The Animatrix - Movie Review

Well, now that my reviews of the Matrix trilogy are done, leading up to John Wick Chapter 2, I just felt my OCD burning inside of me, and I had to be the completionist that I am and talk about The Animatrix, which is an anthology film of nine animated short films inspired by the Matrix universe. Some of them are written by the Wachowskis themselves, and they're directed by some of the best directors who were working in the anime field at the time of this release. And I'm going to talk about all nine short films in detail, so if you've never seen The Animatrix, this review is going to contain some spoilers. The first one was called Final Flight of the Osiris, and it directly relates to The Matrix Reloaded. This was actually shown in theaters, strangely enough, before the film Dreamcatcher. It was probably better than watching Dreamcatcher, so there's that. The thing I dislike the most about this short is its opening sequence, which is pure over-sexualized fan service for no reason. Out of all the shorts on The Animatrix, I would say this one feels the most like the films. It has a direct correlation to it. This is the ship that discovered the machines were drilling to Zion, which in The Matrix Reloaded was referenced by Niobe here. These geotherms confirm the last transmission of the Osiris. The machines are digging. In 2003, this animation was considered spectacular. Movies like Final Fantasy The Spirits Within had recently happened, and a lot of people compared the animation style in The Final Flight of the Osiris to that film. It's fine for what it is. The opening sword fight is completely unnecessary. Some of the action in it is okay. It has a few cool action-y moments, but for the most part, this short just feels like needless filler, something The Matrix Reloaded would definitely have a lot of. The next short was called The Second Renaissance Part One, and this was directed by the lead director of Blue Submarine No. 6, which is an anime that I really enjoyed, and this one is good. Like, disturbingly good. This one explores mankind's beginning with AI, how we as a people develop robots in our own image, and how they eventually rose up against us. This one is permeated with disturbing imagery as we witness mankind's revolt against machines when one machine rises up against his master and kills him. This leads all humanity to instantly hate all machines, and what's so effective about this short in particular is that it shows the political repercussions of what a battle between humanity and sentient AI would be like. It gives us a look into the eyes of what a human might want to do if a robot revolted. This short actually puts us in the mindset of the machines. It shows some machines being destroyed by humans, and they don't feel the same way as some of the other robots that have risen up against humanity. So it's rather disturbing to witness, and this is continued even more effectively in The Second Renaissance Part Two, where we see mankind try to bomb the machine city because all robots go to one specific place to try to thrive there and create their own peaceful society since they're no longer welcomed in humanity. And after mankind's attack fails on the robots, they then turn to the sun, robots' last remaining energy source of solar energy, and they scorch the sky, which is referenced in the first Matrix film. But we know that it was us that scorched the sky. And then we get a surprisingly effective documentation of what it might be like if mankind went to war with sentient AI. And some of the imagery here is unrelentingly disturbing, and it genuinely got under my skin. This is one of the best in the animatrix. It shows mankind as an unrelentlessly bloodthirsty race that will wipe out anything that's oppressing it, and it got me. The next short is called Kid Story, written by the Wachowskis and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, my favorite anime director of all time, the man behind Terror in Resonance, Kids on the Slope, Samurai Champloo, and of course, Cowboy Bebop. And this short tells the story of how that really annoying kid in the Matrix Reloaded who was obsessed with Neo got freed from the Matrix. The animation style here is something that is very unique. It has a hard-edged, almost messy, imperfect quality to it that really breathes some life into this short and makes it feel like you're watching something almost unplanned. We get to watch as this kid goes on the dark side of the net and tries to communicate with people. He feels like he's always in a dream state, and this is when we get his first connection with Neo, who then later contacts him while he's in school, and there's this really great chase scene throughout the school. And this one presents this kid as the first person who ever willingly exited the Matrix on his own with no one's help. He actually wakes up in the real world because his desire to do so was so strong. This isn't really explored in the films, save for the fact that Neo keeps telling the kid, hey, I didn't save you. You did it for yourself. I told you, kid, you found me. I didn't find you. I know, but you got me out. You saved me. You saved yourself. So you kind of just have to accept it because I guess the Wachowskis wrote it, and hey, it's a short film. It happened. It's well-directed. I love the animation style. The next short is called Program, and this was directed by the man behind Vampire Hunter D. Bloodlust and Ninja Scroll. And if you've ever seen any of his films, which are highly stylized, highly violent, and filled with a ton of boobs, you will instantly recognize these character designs. They look exactly like all of his films. And one of my favorite things about this short is the animation. It's breathtaking. It's so beautiful. There's very exciting action sequences in this short. I love the character designs, but at its core, this short doesn't have anything going on. It's eventually revealed to be this big test, and it was really just in the character's minds, and it doesn't really add anything to the story. It's basically just a cool-looking short with some really great action sequences, some standout animation, and that's about it. There isn't really much else under the surface of Program, so there's not really much else to say about this short. The next one is called World Record, and it's directed by the man behind Redline. If you've ever seen Redline, you'll instantly recognize that this animation is very similar to Redline. This is the one that feels the least like a Matrix-inspired short. We have an athletic track runner who really wants to break a world record, and essentially, he runs so fast during one of his meets that he actually wakes up briefly in the