With the human economy almost in complete ruin the world fights back against the machine city, but underestimates their resilience. With no option left but to black-out the sky and eliminate the main source of machine power, the humans launch an attack on robot-kind and are quickly cut-down. Those who are captured are experimented on in the beginning of the Matrix concept.It's pretty depressing stuff, and highlights the cheapness and futility of human life. As with the film series, it's very, very much like the Terminator mythology, but as long as humans are greedy, vain, and stupid it will always be relevant.IE: It will ALWAYS be relevant.

Part 2 goes on where part 1 stopped (such a surprise!), as the machines feel they don't belong to the humans any longer and start their own country, zero-one. Their economy is growing and they become a threat to all mankind, so they bomb them with everything they got... but fail (as you would expect since otherwise there wouldn't have been a matrix).Part 2 is a bit more gripping than part 1, although I keep on wondering: is it really important for us to 'know' this? The animatrix series should be an extra for the matrix movies, and for instance 'Osiris' is just that... but Renaissance, whether it's part one or two, feels silly more than intense and pointless more than important... 5/10.

This is the third part of 'The Animatrix', a collection of animated short movies that tell us a little more about the world of 'The Matrix'. It is part 2 of 'The Second Renaissance' and this part tells us how men tried to wipe out the machines but were wiped out themselves. We see how the machines use the energy from the human bodies in their own benefit. We see what was told in 'The Matrix'. Again a little history from the world of 'The Matrix'.

With the robot city isolated and it's ambassadors ejected from the United Nations, a trade war begins to protect the human economy from superior products. When the trade war escalates into war the machines begin a seemingly unstoppable march across the globe. With solutions running out man darkens the sky to try and shut out the machine's main energy source, but the machines keep coming and the war for earth reaches it's horrifying conclusion.The second part of the history of the Matrix leaves aside the civil unrest and political build up and launches straight into the war for earth. Where part 1 used fictional news footage to good effect, here the main use is cameras belonging to the human soldiers. The violence, terror and speed of the war is well brought out and I found myself unable to look away as it was really gripping. Some of it is very gory but the overall impression is that man was overcome by sheer weight of numbers.As a sister to the films this works very well. You don't need to have seen this short to understand the film but it enriches your experience. Unlike some of the other shorts that you do need to see to understand the films (or bits of them anyway). The animation is very frantic and very slick and the thing is pure style with the strong substance.Overall it is easy to dismiss this but it does have enough style of it's own to justify it's existence as a short in it's own right. It suggests that (unlike many blockbusters) this trilogy (for all it's flaws) was established in a world that was planned rather than one which was expanded when the box office suggested that it would be a good idea to try to do so.