The Animatrix is a series of short animated films set in the Matrix universe. Some follow closely themes and settings from the movie while others do what they want, using the setting alone.
Three of the movies are traditional anime – the rest are not. Happily, most of ’em are good (regardless of animation style).
Final Flight of the Osiris impresses for its art – but there still isn’t much of a story here. It does elicit a chuckle though.
Second Renaissance 1 and 2 is fairly anime – a fair amount of CG on top of it and some nice allusions to recent history. The story is a prequel to the movies, telling how the machine rebellion happened. I prefer not knowing the details… but since its a story written by the Wachowskis, I guess we have to take it as gospel. It does give me the impression that, in the long run, the machines are not doing us humans a disservice.
Kid’s Story is the the background story to The Kid in the Matrix Reloaded – for whatever that’s worth. The art style is very weird – very loosy goosy… very non-Japanese. That said, it’s a very good short with a nice, somber tone – and Keanu Reeves. Woohoo! I also like what it has to say about disillusioned teenagers. And it tied well into some dialogue from Matrix Reloaded.
Program – it has a nice twist but otherwise isn’t particularly grand.
World Record has a VERY strange art style that left me wondering what drugs people were on when creating it. That said, it’s a nice idea on breaking through the looking glass – and its also very very sad.
Beyond is an interesting story about a glitch in the Matrix and how fun it would be if you didn’t know what it meant. In the long run, it’s a VERY sad story. Kind of a weird trend.
A Detective Story doesn’t have much of an ending, but it is very good up to that point. It’s a black and white, non-anime animation with a film noir look and feel and narration – and it’s got Carrie-Anne Moss in it… but it wasn’t much of an ending (though it was a somber little sad story).
Matriculated sucked. This was done by the dude who did Aeon Flux – which was a show that I just knew thought it was far more clever than it was… and the animation style is just kinda disturbing (which is the only thing I thought distinctive about Aeon Flux). The story idea is a nice twist on what the machines do to humans… but my god was it just reveling in its own weirdness and it was so obviously reveling that it lost me and bored the warm, flowing crap out of me.
There’s a 25 minute documentary on anime in general which is kinda sorta worth watching but its depth is shallow. Just not enough detail and too much skipped history. I suppose it could be worth watching to get an idea of anime – curiously, it spends more time talking about anime as an artistic style and really only one of the shorts reflected it – with another two or possibly three sharing an influence.
Score: 72