real world, and a machine has to put him back to sleep, because his desire in the Matrix to go faster and to do more in his body than anyone else could actually caused him to wake up in that red pod. Beyond that, this short doesn't explore much else. It's probably my least favorite short in the Animatrix. The animation is unique, but I'm not really a fan of this style. It's the kind of animation style that you notice more than you let fade into the background, which for me is a flaw when you're constantly aware of how strange everything is animated. It's unique and different, and I applaud them for that, but in the long run, there really isn't much happening in this short, and unlike Program, I don't really like the animation style in this one, and since there's nothing really under the surface, this is probably my least favorite short in the entire film. The next short is called Beyond, and this comes from one of the directors of two other anime anthology films, Memories and Robot Carnival. This guy provided shorts for these films as well. I love the animation style here. It's very vibrant, colorful, lifelike. Things move with a lot of energy. There's a lot of frames that are put into this animation, so it feels very fluid. This one tells a story of a girl who's looking for her cat, and eventually stumbles on what the kids are calling a haunted house. It's a place where seem to be able to defy gravity, where really weird shapes and sounds appear, where things that just don't make sense happen, and everyone in the neighborhood just thinks this area is haunted. We, as viewers, know this is a glitch in the Matrix. I love the idea of all paranormal phenomena just being attributed to a glitch in the Matrix. When we see UFOs, when we see vampires, when we think we saw an alien or a ghost, it was probably just a glitch in the Matrix, and I love the fact that they have little ways of explaining all of these things within the Matrix universe, and this short explored that, and although nothing really happens beyond exploring that, I like the way this short is directed. As I said, I like the way the animation style looks, and I just like the idea of paranormal phenomena actually being able to be attributed to something in the Matrix universe. The next short is called A Detective Story, and once again, gratefully, was directed by Shinichiro Watanabe. He got to make two shorts in this film, and this is easily my favorite one. This short is brimming with energy. I felt like I could smell the shots. It's so well captured. You can really tell Shinichiro Watanabe's love of film noir in this short, as we watch a detective who gets sent on a mission to try to locate Trinity. You get a lot of classic film noir style jazz music, while a detective narrates in a very raspy voice. He eventually comes to find Trinity, and he realizes that it was actually agents using him to get to Trinity, and I love the way all of this comes together on this train. It is a short. There's not much to it. You can't really say there is much to any of these shorts, because they're very brief short films that analyze little things in the Matrix and give us different ideas about things that could happen maybe in the Matrix universe. What I love about this short is the style, the voice work, and the action sequence on the train. It's so well animated, and it looks so different. I adore it. It's easily my favorite short in the entire film. To be honest, I like to see this short as a feature movie. The last short is called Matriculated, and it was directed by Peter Chung, the man behind MTV's Eon Flux, and if you've ever seen Eon Flux, you can instantly tell by the animation style of this short the same people were behind it. These are people who have created their own little digital version of the Matrix. It's just a little world that's not the actual Matrix, but they can insert themselves into it, and they are trying to capture machines, insert them into this world, and then teach the machine the best parts of humanity. Things like empathy, and love, and caring, and how one can sacrifice themself for someone else, and they actually do that. They capture a machine, insert this machine into the Matrix, and then use a series of bizarre, dream-like, psychedelic imagery to try to convince this machine to be more like a human, and to actually care for humanity, and it works. These characters are then attacked by sentinels, and this one robot actually tries to defend them, and it ends on a very, very creepy shot of this robot alone staring at all of these dead bodies from afar, looking at this compound, thinking, what is he thinking? It's very thought-provoking. This is a short that, at first, I was like, I hate this. This is my least favorite one, but as soon as I realized what they were doing, and I looked more into the imagery of it, I began to appreciate it a lot more. All in all, The Animatrix is a movie that basically explores different facets of the Matrix universe, gives us very stylized depictions of what could happen. It's able to take small details that the film's never explored, and then go into them. Like, what about haunted phenomena? Well, that's just a glitch in the Matrix. What if someone pushed themselves so hard physically, could they actually wake up in the real world on their own? Could someone decide they wanted to wake up in the real world, and just be left from the Matrix? Could that happen? What about random people who just exist, like a detective or something? What is he doing with his day in this digital world? I really like the fact that it was able to explore these small little facets of the Matrix universe, and do it in a fun and mostly compelling way. My biggest flaw with The Animatrix as a whole is that the majority of the stories just don't have much weight or impact or emotion underneath them. They're just really cool short films, and that's what most short films are like. Most short films are just like, hey, here's my style, this is what I'm going for, here's a fun little idea, and here's my way of saying it. So when you bunch nine of them together into one package, you're inevitably going to get a somewhat empty experience. But for the most part, especially as an anime fan, this is a compelling movie, and I'm going to give The Animatrix a B. Well guys, I have completed my Matrix reviews. I am so glad I was able to do that. Please do check out my reviews of The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, which I've just posted recently. And both of them, if you missed those reviews, I did include an old childhood short film inspired by The Matrix. You guys are the best. Thank you so much as always for watching, and if you like this, you can click right here and get Stuckmanized.