The Animatrix

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The Animatrix
Video: Warner Home Video: S037316. Price: Ł 9.99 (UK). 110 minutes

check out website: www.warnerbro.co.uk and www.thematrix.com

What to do while waiting for ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ to appear on video, so I can see it, is buy this video.

If you have a DVD, it’s also available in that format with a few extras but as I’m dealing with the video...

OK, reading all the news circulating around about ‘The Matrix’ films, you should know by now that the Brothers Wachowski are big on wanting to give you an experience to remember in as many mediums as possible, whether it’s on the big screen or in the computer game or animation.

They also wanted something to whet people’s appetites between the first and second films although it looks to me the intention was to get people back into gear. I mean, it’s over two years since the first film. ‘The Animatrix’ also gives an opportunity for the Wachowskis to get mostly Japanese animation companies to do their stuff and show how much of an influence they have had on their films if not in content then certainly in style.

As such, the 9 animation shorts on this video are a representation of this Anime style aimed at the adult more than the kiddie market, not because of any sexual overtones but simply from the more, shall we say, violent aspects. Watch it yourself before letting your kids watch it.

I’ve only ever watched snippets of Japanese anime in the past. Although I have friends who love the stuff, there hasn’t been enough time to get around to everything although I am familiar with its style. Giving a breakdown of each story would probably give too much away so I’ll summarise the vital bits instead.

‘The Second Renaissance Parts 1 and 2’ cover the development of robots and human reaction to them being seen to take over their jobs. Quite how a mob of humans can destroy a robot bare-handed beats me. Even if they were equipped with Asimov’s Laws, it’s the equivalent of hitting your hands against a brickwall. To counter this, the robots forfeit the body and just draw everyone into cyberspace instead.

The other stories cover other people realising they are in a program rather than the real world. The lead character from ‘Kid’s Story’ is in ‘Reloaded’. ‘The Final Flight Of Osiris’ is the lead in story to the second film although why it should be placed at the beginning of the video than in chronological order beats me.

I suspect that when you have all the videos at home, you’ll no doubt want to find this one the quickest anyway. It’s also the only one that is CGI and is an impressive state of the art demonstration of what can be done at the moment but I’d hate to foot the budget.

All the animation is in a variety of styles so should fit everyone’s mood from CGI to Film Noir in ‘A Detective Story’. If you only saw 5 of the stories on UK’s Channel 5, then I think you’ll be buying this for the other 4 anyway. Did I say there was the cinema trailer for ‘Reloaded’?

Thought not.

GF Willmetts

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