shortie

The Animatrix (2003)

In conjunction with the release of the sequels to The Matrix (1999) a collection of nine animated short films were made and complied as The Animatrix. The short films cover a number of topics from unrelated tales, missing gaps in the films and a two parter covering the start of the war.

This compilation provides a real mix of styles, stories and quality so in some sense it is hard to review as a whole. The best parts of the collection come in the two part “The Second Renaissance” which covers the start of the human-machine war and is filled with great little nuggets and references to real world history. Of the stand alone stories the best is “World Record” with the others being mostly average. Those shorts that fill in gaps in the story from the films do not really add very much to the plot but are all well made.

What the collection does best is provide a showcase of different anime styles and while some of the shorts are interesting sadly a number of them do not do much more than showcase a different style. There are no bad entries but most have little real depth to the stories, which is not surprising as most run to only nine minutes.

3.5/5 I've given an in between score to reflect the balance between good entries and the mainly average ones.