The Animatrix is the perfect addition to any DVD library!

TWO NOTES: First, this review is of the gift set. Included in the set I am reviewing was The Animatrix: The Album. Second, I have not included much info on the album as I will be writing a seperate review on it. I will include a link here once I have had the opportunity to review the soundtrack.

Story: 9
Animation: 9
Audio: 8
Extras: 9
Overall Rating: 88%

INTRODUCTION
The Animatrix is a compilation of nine short films. Four of the shorts were written by Andy and Larry Wachowski, the creators of the Matrix trilogy. The four which they wrote included Final Flight of the Osiris, The Second Renaissance Part I and II, and Kid’s Story. The remainder of the stories were written and directed by seven of the world’s leading Anime directors.

STORY REVIEW
While the nine stories can each be viewed individually, there is also an option to view them all. By selecting this option, you would view them in a certain order. Each story is presented below, in sequence.

The opening sequence of Final Flight of the Osiris presents a sword fight between two blindfolded characters. This flight is actually a simulation, similar to the one between Morpheus and Neo in the first Matrix film. The two characters are the captain, Thadeus, and another crew member, Jue, of the doomed ship, the Osiris. Unfortunately, they soon find their ship under attack by an army of Sentinels. Jue then plugs into the Matrix in an attempt to give Zion an urgent message regarding Sentinel activity. This entire story is actually intended to set-up the storyline within the Matrix Reloaded. In some parts, the story also mimics scenes from the original Matrix, for example, the attack by the Sentinels. Overall, this is one of my favorite shorts on the disc.

The story covered in both The Second Renaissance Part I and Part II, like the story in the first short, are very important to the storyline overlapping the entire Matrix trilogy. Rather than setting up a story in one of the films, it helps to explain the entire underlying premise, the war between man and machine and the creation of the Matrix itself. In Part I, we see how the machines first began to rebel against the control of mankind beginning with the first human murdered by a machine. This incidence helped to begin the war between man and machine. This battle continues right into Part II. By this time, humans have made the decision to eliminate the primary power supply of the machines, sunlight. Unfortunately, rather than causing the destruction of the machines, this only forced the machines to find another source of power. Unfortunately, they chose to utilize man. This is how the Matrix was formed. These two shorts help to flesh out the Matrix trilogy and to fill in some of the blanks in the back story.

The third short is Kid’s Story. In this short, a young man awakens from a nightmare in which he is falling to the ground. Oddly, he feels more awake during his dreams than in his waking life and he questions why. Unfortunately, this makes him a target of the agents. As a result, Neo helps him to break free of the Matrix and into the real world.

In Program, we watch as two close friends battle each other. While the battle is only simulated, it shows how those who learn of the existence of the Matrix most struggle with their longing to live an oblivious life and the need to know the truth. This same issue was also raised in the original film when one of the characters betrayed his friends in exchange for an opportunity to return to the Matrix with no memory of the truth.

The next short was World Record. Unfortunately, this was my least favorite short on the entire disc. In this story, a man is able to run so fast that he is at risk of waking up and discovering the truth about the world. Agents attempts to prevent this from happening, only to fail. Unlike the other stories, this one made absolutely know sense to me. I couldn’t figure out why the simple act of running fast could wake someone up from within the Matrix. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really find any explanation for this.

Next was Beyond. Beyond was another of my favorites. It begins with a girl trying to find her cat who has wandered off. Eventually she discovers that he has gone to a forbidden building within her city. As it turns out, the building is off limits because it is supposed to be haunted. Throughout the course of the film, we discover that in reality, the building is actually suffering from a rendering error. For whatever reason, the Matrix had problems rendering that particular location thereby creating the illusion that it was haunted. Eventually, the agents seal off the location, delete it, and replace it with a new file. The new file, of course, does not suffer from the rendering problem. One thing that made this story so appealing to me is that it explains the supernatural in terms of computer malfunctions. This concept also plays a role in the Matrix Reloaded.

I thought A Detective Story was also very good. This story focuses on the character of Trinity and apparently precedes her attempts to contact Neo. In this film, a detective is hired to find Trinity. Eventually, he succeeds but only after he discovers that the previous detectives assigned to find her were either dead, missing, or completely insane. When he finally does have the opportunity to speak to her, he begins to discover a part of the truth. Unfortunately, the agents intervene before the two are able to escape. While this story didn’t really add anything major to the underlying story of the Matrix, it still helped to flesh it out to some extent, especially were Trinity was concerned.

