fly, but instead Trinity gains the ability, and flies them to safety. With their recently discovered control over the Matrix, both return to meet the Analyst, who now has taken on a submissive stance. They jokingly thank him for the opportunity of a fresh start, which they intend to use to remodel the Matrix as they deem most appropriate. The Analyst looks down but not out, as Neo and Trinity fly off into the sunset.  

'The Matrix Resurrections' is essentially a love story wrapped up in computer code with fast paced action, stunning visuals, and plenty of nods to the original trilogy using actual footage lifted straight from those first three films to remind or educate the viewer of what came before and how we got to this point. The film will no doubt please fans of those first three instalments, and it is easily the best since 1999's 'The Matrix' first hit cinema's screens with its bullet-time, red pill/blue pill, wire-fu fight sequences that defined an era of action Sci-Fi movies. The strong cast here also are a return to form for Reeves and Moss who especially have chemistry that is clearly evident in every scene they share together. At a running time of two and a half hours the film moves a long at a swift pace and never leaves you wanting, and the ending certainly leaves room for a follow-on movie, so whether this is defined as a sequel and the end of the franchise, or a reboot and the start of something new, remains to be seen. See it on the big screen - you won't be disappointed.

'The Matrix Resurrections' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-