Reviewer's Rating 4 out of 5
The Animatrix DVD

Nine short animated films drawn with a variety of different animation styles form "The Animatrix", an exploration of the original war between humans and machines that led to the creation of 'The Matrix'. The nine films are:

1 Final Flight of the Osiris
2 The Second Renaissance (Part 1)
3 The Second Renaissance (Part 2)
4 Kid's Story
5 Program
6 World Record
7 Beyond
8 Detective Story
9 Matriculated

If you've been left scratching your head over "The Matrix Reloaded", you'll definitely want to check out Andy Jones' "Final Flight of the Osiris" on this DVD, as it links the first two movies in "The Matrix" trilogy. If nothing else, it proves that while you're in the Matrix, you might as well indulge in some erotic kung fu.

TECHNICAL FEATURES

Picture Flawless, detailed and beautiful to watch, the transfer of these nine films to disc is razor sharp perfection.

Sound The 5.1 mix soon surrounds you in the world of the Matrix. And as you'd expect, it's an electronic music fest, underpinned by some serious bass.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Audio Commentaries Three of the seven directors offer commentaries for four of the shorts, and all suffer to greater or lesser extents from merely describing what we see on screen. Of interest to animation fans, though, will be the directors revealing their inspirations, with everything from the formation of coral reefs to the architect Gaudi influencing films that range from purely computer-generated animation, to hand-drawn orthodox Japanese animation.

Execution The background to the nine animated films is explored in this series of short featurettes. Most interesting is the one for "Final Flight of the Osiris", in which director Andy Jones shows off an impressive test animation shown to the Wachowski brothers. The similarity between his work and "The Matrix" in the look of the two films was done on purpose. As you'll see, at times the two are indistinguishable from the other thanks to all the CG effects used in the first movie.

Additional Extra Features Also on the DVD is a trailer for the Enter the Matrix game, and a crew list.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION
Chapters: 9
Ratio: 2.35:1 (anamorphic)
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Audio Tracks: Multiple languages
Subtitles: Multiple languages
Captions: English and German
Menus: Super-cool (as you might expect) animated menus, with music
Special Features Subtitles All of the special features come with subtitles.

This DVD was reviewed on a JVC XV-N5 DVD player.

End Credits

Director: Andy Jones, Mahiro Maeda, Shinichir么 Watanabe, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Takeshi Koike, Kouji Morimoto, Peter Chung

Writer: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski, Peter Chung, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Shinichir么 Watanabe

Stars: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Kevin Michael Richardson

Genre: Animation, Science Fiction

Length: 101 minutes

Cinema:

DVD: 02 June 2003

Country: USA