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The Animatrix | Year: 2003 Directed: - Mahiro Maeda - Peter Chung - Takeshi Koike - Shinichirô Watanabe - Kouji Morimoto - Yoshiaki Kawajiri - Andy Jones (VI) On balance, a very entertaining hour and a half . . . I'm not one of those who eat, sleep, and breathe the Matrix trilogy -- or animation in general, for that matter -- but I do enjoy non-Disney animated art and anime, and also graphic novels, with which this anthology of nine short films has a lot in common. Larry and Andy Lachowski, the creators of the Matrix universe, put this project together as a way of elucidating various unexplored aspects of their created world and providing some additional back-story, and they brought in some of the best contemporary animators to do it. Some of the nine follow the story faithfully, especially, "Final Voyage of the Osiris" and "Program." Others are much more tangential, and I personally think those are the best: "Kid's Story" and "A Detective Story," both by Shinjiro Watanabe, are excellent, yet different from each other. "A Detective Story," especially, done in black, white, and intermediate gray shades, is very noir and reminiscent of Watanabe's "Cowboy Bebop." "Beyond," by Koji Morimoto, is a delightful piece about a girl looking for her wandering cat in a "haunted house" where physical laws are temporarily anomalous. The art itself is wonderful, very personal, not at all "heroic" (as in Yoshiaki Kawajiri's "Program"), with an incredible amount of background detail about a real neighborhood; you'll notice new things everytime you watch it. As for the rest, well, . . . "The Second Renaissance" (in two parts) had some horrific images but it tried to cover too much territory too superficially; "Matriculated" was sort of interesting in its surreal, almost psychedelic colors, but it didn't actually have much to say; and "World Record" simply puzzled me. What *was* that about? All in all, a very interesting experiment. As others have commented, wouldn't it be great to have a collection like this to poke into the narrative nooks and crannies of the Star Wars universe? Whoa! Instead of reviewing the entire thing I'll just review the actual movies(mostly). Final Flight of the Osiris-<BR>This short was made by the Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within people and is just gorgeous. The opening fight sequence was pretty much unessecary but fun enough that you don't care anyway. The story is basically about...well the final flight of the Osiris, and how they discover the army digging to Zion. It is also one of the two shorts that actually relate directly to the movie The Matrix: Reloaded. The Second Renaissance Parts I & II-<BR>This short shows the rise of the machines and the fall of humanity. The war and everything that led up to it. Second Renaissance has plenty of CG parts which is to be expected from the people who brought you Blue Submarine No. 6. Although this time the CG and drawn animation actually blend well together. A thing that contradicts the movies in this is that it says everything is from the Zion database but in the first film they said they didn't know who struck first but Second Renaissanc says who did. Maybe they actually found out who knows. Anyway this is another one of the great films that you'll watch over and over and over and... Kid's Story-<BR>This is the only other film that relates to The Matrix Reloaded directly but you have to see the movie and pay attention to know how. Anywho this film is made by the Cowboy Bebop crew and has a new type of animation on it's side. The animation is made to look like the artists original sketch just with color but the thing is it takes twice as many cels to do it so don't say they were lazy. Overall another great film. Program-<BR>Thi is probably the most traditionally anime of the bunch. Created by the Ninja Scroll people this film is about a woman in a simulation who is forced to fight against her friend who is trying to go back to live in The Matrix. This one is very cool. The fighting is great and everything. World Record-<BR>This one was written by the guy behind Ninja Scroll, but was animated by Madhouse. The animation is...odd, but creative at the same time. Unfortunately it's not that great. In fact I think it really [bad] especially the agents and the way they look. This will be one you won't care about but for maybe one minute so you can know what's happening. Beyond-<BR>This is about a girl who is trying to find her pet cat who wanders off into a haunted house. The haunted house is actually a glitch in the Matrix. The girl and some other kids go to the house and play because of all the weird things they can do like throwing a glass bottle to the ground and when it hits it breaks but freezes before hitting the ground and then fixes itself and comes back. An interesting short and worth your time A Detective Story-<BR>This is a cool film brought to you by the Cowboy Bebop people. The film is about a private detective who's promises to get out of the business if the next person that calls is a su Fill in the blanks and new concept for programmers This is a great DVD for Matrix fans and non-fans. I found the rennaisance stories worth the entire DVD. Final flight of the Osiris took my breath away. Kid's Story, if no one has noticed, is the story of the kid that appears giving ammo to the robots defending the deck in "Revolutions". Finally, Beyond is THE story that'll change your mind if you, like me, are a programmer. Is this how bugs look like inside a program? How many times have you tested modules and then left them in the hard disk? When a system accesses a defective set of subroutines, do they look like this? When your OS repairs a defective function, do the deletion leaves other programs without a place to find solace, amusing? If you want your brain scrambled like the eggs in your breakfast, buy this one!! Buy The Animatrix at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on The Animatrix Search with the Priority Search Engine on The Animatrix This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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