Animatrix is a collection of nine animated shorts related to different aspects of Matrix. The stories are directly or indirectly related to what happens in the movie, filling-in some unexplained facts, and exploring the matrix from an outsider-insider point of view."Final Flight of the Osiris" (Andy Jones) is a literal transcription of an episode in the movie. The animation itself is amazing, and the opening scene extremely sexy, but the virtuosity of the video-game animation is not paired with a creative approach. I suspect, it was included in the compilation to catch the eye of those video-gamers who might end buying the Matrix's video-game."Program" (Yoshiaki Kawajiri) is an Akira-style short animation piece. The use of basic colors (white, red, black and gray, traditional Japanese elements (castles, samurais, swords, bamboo, silhouettes), and an edgy Manga action creates a visually astonishing piece of animation. It re-creates Cypher's betrayal of his crew of renegades, but giving it a medieval-Japan-Samurai twist."World Record" (Takeshi Koike) is an original piece that uses the matrix concept to expand it on its own, unconnected to any direct episode in the movie. It is about the awakening to the reality of the matrix by the main character, a famous Afro-American runner. The piece is shot in a mix of grays, blacks, beige and yellow colors, and uses shading brilliantly. The backgrounds are very artsy, according to Koike they were inspired by Gaudi's architecture. I found the piece, despite being made by a Japanese, very American in its vibe and energy, in the drawing of the characters and their personalities; still, there is a powerful unique narrative that is very Japanese, that tries to tell a story without forgetting technical innovation. Terrific is the way the movement of the athlete is captured, slowed and micro-analyzed, and also the fact that the Afro-Americans are not drawn in brown colors but in different shades of gray. Supercool."The Second Renaissance 1 and 2" (Mahiro Maeda) fill in the missing story of what happened to the Human Race until they became dominated by the machines. In another words, it offers a mythology of the Matrix that was only hinted in the movie. It uses colorful Mandalas (with a mix of Buddhist and Brahman elements)attached to the female goddess-narrator, but has subdued colors when the documentary-like piece fill the viewer with the details of the war between humans and machines. It has a terrific story-telling, and it is very universal in a way. It uses elements of all religions, shows humans from different religions and cultures, depicts the violent acts of the humans using embedded references to tragic events happened in recent wars (WWII, Vietnam, Irak) and offers an unadorned, still entertaining, view of the sins of the modern human race."Beyond" (Koji Morimoto) is a beautiful naturalistic short, Ghibli-Studio-like in the use of colors, shadows and lighting, the magic realism of of daily life, and the virtuosity of the drawing. The episode has a connection to the Matrix, the cat appearing from another dimension in the movie, is the one here. But that is is. Morimoto creates for us an error in the matrix program affecting a house visited for the characters in this movie. The house is sort of enchanted, and visitors can levitate. It replies with verisimilitude to the question, how would humans notice a loop in the program? how would affect them? Simply wonderful."Kid's Story" (Shinichiro Watanabe) tells about the awakening to the reality of an American teen student who has been contacted by Neo. It has a lucid dream approach and has some lyric moments. However, this is mostly an escape story, full of action and angst. The animation style is a bit weird, as it the movie was constantly blur. This is intentional, and it is used to tell the viewer that our character is in a reality that is not dream, still not completely awake. The piece is extremely dynamic, with a great music, and some poetic moments, but not as engaging as the others."A Detective Story" (Shinichiro Watanabe) is a masterpiece of animation, drawn in a grainy BW that mimics ink-drawing, but adding some cut-out colors, typical of some American comics for adults. It also replicates the mood and style of the detective B-movies of the 50s, but mixed with a retro-futuristic Chinatown approach the matrix (very Dark-City in a way). It is super-stylish and engaging, linked to the movie by the search of Trinity. The music is very jazzy, perfect for a 1950s sort of film. I would have liked to be longer and a bit more daring, so much I enjoyed it!"Matriculated" (Peter Chung) is a very psychedelic, hallucinogenic, colorful and philosophical piece of animation, and the most daring, from a narrative point of view, of the lot. It does reverse the matrix principles of the machines using a program mimicking human reality and subconscious world to put them at their service. In this short, the renegades reprogram the captured machines and connect them to their consciousness so it tricks the machine thinking that is a program and that they are also machines. It explores the concept of universal consciousness, and how machines could be fooled. It is a very Asimov approach to the story.Animatrix is funky, artistic, and very entertaining. Not for small kids, though. The main problem with the compilation is that the quality of the pieces varies enormously, and that you need to watch it after the Matrix (the movie), and understand the intricacies of the matrix itself to comprehend the stories in the shorts. It is not rocket-science, but if you haven't done that, the movie won't work for you. Animatrix is a companion to the film, therefore, watching it on its own could be disappointing, unless you are interested in animation per se.

