Small Screen Surfin'
Created | Updated Oct 4, 2003
Recently I have been catching up on two years worth of 24 Lies A Second1.
Upon reading Mr 'Adamantium, adamantium, adamantium' Awix's many reviews, I noticed two things:
- a) He likes his graphic novelettes.
- b) When he's not mentioning adamantium skeletons, he's referring to the 'spectacular Matrix'.
At first I wanted to kill Awix for making me think about adamantium2, but now I want to thank him for giving me a topic for this week as opposed to doing a review of the pilot of Hugh Laurie's nasty 'fortysomething'3, and for being the subject of this half-decent introduction...
So this week, the Surf's up for 'The Animatrix'4
The Animatrix is nine short anime films, fulfilling Larry and Andy Wachowski's (the creators) Japanimation fix6. They are set in and around 'The Matrix' trilogy (You might have heard of it) and are supposed to help you understand the world in which Neo and his pals exist in the live action films.
Final Flight of the Osiris
Director Andy Jones:
The first of four written by the Wachowskis, and the most important in that it is this story that starts off 'The Matrix Reloaded' and video game tie-in: 'Enter The Matrix'. Beautiful CG animation in Thaddius' sword-fight scene and the Sentinel escape that shows depth and imagination, proving that the Animatrix is genuine in its attempt to add more depth to the whole Matrix experience and not just a cash-in. It's just a shame 'Osiris' is so short. This is what the 'Final Fantasy' movie should have been but
wasn't.
The Second Renaissance Parts 1 and 2
Director Mahiro Maeda:
'The Matrix' origin story that chronicles the birth of the Matrix and the rise of the machines, forcing humanity into slavery. Nice and clean animation, and the music creates the right atmosphere (human selfishness is our downfall). It does however raise
a question about the original movies: If the last human city, Zion, doesn't know who struck first, then how is the Zion mainframe narrating the story? And the story implies it's humans striking all the way.
Kid's Story
Director Shinichiro Watanbe:
The last of the Wachowski scripts and one which I don't like. I apologise for not actually delving into any story but as these are between 10-20 minutes long, any plot info could give away the whole film. Anyway... I personally don't like 'Kid's Story' because
of its traditional Japanese look which is sketchy and when a character moves, they blur.
This is the first of the animes that starts to produce anime stories. By that I mean the plot is imbedded inside the text as opposed to being just there like western programmes which have a start, middle and end (and can guess the outcome in the middle). The story is not there until
you watch the whole thing (Manga should know what I mean). The plus side to 'Kid's Story' is that we are finally introduced to characters in the Matrix. The down side is that it's that kid who kisses up to Neo when he first steps into Zion. But Agents are in this
one and we get to find out how Neo saved that irritating kid from the
system...
Program
Writer/Director Yoshiaki Kawajiri:
This is a good one for martial arts purists, it's 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' all the way. It is just two people fighting over rooftops in samurai get-up and the plot is easy to follow: They're in a training program, hence the title. This was too short for me as I like my 'fighting-for-honour' style brawls and 15 minutes was just not good enough! It looks good, simple colours and easy to follow with a music score that keeps up the pace of weapon combat even if the characters look slightly silly.
World Record
Director Takeshi Koike:
Written by the 'Program' director, another one that I didn't like. As with 'Kid's Story, the overall look is too distracting and looks like the illustrations of ancient Greek vases animated. 'World Record' shows a different way to escape the
Matrix if you have a problem swallowing large pills. As smooth as the animation was, the way it was portrayed was just too strange and the Agents looked like an Elvis Presley convention. Great camera angles though.
Beyond
Writer/Director Koji Morimoto:
This is about a girl who goes looking for her cat, and there's no threat or problem to get in the way of this nicely bright, motion captured anime. This is an exploration into a glitch in the Matrix inside an old dilapidated building where gravity is not as powerful as it should be, and things don't quite look the same. The music is a bit annoying, but we get a real taste of what goes on inside the Matrix when there are not leather-clad vigilantes murdering people like in the movies.
A Detective Story
Writer/Director Shinichiro Wantabe:
My personal favourite as the Matrix gets the noir touch as a detective is hired by an Agent to find the mysterious Trinity (Carrie-Ann Moss). The search begins in a gloomy city setting with the PI doing the traditional narrative. This one has a unique Matrix feel as it is a detective story while still having guns, Agents, and especially, a 'star' from the movies who doesn't just utter one line. The voice-over does tend to get tedious as the detective's voice is boring and the style is grainy, which is supposed to come across as noir but merely seems cheap...
Matriculated
Writer/Director Peter Chung:
Final short that shows life on the surface of the Earth where the machines and the sentinels roam... and a few humans hanging about as well. What these people basically do is catch one of the machines and plug it into their own psychedelic, hippy Matrix to give
the machine an idea of how they feel. Quite different to the rest as it is mainly symbolism and from the machines perspective. Bit of a strain on the eyes when it switches from scorched sky to tie-dye world. It's nice though, but the humans aren't really intimidated by the machines with a 'here comes a bigger one, therefore we need a bigger gun' attitude. It does contain a good insight into hypocrisy (if you can find it) making it one the better shorts.
So it's basically a 7 amines out of 9 from me. If you haven't seen the original Matrix then these films will seem very strange and you won't be able to understand any of it. Like I said before, some are too short especially 'Osiris' and 'Detective' which could have been lengthened into full features. Others I could have done without. But it's nice to get the feeling that the Wachowskis made these for their own passions as opposed to milking the franchise which shows a level of commitment in a difficult business.
Now give us a good TV spin-off!
