The Animatrix is a collection of several animated short films, detailing the backstory of the "Matrix" universe, and the original war between man and machines which led to the creation of the Matrix. Anthology of nine short anime (Japanese animation) films tied in to the 1999 blockbuster "The Matrix" and its sequels. "Final Flight of the Osiris": The crew of the hovercraft Osiris attempt to warn their city of an imminent attack. "The Second Renaissance, Parts 1 & 2": The story behind the war between man and the machines, how mankind scorched the sky, and the creation of the Matrix. "Kid's Story": A teenager is contacted by Neo, and manages to escape the Matrix. "Program": Two warriors battle in a samurai training simulation when one decides to betray his crewmates and re-enter the Matrix. "World Record": A champion sprinter manages to break free of the Matrix by sheer physical effort during a record attempt. "Beyond": A young girl searching for her cat discovers a haunted house caused by a glitch in the system. "A Detective Story": Private investigator Ash tracks a hacker named Trinity through the looking glass. "Matriculated": A group of humans capture a machine scout and insert it into a 'human matrix'. It's rather hard to talk about a show like this because it's mostly like a range of different episodes. They may all contain the Matrix like style but there really isn't much that connects them. From the story to the animation, each part is different and told in its own way. The movie gets more and more confusing as the stories keep going, making it hard to get what is going on. There isn't an indication of if you are inside the Matrix or outside it. All I could understand was how pretty the animations were at points and how 'crappy' they were in others. The whole mix of samurai to space age, to computer simulations that look so real that it could be live action, all of that just seemed a little overboard.<br/><br/>Question, why does it start out with a man and women undressing each other with katanas? Is it just for sexual looks or is there actually a reason for it? Can someone answer this part for me? The animation was all over the place from CG to Cartoon, to whatever. I felt rather bombarded by all the different art styles just as it happened in 'Dante's Inferno: An animated epic'. The only thing that saved this a little was that the stories were not all linked to one storyline like Dante. When I say Crappy artwork, I don't mean bad artwork. I just mean stuff that really doesn't look right in my eyes. The style that is so loaded with detail that you can see almost every line in the face right next to stuff that is very simplified. I may not be using the right word for it but I have no other idea what to use for it. Now the detail work pretty much is nice in the CG part, but I thought it never worked in the cartoon part of the show.<br/><br/>The voices are actually pretty well done and one of the only fluid parts of the show. They have voices that work out rather well for the mood that the 'scene' is trying to show. If it's intense, it sounds intense, if it's slow, it has that feeling. Some of the characters sound like they were voiced by some of the voice actors that were even in the matrix itself. Either you're a fan of animation or you're not. It's possible to objectively view the craft and enjoy it for what it is: moving art, but then you'd have to turn off the sound. Not a difficult thing to do with Animaniacs. Oops, I mean Animatrix.<br/><br/>Usually, skilled animation and coherent story lines don't mesh, and this compilation of skits is no exception. Like the bible, each little vignette imparts a crystal-clear morality lesson that you would have to be falling-down drunk or four years old not to understand. Each sequence explores a facet of the war between technology and humans. Wow, The Evils Of Technology, that's an original concept, like it hasn't been endlessly explored since Lord Byron challenged Mary Shelley to write her own book. How many more movies about the evils of the industrial revolution will stretch into the centuries to come I wonder. Look, technology is a good thing, not an evil thing. And twenty-first century paranoia about the world not being real is fostered by media people who manipulate your feelings so you'll vote the way they want you to. Like I totally believe that Allawi's rose-colored speech in Congress was no election-year ploy. If there is a real-world equivalent of the Machines, it's the manipulation of the media by powerful interests.<br/><br/>Anyway, there's nothing original here, the vignettes basically leech off the popularity of the Matrix, the first film. Remember in the seventies when all those Planet of the Apes movies came out, all leeching off the popularity of the first Apes movie? That's what Animaniacs, I mean Animatrix, reminds me of.<br/><br/>The problem with really good animation is that the storyline usually becomes highly conceptual, more conceptual than a film version of the same story would be. Why is this? Just because it's animated, you have to think more.<br/><br/>I'm a lazy twenty-first century slob, I don't want to think. Say, maybe I'll watch this movie again with the sound turned off. Robots are evil, robots are evil, robots are evil…
Walrexa replied
377 weeks ago