Animatrix (2003)

“There’s a difference, Mr. Ash, between a trap and a test.”

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Sometimes I think I really am a creature of moods. As part of our ani-May-tion-athon this month, I watched the Animatrix – a task that would have perhaps been in more loving geek hands if reviewed by my august co-reviewer Mr. Renders.

It was interesting. It was visually stunning. It was an extension of the holy trinity that is the Matrix. So why didn’t I like the Animatrix more?

I guess I’ve been in a bad mood for days now. I watched it in instalments – a bit here and there over the course of the last few crabby days.

In the interest of even more fulsome disclosure, I wrote this review out long-hand at a community fair down the road from my house. Hard-smoking leathery carnival workers, slack-jawed, mouth-breathing parents with ‘Got Beer?’ hats watching monster trucks, sticky-faced children melting down.

It sure made me wonder what our machine masters were thinking when they coded this simulation. Personally, I would have included far less angry goats in the petting zoo.

Prologues, epilogues, side-quels. The 9 stories of the Animatrix supplement  and surround the Matrix story line. The Second Renaissance explains the why and the how of the machine uprising.

The Final Flight of the Osiris tells us the story that drives Matrix Revolutions, the discovery of the machines drilling through to Zion.

Beyond, my favourite by far, shows us what a glitch in the system looks like. A haunted house becomes a haven for imaginative children, lost cats and a charming pink-haired girl.  The glitch is a place where the rules of gravity and reality need not apply. That is until “agents” pave paradise and put up a parking lot.

Black-and-white A Detective Story is a graphically fascinating noir made of shade and sketch. A detective is paid to find the elusive Trinity. And Trinity just as cool as a line drawing.

For fans of the Matrix, I await your hatred.  I probably deserve it for being a traitor to this franchise that gave us all so much and asks for so little.

This is one time I where I am ashamed of myself that I didn’t like something more.

Maybe I’m cartoon’ed out if that’s even possible. No, that’s not possible.

Maybe I should watch it again after I’ve had my juice.

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102 minutes

PG13 for scenes with violence, swordplay and attractive cartoon people in their underwear