The Animatrix

The Animatrix
by Andrew R. Jones, Kôji Morimoto, Mahiro Maeda, Peter Chung, Shinichirô Watanabe

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DVD Cover Information

• From the creators of The Matrix trilogy, this groundbreaking collection of nine short films from seven of the world's leading anime directors provides a visionary fusion of CG-Animatrion and Japanese anime.Running Time: 89 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY Rating: NR Age: 085393731625 UPC: 085393731625 Manufacturer No: 37316

Movie Reviews of The Animatrix

Movie Review: You have 9 rabbit holes to choose from
Summary: 5 Stars

1. The first film "Final Flight of the Osiris" tells you who sent Jada Pinket Smiths character the info about the machines digging in "The Matrix: Reloaded". All CGI, great animation and great story (5 stars).

2. The Second Renaissance I and II- This tells the story of how the machines came into power. This is the one that is graphic and not really for kids but I let my 5 and 10 year old cousins see it and they seemed to like it. What they didn't understand I explained to them and it sounds like most of you people who didn't like this DVD need to come over to my house so I can explain all of these 'simple to understand if your above 10 years old' plots for you. Great animation and great story (5 stars for both).

3. Kids Story- It's about a teen that knows there's something more out there. He knows about Neo, Trinity and the rest but he doesn't know how to get to them. I liked the action on the skateboard and the kind of animation they used was new to me, I had not seen animation like that before (5 stars).

4. Program- A women is in a training program and her Boyfriend enters, telling her that he is tired of living in the real world. He tells her that he knows a way back to the Matrix and asks her to come along. Kind of like the Cypher character in the first Matrix movie. When she declines, he decides not to take no for an answer. He then decides if she's not leaving with him then shes not leaving the program alive. Cool story and great fight scenes (5 stars).

5. World Record- A man entering a race in the Olympics races to beat the world record. But as he races on he wakes up in and out of the Matrix and the real world. The Agents around him do there best to keep him in the real world, going so far as to destroying all the muscles in his legs making him unable to walk again. Great animation and a pretty neat premise (5 stars).

6. Beyond- A girl looking for her cat in her neighborhood finds an abandoned house which gives her and some neighborhood children special powers (floating, breaking and repairing a glass bottle, seeing rain fall were there are no clouds). The premise of the story is that the house is basicly a glich in the Matrix and soon Agents come to fix this glich. It was ok and the animation was pretty good too but there was something about this film that I just didn't like, I don't know why, maybe it was just to cutesie for me (I'd say between 3 and 3 1/2 stars)

7. A Detective Story- The Agents are having trouble finding a hacker named Trinity, so they hire the services of a local P.I. So far three Investigators have tried looking for her. One killed himself, one went insane and the other vanished into thin air. It's gotta 1940's feel to it (like a Humphrey Bogart movie) and it's all in black and white (some color). It's like a 40's period piece but the charcters use todays technology. I liked the script and the black and white went well with the feeling of the film. Also great animation and I love 1940's period type films (5 stars).

And finally 8. Matriculated- Some people in the real world take down and capture a machine sent to hunt and destroy. They then take the machine and download it and them selves into an alternite reality (kind of like a Matrix for Machines) to try and convince it to join them in their fight. The animation has a weird feeling to it in the alternate wolrd sequence and it is a little creepy and I still don't really get the ending (I had to watch it a few times before I understood most of it, I think the machine falls in love with one of the girls) but I did like the tribute to Warner Bros. cartoons (you'll know it when you see it). It was well made and had great looking machines (3 to 3 1/2 stars).

There are only commentaries for four of the films, The Second Renaissance I and II, Program and World Record. There's a feature called "From Scrolls to Screen", it's basicaly about the history of anime. The Creators feature are Bios about the creators of the films (directors, script writers, etc.) and the Execution feature gives you a film about the individual director and script writer of the movie they made. They also give you a glimps of the "Enter the Matrix" video game. You can also put this in your dvd-rom for more features.

So if you enjoy Anime and The Matrix then I suggest you buy this DVD. If you don't like Anime, you just might after you see these films (DVD- 5 STARS).

Summary of The Animatrix