I never liked those "Matrix" films, I found them boring and overrated (I don't even liked the first one) However, this brief anthology of short was much, much more interesting than those boring and pretentious movies: The Final Flight of the Osiris": This short was done using a photo-realistic Cgi. It wasn't bad, it was funny to watch.The Second Reinassance, Part 1 and 2: Those shorts are a prequel of "The Matrix" and reveal many unknown details about the war between mankind and machines. I really this shorts, that give a completely new perspective of the franchise. The animation was quite good and story was quite interesting.Program:The story was interesting and the animation was nice to look at. That is all I can say about it.Wolrd Record: This short had a weird story and weird visuals as well. I still liked, even if less than the others.Beyond: The visuals in this one were quite impressive, and the story was mysterious and fascinating.Matriculated: This was my less favorite short. The animation and the designs were great, but the story was predictable and uninspired. This was directed by the creator of Aeon Flux, an animated show that I like.A Detective story: This was my favorite story, directed by Sinichiro Watanabe, the creator of great shows as "Cowboy Bebop". It had a great atmosphere, great animation and a great story too.Kid's Story:This was one excellent short. Like "A Detective story" it was directed by Sinichiro Watanabe, but the story and visual style were completely different from each other. The animation was very good and the story was simply amazing.Overall: I think than even those who don't like "The Matrix" should try to give a look at this. Like in many anthology films, some parts are better than others, but the overall result is more than satisfying.8.5/10

of this collection of animated short stories dealing with the matrix,it thought two of them were excellent,one was very good,and the rest ranged from OK to mundane.Final Flight of the Osiris is the first story,and i thought it was fantastic.it was done in cg,which looked great.it was also very fast paced and economical,and fun,even a bit cheeky.i also really liked program.i thought the story was really good,and this one was also economical and well paced.Matriculated was another story i liked,though not as much as the two i mentioned.i liked the animation style and the colour scheme,though there didn't seem to be a very coherent story.as for the remaining six stories,there's a definite drop in quality.there are are a few that are interesting,one even offers up a possible origin explanation for the Matrix(not the movie,but the simulation)itself.some are barely worth watching.since the 3 stories that i liked were so well done,i give The Animatrix a 5/10

Warning Spoilers included.Let's look at "Final Flight Of The Osiris first. This CGI short film has graphics so advanced that the first time I saw the film, I mistook the characters for real people. These visuals serve as an example of the lengths the films go to to inspire awe in the viewer.Then take a gander at "The Second Renaissance Parts 1 and 2" Which tell the tale of how the machines were, in essence massacred by humanity at first, but then rose up and crushed an ever more desperate Human race. "Kid's Story" Is quite beautiful to look at and tells the tale of a kid who senses that something is wrong with the world he lives in.That was just a small sample of the 9 Short films which compromise "The Animatrix". The others continue in this mold, but I want to focus my attention on "The Second Renaissance". These 2 shorts are the best of the lot, and come packed with mind-blowing visuals and awe-inspiring Storytelling. They both are documentaries about the rise of the machines, which leads to the matrix trilogy. The first part deals with the fall from grace of the machines. Opening with a beautiful shot, the short then encompasses the entire world and it's history of antagonism against the "loyal and pure" machines, who only want to be respected. Once a machine kills a human to save itself, humanity realizes that a rebellion is nigh, and orders the destruction of all Artificially intelligent machines. The film uses images from humanity's darkest days, from the Holocaust, to the Vietnam War's atrocities to fully shock the viewer.The machines build a city in the promised land (biblical imagery is present throughout both shorts), and name it 01, the new nation quickly destroys the global economy with it's cheap products and man prepares for war. Part 2 deals with the fallout of man's choices and actions. The short opens with a sustained nuclear bombardment of 01, after which the machines strike out against humanity with huge armies. The machines massive victories cause humanity to turn to desperate measures for victory, they destroy the skies, and ensure the Matrix's rise. The machines win, in a climactic battle (the greatest battle ever put on film), and the humans surrender, the machines set up the power plants and use humans (conveyed in horrifying images of torture) as batteries. This is all whilst the narrator (ironically a Zion mainframe historical file, hence a machine) expresses her sadness, and delivers the most powerful line in the movie, "May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins".This is the most disturbing, and most powerful film I've ever seen.All of the shorts are directed by acclaimed Anime directors, and drawn in the Anime style (with the exception of Osiris), from the film-Noir "Detective Story", to the stunning "Matriculated", the result is a collection of absolutely stunning films that will leave you disturbed, and questioning what it means to be human.