WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for The Matrix Resurrections, now in theaters and streaming on HBO Max.
Post-credit scenes have become a staple in today’s movies -- particularly with sci-fi and fantasy -- and usually allude to sequels or poke fun at the audience for staying in the theater that long, such as when Captain America talked to the audience about patience in Spider-Man: Homecoming. But the end-credits scene for The Matrix Resurrections is about... cats.
The Matrix Resurrections just released to theaters and HBO Max 22 years after the original film. Long-time fans have waited to see Neo and Trinity again, hoping to get an update to where the characters left off. What they couldn’t have prepared for was one of the worst post-credit scenes made to date.
At the end of The Matrix 4, fans get a callback to the Catrix, of all things. Audiences who wait patiently in their seat or fast-forward through HBO’s credits see the game coders introduced earlier in the movie. They begin the clip talking about how “movies are dead,” “games are dead” and “narrative is dead.” When one of the programmers asks what these two are talking about, they respond with “cat videos,” proposing a series of them designed for “viral conditioning” deemed the Catrix.
And that was it -- the Catrix. It's not exactly an excitement-inducing clip to get audiences ready for a potential sequel. The clip seemingly pokes fun at the internet’s obsession with cat videos and what’s trending. Across the worldwide web, you’ll find videos of cats -- it’s true. The prevalence of kitties on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and more is, without a doubt, tremendous. Still, is it funny to joke about that anymore? Cat jokes are old, and their inclusion in the movie feels like a callback to a bygone era.
As far as post-credits scenes go, even the Avengers' shawarma gag was better delivered. It at least called back to an earlier scene where Tony Stark mentions getting shawarma after they’ve saved the world. The Matrix 4’s ending joke seemed out of place with little setup. Worse, for some who’ve never seen the memes and parodies, the Resurrections clip will likely go over their heads. The Matrix came out in 1999, making many of the original film’s youngest fans well into their 30s and 40s. Many of these older fans never paid attention to the social media trends and videos like “The Catrix Trailer (Matrix Parody).”
The Catrix parody itself came out nine years ago. It showed actual cats being “shot at” with foam balls in a hallway, similar to Neo’s iconic scene from the movie, and left many a viewer scratching their head. This post-credits gag will surely do the same.
Still, the scene can be an example of expert trolling on the part of Lana Wachowski. Showing that the coders are still debating what the next hit Matrix game could be and settling on the old stand-by of cats certainly elicits an eye roll and a groan. As the culmination of decades-long cat memes, The Matrix Resurrections' end-credits scene pulled from an ancient joke, but in doing so it continued to subvert tropes and expectations. And that's exactly what the film itself did from start to finish. If the end-credits gag was designed to be purposefully underwhelming and a bit of a Dad Joke, it hit that nail precisely on the head.
If you are intrigued by the post-credits Catrix scene, The Matrix Resurrections is available now in theaters and on HBO Max.