Well, the thing about the movie is that it has great animation, stories, representation, suspense, concept and thrill…. But well, all though it will make you think, rethink, contemplate and stick to till the end enjoying the film to the last bit….. But the thing is you won't make anything out of it. Cause the doesn't show a story but a couple of them. It's basically a side addition to the Matrix series and if you wanna understand this anime…. You gotta watch the Matrix series first….So don't watch this before you watch that….But don't dare to miss this after watching the Matrix series.... It goes everywhere the film didn't.... It's totally worth the time....

1) This is one of several animated short films that are based on the Wachowskis' "Matrix" movie. However, I have to say neither the characters nor the action made this really look like it belongs to the series except the fight in the first 2-3 minutes maybe. This lack of Matrix connection is not necessarily a criticism on these 10 minutes as the animation is fine and the story isn't bad either. The action didn't do much for me though, so I wouldn't recommend it. But then again, I am not a great Matrix fan anyway, at least this is a common denominator.2) This 9-minute short film from 12 years ago is part of the Animatrix series and also the first half of a two-part movie. Men become more and more angry at machines when these become more and more intelligent. The consequence is a bloody battle, especially for the machines. They leave and settle elsewhere, but decide to give mankind another chance as they return to the United Nations in a peaceful attempt, not be the last time they show up there. This was written by the Wachowski brothers (and sisters) and the director also worked on Tarantino's "Kill Bill" for example. Sounds like a good premise, but sadly, I was not really impressed by this one here. Lets hope that the second part turns out better.3) These 9 minutes continue where "The Second Renaissance Part 1" left off. Unfortunately it is equally forgettable just like the first part. Men rejected machines' peaceful attempt to return, so a war is unavoidable. And of course there can only be one possible outcome to that. So men want to destroy the sky? Another brilliant idea. NOT. I have to say I was never too big on "The Matrix", but these animated short films are even worse. And they almost have no reference to the films anymore at all. Not recommended. 4) One of the most popular segments of the Animatrix and this may be due to the fact that several actors from the live action movies do voice acting in here. The protagonist is a boy who manages to get out of the Matrix. There are quite a few parallels here between Neo very early in the first Matrix film and our hero here. I do not think the 15 minutes stated here are correct, this was certainly closer, maybe around 9 minutes. I enjoyed watching this one because it actually had a real connection to the live action "Matrix" films unlike most of the others. One of my favorites from the series and I recommend it. 5) "Program", a sequence from the Animatrix, was directed and written by Yoshiaki Kawajiri. It is an animated short film, obviously, and runs for roughly seven minutes. There was nothing truly outstanding here, but it wasn't bad either. It is all about the battle between the Cis and her frenemy Duo. He tries to convince her to get back to the Matrix and just live there like everybody else instead of constantly fighting against it. Pay attention to how Cis is depicted in white and Duo in black. First he tries to convince her with words, then with swords. Of course, she refuses to and in the end, good defeats evil. Or did it really? Solid short film, recommended. 6) The concept of sports in the matrix is actually a pretty interesting one in the face of achievements that you could describe as out of this world. Unfortunately, the only fairly interesting thing I took from these 9 minutes is basically the relationship between world records in the real world we live in and in the Matrix universe. This is not among my 3 favorite segments from the Animatrix, but also not among my least favorites. I am not familiar with the director or writer here, but it looks like they frequently work together. Anyway, I hope for them that this may be their most known achievement, but not their best.7) "Beyond" is one of the weaker segments of the "Animatrix" in my opinion. This is one of the longest episodes of the Animatrix. A girl's cat runs away and when she heads out to get her back the finds much more than just a lost kitten. I did not like the way the girl was animated at all. The rest was okay in terms of looks. The scene with the cat looking right at us before we see the mouse is a nice way from the director of playing with our brains. Not enough though to let me recommend it. One of the weaker Animatrix segments.8) I am okay with the Matrix and Film Noir, but not a great fan like some are. So I was very positively surprised that I managed to appreciate this Animatrix segment. It's probably in my top3 favorites and the reason may be that it was nice to see an actual character from "The Matrix" in one of these. It's not the only segment directed by Shinichirô Watanabe (also co-writer), but it's certainly his superior effort. The story was pretty good and the voice actor of the private eye also did a fairly decent job here. A pretty enjoyable and atmospheric watch of over 10 minutes I must say. Recommended.9) "Matriculated" is the last segment from the "Animatrix" movie. It is the longest at roughly 15 minutes and in my opinion, unfortunately, it is also the worst. I wish writer and director Peter Chung could have stayed a bit closer to the Wachowski movie. Also, it's not real anime anymore, but the style is not the problem. The problem is that there's no really fascinating story in here as there is in some of the other segments. I was a bit disappointed with this one as I hoped they could go out on a high note. Sadly, they did not. Not recommended.

Fans of the original Matrix trilogy might worry that this is just 'The Matrix Cartoon'… thankfully it isn't; it may be animated but it isn't cartoony. The nine short serve to add to the original films; showing us more of life in The Matrix and explaining its origins.Each of the stories is animated in a different style; the first is CGI that one could almost mistake for live action at times and the next seven are anime; their style will be familiar to fans of Japanese animation although each story has its own distinct look. The final story was created Korean; not a source of animation I'm familiar with; I don't know how typical this was but it was certainly interesting if a little bit trippy!The stories are short but satisfying. There is no connection between them, with the exception of 'The Second Renaissance Pts. I and II. Most are fairly dark in tone but not all; 'Beyond' was quite delightful as a group of children played an a faulty area of the town where glitches in the Matrix enabled them to do amazing things.The styles of animation may have been highly varied but it was all of a high quality as was the voice work. I suspect it would be less enjoyable if one hadn't first seen 'The Matrix' although 'The Second Renaissance' serves to explain the origins of the Matrix in a way that adds nicely to the original and 'Last Flight of the Osiris' is a fine introduction to the events seen in the final two parts of the trilogy.

The Animatrix is meant to be a bridge between what we don't know about the war between humans and machines and what we know as The Matrix the movie, but in the end I just found it hard to keep awake after the third short film animation in the eight short animation film. By the time of the fourth short animation I was far gone. I woke up rewound the DVD to the fourth and watched it from there down and I just regretted it, because it seemed like God was trying to save me from a mishap and I was stubborn that I want to go through the fire.The Wachowski brothers are anime fans, so they wrote four of the eight episodes in The Animatrix, which served as The Matrix trilogy back story; the remaining four stories are independent. The brothers came up with the stories while promoting the first movie in Japan and the production and release was done to coincide with the release of the last two matrix film (The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions) in the franchise.The stories have a high critical rating, but to me they are over rated, this movie is filled with so many lackluster dialogues and monologues and the whole flesh being put on a bony matrix foundation just seemed to me like a marketing strategy to keep fans watching.To me the sad part about all of this is that the matrix last films (The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions) that it was released along with are just full of effects and no full justification of their purpose. We may desire happy endings and The Matrix Revolutions kind of gave us that, but it came with a price of two tragedies. Here this movie is meant to show the justification of those tragedies, telling us why the human race lost the battle and how the machines even got into the battle in the first place.My final take is that, all you have to do is see the first matrix, it has all that you need to know, let your imaginations fill up the gaps in between because all this other additions are just a waste of your time.The characters Neo, Trinity, and Kid also appear in this 8 animation short film package, with their voices provided by their original actors Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss and Clayton Watson.www.lagsreviews.com