Movie Talk - The Animatrix

Well, we got a couple of days until The Matrix Resurrections is released in theaters. Like most, I’ll be watching from home on HBO Max, but I know this would be a good theater experience. Now that I got that retrospective out of the way, I can finally talk about the Animatrix. This was an anthology film that was released in June 2003 at around the same time Reloaded was out. Man, WB was pushing it hard with this series since Enter The Matrix was released on the PS2 about a month earlier. I really never got around to watching the Animatrix until just recently. I think I ended up seeing a bit of it airing on TNT a few years ago though.

The Animatrix houses nine short films that are supposed to fill in the backstory of the franchise. The Wachowskis were producers and even wrote the scripts for some of the films. Each film was helmed by an anime director. This worked out pretty well since anime has influenced the Wachowskis’ work. I don’t know of them too well, but a lot of these guys worked on big things like Akira, Cowboy Bebop, Afro Samurai, and Aeon Flux. If you’re looking to compare this to anything, it would be Batman: Gotham Knight, a movie that uses the same format to tell stories about the Nolan version of Batman. A review of that is also here somewhere.

From The Second Renaissance Part 2.

SYNOPSIS

The Animatrix basically serves as backstory for the franchise. We end up getting nine short films:

1. The Second Renaissance Part 1 – This goes the backstory on the war between humanity and the machines. Humanity created the machines for labor, but of course, things go wrong as the machines start to think for themselves.
2. The Second Renaissance Part 2 – It’s all-out war between humanity and the machines. We find how humanity blackened the sky and how the Machines ultimately won out.
3. Final Flight of the Osiris – This short shows what happened to the Osiris that was mentioned in The Matrix Reloaded. It’s completely computer generated… and quite muddled. More on that later.
4. Program – In this short, two users (Cis and Duo) fight as  samurais in a feudal Japan program. Things get heated when Duo talks about possibly selling out the Resistance.
5. Kid’s Story – This short story actually shows how “Kid”, the young man annoying Neo in The Matrix Reloaded, forced himself out of the Matrix without the help of a red pill. It’s also the only short that has Neo involved, and Keanu Reeves is voicing him.
6. World Record – This short film is about a runner who somehow unplugs himself from the Matrix while trying to break a record in sprinting.
7. Beyond – This short follows a young woman and a group of kids as they find an area of the Matrix where the laws of physics are off.
8. A Detective Story – This short follows a private investigator who’s asked anonymously to find Trinity. He ends up getting more than he bargained for when he finally tracks her down.
9. Matriculated – This short follows a few members of the human resistance who are trying to reprogram machines by showing them the good qualities of humanity.

OPINION

Final Flight of the Osiris

I thought that the Animatrix was fine overall. I do think that each story ranges from decent to good. We only get about 15 minutes to say something, and they do what they can.  I did like how each story tries to show a certain portion of the franchise. It even goes into some detail on how the Matrix itself works. We see what the Machines do when certain people are close to breaking the code and unplugging from the Matrix (Kid’s Story and World Record). We also see what it does to certain glitches that may pop up (Beyond).

From the short, Kid's Story.

We even get to see other members of the Resistance who aren’t Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus. I also liked that most of the shorts try to show what’s going on outside in the real world. Yeah, it’s still looks drab, but it’s something. The shorts that succeed the most here are The Second Renaissance duo. They go into pretty gruesome detail on how the war between humanity and the Machines began and ended. There’s a reason this earned an R-rating when it was released. I also thought all the voice-acting was pretty good. While we got the industry’s usual crowd (Kevin Michael Richardson and James Arnold Taylor) doing voices, we also get some actors like Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss reprising their roles here.

I do have some negatives here and there. One thing that does hurt most of these shorts is that we only get a few minutes to tell a story. World Record was one that was kinda hampered by that. A couple of shorts also felt a bit off in places story-wise. It felt like a couple didn’t get their lore right. Matriculated and World Record were the ones that sorta felt off, though the animation didn’t help in that regard either. Even the the Osiris short was interesting but felt a bit fluffy.

From World Record. I gotta say that it would be funny seeing Hugo Weaving sprinting in a suit.

I do have to admit that I’m a little mixed with the animation. Each short has a different style of animation involved. While some of it is pretty good and effective, some of it is a bit of an eyesore. The ones that kinda did that for me was “Kid’s Story” and “World Record.” I really liked the story about Kid, but that animation made it tough to get through. Even the Osiris short, which housed some nice CG designs and action, had some muddled animation. The ones that had the best animation and designs to be me were The Second Renaissance duo, Program, Final Flight of the Osiris, and Detective Story.

From Matriculated.

……………………………………

In the end, The Animatrix was an interesting sidepiece to the franchise. While it’s not perfect, it does try to show us more of this world. By the way, my favorite shorts were the Second Renaissance shorts, Kid’s Story, Detective Story, and Program. Well, that’s all I got for tonight. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there.