The last story is Matriculated. I felt that Matriculated started out very good. Unfortunately, the story did trail a bit towards the end, but it was still quite well done. In this story, a group of resistance fighters have come up with a method for gaining allies from machines. They created a fictional world, much like the Matrix, and use it to “convince” the machines to help fight their cause. One of the main characters was able to capture a machine. They begin the process of getting the machine to switch sides just before their compound is attacked by a group of sentinels. One aspect of this story that I liked was the fact that they showed the humans utilizing techniques like those used within the Matrix in attempt to further their cause. I felt this added some depth to the storyline.

ANIMATION REVIEW
When it comes to the animation itself, Animatrix varies widely from one short to the next. This is because there are seven different directors and several different studios who worked on the shorts. Each one is done in a different style as well. Personally, I preferred the animation in Final Flight of the Osiris. This particular short was the only one that was completed entirely in CGI. The animation itself was done by the same people responsible for the groundbreaking graphics in the Final Fantasy series of games. Quite frankly they really outdid themselves on this short. It surpasses any CGI work I have ever seen including what they did in the Final Fantasy movie.

My second favorite was Program. The graphics for this short were very crisp, very bright, and just a lot of fun to watch. I also like the use of Japanese imagery throughout this particular short.

World Record is the one short I highly disliked. In addition to a storyline that didn’t appeal to me, I found the animation style to be very unpleasant. The character animation was too harsh as were the images used for the race. Unfortunately, these factors dominated the short.

A Detective Story, was quite different than the other shorts. While most of the films utilized a lot of color, A Detective Story was basically monotone. Basically, everything resembled the drawings on a dollar bill. Even the coloration was quite similar to money. Even so, there were at least two occasions when they used a splash of color in order to depict a flame. This effect was quite dramatic.

Matriculated is another short with a unique animation style. The character animation closely resembled that of characters in Aeon Flux. This was especially true of the female characters. Later, the animation shifted dramatically. This was due to the fact that the characters had entered an artificial world. The images in this portion of the short were bright and vivid in color. The best way of describing it is to just call it eye candy.

AUDIO REVIEW
The audio in the Animatrix is just as good as any big budget film. The music underlying each film sequence is perfectly suited to each piece. It is somewhat unfortunate that the album did not contain the score from the films, since the music was very good. The English language cast as well as the Japanese language cast did an excellent job playing their parts. In at least two of the short films (Kid’s Story and A Detective Story), they also used actually cast members from the movie. Finally, the sound effects were also perfectly executed. Everything sounded as you would expect it to. The only problem with the sound effects is that in a few scenes, the sound effects were too loud. This was especially true of The Second Renaissance Part I and Part II.

EXTRAS REVIEW
The Animatrix offers several special features. In addition to the soundtrack that comes with this set, it includes a voice commentary during several of the shorts, a featurette on how each short was created as well as the influences for each, a trailer for the enter the matrix video game, and a brief history of anime. These are the primary extras, but there are others as well. Each special feature is quiet good. It was interesting finding out the preproduction and influences for the different shorts. Also, at least in the case of the last flight of the Osiris, they also showed another short CGI sequence that was their first attempt at uniting CGI animation and the Matrix storyline. In this sequence, it depicts a short haired Aki from the Final Fantasy movie. She is fighting a sentinel. The character is not the same one that is in the final project, but it is quite well done none the less.

The DVD menus are interesting but can be annoying at times. Every menu is in a cube format. It appears as though you are inside of some sort of box. On the side of the cube, images from the different shorts are featured. While it seems that the menu was somewhat symbolic of being “inside the Matrix”, it wasn’t always easy to see the different menu options. For example, I didn’t notice the option to Play All until after I had already watched all of the individual shorts. The main menu options are Visions_1-9 (this is were you can select which shorts to view), Translator (English or Japanese language track with subtitles in English, French, Spanish, or off), and Bonus_Data. Also, I highly recommend using the Play All option. Using this option allows you to avoid playing the credits until all the shorts are finished. Otherwise, each short will have its own credits.

Finally, the other key bonus to the gift set is the inclusion of The Animatrix soundtrack. The soundtrack has a total of 12 tracks. The final two tracks include dialogue from the first two Matrix films. The soundtrack features a variety of electronica music that fit quite well with the Matrix theme. With a few exceptions, these songs are based on The Animatrix, but not taken directly from it.

OVERALL
I highly recommend purchasing this title. While you may want to opt-out of the gift set if you don’t like elecronica, the DVD itself is excellent. Fans of the Matrix and fans of anime should be in for a big treat. While the content of each short varies greatly, it is an excellent addition to any DVD library.