The SmarK DVD Rant for Animatrix.
A couple of years ago, the Wachowski brothers put together a little arthouse action film that you may have heard about from the kids in the street — it was called the Matrix. I hear they’re even making a sequel.
At any rate, you can understand how the nerdy “3l33t hax0rz” of the world would immediately take to the mythology of the Matrix like a duck to water — the premise is that hackers are actually wanted criminals who dress in cool tight leather outfits and look like Keanu Reeves or Carrie-Anne Moss. And hey, nothing you do in the “real” world matters, because it’s all just a façade put forth by the evil computers of the world (who are really the ones running things) so if you screw over the faceless corporations who by proxy are conspiring with the enemy, then more power to you. Oh, and if you need to learn kung fu, don’t worry about years of intensive training and pain, just plug yourself in and you can pick it up in 30 seconds. It’s less of a mythology than a Nike commercial from hell, if you think about it.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved both the original and the sequel as movies and as action movies, but I’m not one of these people who spends hours analyzing the finer points of Morpheus’ double-talk looking for the meaning of life. Maybe that’s why there’s a backlash against Matrix Reloaded recently — the movie aspires less to entertainment and more to making some bizarre point about the nature of reality. From my point of view, as long as the fight scenes look cool, I don’t care about the psychobabble, but I can see how it would annoy the hell out of other people. And as such, I dutifully count myself as a Matrix fanboy and thus picked up Animatrix, despite not being a fan of anime in general.
The results of delving into it are a mixed bag, as you might expect.
The Film:
Based on the “mythology” of the Matrix, Animatrix is a series of animated shorts (9 in total, running from 6 to 16 minutes) that serve as prelude and companion to the movies. Some are powerful lessons about the arrogance of man, others are insufferably pretentious junk, most fall in between. In fact, they’re less complete stories than snippets of information, like an Abbey Road Medley by the creators. In order, they are
1. Final Flight of the Osiris. Done by the same production team who created the Final Fantasy movie, this is a computer-animated chunk of action dealing with a doomed ship that accidentally stumbles upon thousands of Sentinels drilling towards Zion while cruising on the dead surface of the planet. One of the crew members has to plug in and drop off a package in the Matrix as a message to Zion, and things don’t end nicely, as you might expect. This serves as a prelude to both Reloaded and ties directly into the Enter the Matrix videogame. Never let it be said that the Wachowskis don’t understand marketing.
2. The Second Renaissance (Part I). A straightforward telling of the time between “now” and “whenever the Matrix takes place”, done in more traditional manga style and detailing how humans created androids to do their dirty work and then pissed them off something fierce, until they fought back.
3. The Second Renaissance (Part II). Continuing the story, the surviving machines form their own country (“Zero One”, thus indicating that Shinya Hashimoto may be more evil than originally thought) and then petition for entrance into the United Nations, while being so efficient and productive that they control the world’s economy. As you might expect, this also ends badly. It attempts to fill in the gaps during the period when machines were turning humans into batteries, but really doesn’t offer any information that wasn’t given in Morpheus’ epic speech in the first movie. It’s also BRUTALLY violent and graphic in places, so be warned. I enjoyed it for what it was, however.
4. Kid’s Story. This one explains the reasons behind the dorky kid following Neo and Trinity around in Reloaded. A typically alienated teenager, one day he gets a message from the great beyond via his computer, and soon finds himself on the run from Agents. His solution to escaping the world of the Matrix is sure to infuriate more than a few parents’ groups.
5. Program. A woman finds herself offered a choice by her companion while fighting off samurai in a simulation of ancient Japan, and this prompts a fight between them, but things are not what they seem. This is more about style over substance and doesn’t really impart anything interesting.
6. World Record. Another clunker, as a disgraced sprinter makes his comeback and runs so hard that he wills himself out of the Matrix. Or something.
7. Beyond. Ah, now this is a more interesting premise, as a girl finds her cat lost and traces him to a “haunted house” down the block. However, it’s actually a glitch in the Matrix programming, and offers the kids who hang out there a chance to bend the laws of reality and generally have a grand old time diving at the concrete and hanging objects in mid-air. And when the Matrix corrects itself, you can feel a very real sense of disappointment at the normal laws of physics applying again. Probably my favorite of the bunch.
8. A Detective Story. Another bit of prelude to the first movie sees the Matrix hiring a down-on-his-luck private detective (is there any other kind?) to find Trinity. The guy discovers that there’s been other PIs to go looking for her, and all of them seem to wind up dead or insane. As does he, although I’ll let you guess for yourself which one. Very stylish, shot in black-and-white and drawn gritty and dirty.
9. Matriculated. A really neat concept and really cool visuals but the story sucks. The idea is that small groups of rebels capture some of the smaller Sentinels and then turn the tables by jacking THEM into the Matrix. Since to an artificial lifeform, all reality is virtual, in theory they should be able to communicate directly while in the Matrix and turn the machines to their side. But when other Sentinels attack, the captured machine ends up self-aware, and the people end up dead. Whoops. This has some REALLY out there color schemes and visuals, but it just didn’t feel like there was anything going on outside of all the symbolism and imagery.
So basically, a hit-or-miss set of animations, although it’s more hit than miss. If you’re one of the diehards who completely buys into the mumbo-jumbo philosophy of the movies and listed “Jedi” under “religion” on your census form, you’ll probably love all of it. For casual fans of the Matrix, I don’t think there’s enough substance in the 90 minutes of material to warrant a purchase. A rental, definitely.
The Video:
Animation is traditionally a problem for DVD, but this one handles it well. Presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, the wide range of colors and visual styles are all taken care of by the transfer, and the contrasts are good as well. I noticed some blocking and compression problems, but again, that comes with the territory with animation. It’s a very dark and depressing series of shorts, and the palette reflects that for the most part.
The Audio:
Much like the video, the style of the audio varies by director. Stuff like “Osiris” and “Second Renaissance” is mixed in traditional action-oriented 5.1, with aggressive surrounds and good bass response. Most are dialogue-oriented, and more dream-like shorts such as “Beyond” and “Matriculated” make good use of the surrounds for background noise. It varies wildly, but everything seems good for what it was intended to be.
The Extras:
You actually get another hour or so of additional stuff, including
– Director’s commentaries for three of the shorts.
– “Making of” featurettes for all nine shorts.
– A short history of anime and manga, running about 20 minutes and featuring lots of classic clips from everything from Astro Boy to Akira.
– Director & producer biographies.
– A trailer for the “Enter the Matrix” videogame.
– DVD-Rom features.
Nothing terribly fascinating, really, just a bunch of talking heads without any of the technical aspects of making the shorts, but it’s nice to see them making an effort.
The Ratings:
The Film: ***
The Video: ****1/2
The Audio: ****
The Extras: **1/2
