Animatrix, overall a 7/10, but the quality varies a lot
This is the almost completely forgotten animated companion anthology to the original Matrix trilogy. It consists of 9 different short films, all with their own stories and animation styles centering around the Matrix in various ways. Instead of rating the film as a whole I think it makes more sense to judge the shorts individually, since they range quite widely in quality, and have zero connection to each other whatsoever. As an overall experience it was engaging and interesting, but sometimes also hopelessly dated bordering on corny. The showcasing of different animation and visual styles is the cake here, and whatever emotional engagement you might feel is the frosting.
Final Flight of the Osiris, 3/10
This is the first, and personally the worst of the anthology, so at least there's nowhere to go but up. It's one of the two shorts in the movie directed by the Wachowskis themselves. It's probably the most straightforwardly connected to the trilogy, since it links directly to a vital plot point in
Revolutions. It's about a ship named Osiris and its crew venturing into the outside world, and discovering the giant drill the machines plan to invade Zion with. They escape and try to get the message out to Zion in time. Its animation is easly the weakest, since it's presented in the snazziest realistic CGI of 2003, meaning that nowadays it looks like an in-engine PS3 cutscene from 2008. It begins with a weirdly horny fight scene, and isn't overall really interesting. It does manage to build some characterization, but overall it's just a big shrug and a "meh".
The Second Renaissance, parts 1 and 2, 4/10
This is the second of the shorts directed by the Wachowskis, and probably the second worst (are you seeing the pattern here). It's basically a long exposition dump detailing the origins of the machine war, and how the world became a biomechanical hellscape. It does have way better animation than the previous one and there's some occasional interesting designs and images in it. But when it comes to storytelling it's about as subtle as Detroit: Become Human. Seeing as humanity is right now living through an AI revolution IRL, the images in this feel hopelessly quaint. Legions of humanoid robots marching manually to work in the streets while humans party up in the skyscrapers is either the Wachowskis completely lacking creativity, or making the bluntest, least subtle metaphor in film history (which isn't new if we're being honest). I guess you could make the argument that the images aren't supposed to be completely literal, that they're more about conveying an idea than a depiction of actual events, but that feels like a copout. It relies mostly on shock images or borderline recreations of iconic images from art or 20th century photography. For example, there's an image heavily reminiscient of the Okinawa flag raising from WW2, except in this it's robots raising the flag, and it's on fire.
Gee, are you getting the message here? It was rather eye-rolling for a lot of it, and the origins of the Matrix universe aren't really as interesting as I think the Wachowskis think they are. So it's another shrug.
Kid's Story, 7/10
This is where the anthology gets into gear. This is a short about how the kid who basically worships Neo in
Reloaded and
Revolutions came to Zion. It's presented in a dreamlike, rotoscoped style reminiscient of Linkin Park's Breaking the Habit video. It's told through minimal dialogue, and is mostly about the ethereal and off-kilter presentation: characters twist, bend and move in completely unnatural ways, which is completely in line with the feeling of alienation and wrongness the main character's psyche is wracked by. There's not much to say about it since it's one of the shortest parts, but it's very enjoyable.
Program, 6/10
This short is about an unnamed woman training in the simulation, presented here as her battling Edo-era samurai. Her (presumed) boyfriend shows up and reveals he's decided to be plugged back into the Matrix. It's basically just a fight scene interspersed with dialogue that isn't really all that interesting, and kind of highlights how limited The Matrix ultimately is as a storytelling framework. The presentation's top notch though, shown as an ultra-stark contrast anime style similar to
Redline, with bold use of limited colors. It's one of the less substantial parts of the anthology, and if you cut down some of the dialogue and length, would make for a pretty fucking sick music video.
World Record, 9/10
Probably my favorite of the whole anthology, this short is about a top of the line sprinter, who's heading to set the new world record against the protests of his manager. Its style I can best describe as "early 2000s animated MTV music video", with completely weird designs, proportions and movements on the characters. The animation itself is honestly not that great, but it makes up for it with some quite bold choices in vital moments. It also takes an interesting approach to the Matrix: the character here has zero connection or interest in it, but stumbles upon it accidentally by pushing himself physically. It's a really interesting, Lovecraftian idea that one can literally walk between worlds through sheer physical effort. The ending is also great.
Beyond, 8/10
This is a story about a young woman searching for her cat in what I presume to be Tokyo, and ending up at a derelict building where some kids are playing around with seemingly unexplained physics anomalies, the house being presumably a place where the border of the Matrix is thin. It's easily the least connected to the whole Matrix, and could honestly just be a short film about a paranormal anomaly of its own. But it's great nonetheless. For such an otherwise bleak and dystopian setting, Beyond is quite sweet and wholesome. The woman and the kids have some fun together, and get a brief peek of what actually lies beneath. It's got a bright and colourful palette, which stands in stark contrast to the main films, which were downright tyrannically dominated by steely blues and greens. It doesn't end with a grisly death, or someone not making it, which was a nice change of pace from the otherwise pretty grim anthology.
A Detective Story, 8/10
My second favorite of the shorts, this is a (short) film noir about a private detective who's tasked with finding Trinity, and tumbling down the rabbit hole in the process. The story is nothing special, but the presentation makes up for it in spades. It's got an almost
Sin City -esque black and white color palette, and creative use of what I can only call "smearing and blotching". Its design is also unlike anything else in the entire franchise, being set in what is best summarized as "cyberpunk 1940s Los Angeles", suggesting that the Matrix might manifest as different kinds of worlds to different people. It's a really interesting mix of different eras and technologies, and I kind of wish we'd have seen more of it beyond the brief glimpses shown here. It's directed by Shinichiro Watanabe (the guy behind
Cowboy Bebop)
, so the mixing of different styles and aesthetics makes complete sense.
Matriculated, 6/10
This is about a crew of tech people out in the wilds of the Matrix world who capture a robot in an attempt to reprogram it to their side. It's another "early 00's MTV" style presentation that often teeters the line between stylish and interesting, and offputtingly repulsive. This is easily the most head-scratching of the anthology, because it's so disconnected from the rest of the universe it could honestly be form almost any post-apocalyptic setting, and because once it gets going, it became almost completely incomprehensible to me. The reprogramming of the robot is presented in a super abstract and weird way in the Matrix, and I had no idea what most of it was supposed to represent. I guess some people would enjoy that interpretation aspect, but I was just left completely befuddled.
Like I said, this branching out from the film unfortunately ends up exposing the problem with The Matrix as a setting and storytelling framework: there's only a very limited selection of the stories you can tell in this universe. It mostly boils down to one of the following
- Person discovers the Matrix and maybe tries to leave
- Person in the real world struggles with the machines
- Person wants to go back into the Matrix
There's not really that much you can ultimately do. I think it's part of why after the first one the films quickly devolved into nonsense and padding. Maybe if the Wachowskis had been allowed to stick with their original premise (humans as processors, not batteries), it would allow for more nuance and depth.
