Anime: The Animatrix

Let me start off by saying this show is meant for people who saw The Matrix and liked it. If you haven't seen the movie (and preferrably Reloaded as well), Animatrix won't make much sense. That said...

Animation was very good, as you'd expect from a show like this. I didn't like a few of the styles they used, especially in the story about the track runner, but that's personal preference. I very nearly rated it a 10 for the reason that the animation style changes with the story style (noir, cute/innocent, ultra-realistic CG combat, etc), but motion still seems a little awkward at times and one of the episodes was drawn in an almost grotesquely exaggerated style that seemed just a bit overkill for what they were trying to accomplish.

Voice acting was good for the most part (although stereotypical deep throaty masculine voices got on my nerves after a while). Sound quality, however, bothered me a little. They make the same excessive use of swishing sounds to show people moving quickly that I associate with cheeseball shows like Xena and Hercules. Geh. It isn't just a little overkill either - in at least one of the episodes the characters can barely blow their noses without a whooshing sound as they bring the hankey up. Still, overall quality was good. Music varied - several episodes barely used it all, while the noir episode in particular used it very well.

Character development is more or less nonexistent. You get to know each character for a maximum of around ten minutes, during which time they illustrate a particular event in the Matrix timeline. The characters are done fairly well, have distinct personalities, and so on, but they remain mostly static throughout each episode. In short, they're good enough for the story, but don't expect anything spectacular.

The value of the story is highly dependent on whether you've seen The Matrix and Matrix Reloaded and how much you liked them. If you haven't seen them you can still enjoy the story, but there won't be any context for it. If you didn't like the movies, chances are, like several of my friends, you'll write this off as a waste of time. But if you've seen and enjoyed the movies, you'll probably enjoy this too. Some of the scenes, especially the CG swordfighting (cheesy though the whole cutting clothes off thing is) are done impressively well, the stories, while not incredibly original within the context of the movies and other well-explored genres (noir, sci fi, martial arts, incredible athletes, creation myths, etc) are interesting and worthwhile. The real cream of the crop in my opinion was the deep background story of how humans created robots and through their own selfishness and abuse caused those robots to become the implement of their destruction. Might remind some of you of Bush's current "war on terror." At any rate, I thought the movies were fun and while it could have been a whole lot better, I enjoyed Animatrix too. Would I pay for the DVD? No. I deleted it after I watched it and would probably only watch again if I was with friends that wanted to see it. I'm glad I saw it though, and I think a lot of Matrix fans will enjoy it much more than I did. In the end, this is an easy recommendation for anyone that saw either Matrix movie and liked it. Not everyone will like it enough to shell for the DVD of course, but I think most everyone will be able to appreciate it for what it is.

Personally, I had mixed feeling about Animatrix - it didn't have a lot of the thoughtfulness and depth that I was hoping for, but still had a few good undertones and was an enjoyable watch, especially with the different genres and animation styles. There isn't something for everyone, but there is something for most people, especially those who liked the movies.