--- description: Enter The Animatrix title: Enter The Animatrix image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) # Enter The Animatrix by [Bryan Walsh](/author/bryan-walsh/) Jun 9, 2003 4:00 AM CUT by [Bryan Walsh](/author/bryan-walsh/) Jun 9, 2003 4:00 AM CUT The focus groups are gone, the buzz has abated, the press has moved on to hyping _The Hulk_. You can come out now. You can confess that you hated _The Matrix Reloaded_. You hated Morpheus’ speechifying, winced at the smarmy Merovingian and at the film’s truncated ending. As for Zion, if they’d spent one more minute on that faux full-moon party, you were going to start a little Burly Brawl of your own. So was it all an illusion then, the mind-blowing promise of the original _Matrix_? The answer is no, and the proof is _The Animatrix_. A collection of nine anim film shorts supervised by _Matrix_ creators Andy and Larry Wachowski and directed by a team of anim all-stars, _The Animatrix_ is the _Matrix_ concept free of the commercial pressure of an epic-movie trilogy. Sure, _The Animatrix_ is in one sense a multimillion-dollar advertisement for the franchise, a part of the Wachowskis’ plan to milk 99 out of every entertainment dollar spent this summer. But it’s also a delicate, deliberate work of art, one that restores much of _The Matrix_‘s original wonder, beauty and horror, which are so glaringly absent in the sequel. | | | | | **LATEST COVER STORY** [The Coming Age of Arthritis](/time/asia/covers/501030616/ "undefined") _June 16, 2003 Issue_ Past Issues Narco Korea June 9, 2003 —————– Nature vs. Nurture June 2, 2003 —————– Endless War? May 26, 2003 —————– The Democrats May 19, 2003 —————– Inside The Matrix May 12, 2003 —————– China: SARS Nation May 5, 2003 —————– Asian Heroes Apr. 28, 2003 —————– Fall of Saddam Apr. 21, 2003 —————– Saddam: Last Stand Apr. 14, 2003 —————– The SARS Scare Apr. 7, 2003 —————– Gulf War II Mar. 31, 2003 —————– Asia and Iraq Mar. 24, 2003 | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **ASIA** | | -------- | [Saving Japan: The Class of ’89](/time/asia/2003/class89/story.html "undefined") [Karachi: Asia’s Danger City](/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501030616-457408,00.html "undefined") [S. 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But the Wachowski brothers are devoted to and informed by anim, the cerebral, ultraviolent, consciously cinematic style of animation pioneered by the Japanese. After the original _Matrix_ opened in Japan in September 1999, the Wachowskis floated the possibility of producing an anim homage, based on the _Matrix_ world, as an appendix to the films. Top directorsincluding Shinichiro Watanabe, creator of the hip _Cowboy Bebop_, and Koji Morimoto, who worked on the seminal _Akira_signed on immediately. The brothers wrote four of the nine shorts themselves; the rest were penned by the directors under Wachowski supervision. “_The Animatrix_ was like being invited to the brothers’ house,” says Watanabe. “We got to play in their huge backyardbut we had to remain within the yard.” The result, which hit video stores June 3, is a variety pack of visual styles, ranging from the hyper-realistic computer graphics employed in _Final Flight of the Osiris_, to the dreamy, hand-drawn doodles of _Kid’s Story_. Each short expands the Matrix universe in ways that the plot-bound live-action films could not. The Wachowski-written _Second Renaissance, Parts 1 and 2_, mini-epics in their own right, describe how man began the war with machines and how the _Matrix_ came into being (in the usual dystopic, postapocalyptic anim tradition, man is hoisted by the petard of his own pride). The taut _Program_ is set in a simulacrum of feudal Japan; _Detective Story_ somehow turns the Wachowskis’ vision into film noir, complete with fog, fedorasand Trinity in (what else?) tight, black leather. The flashy showpiece of the group is _Osiris_. Entirely computer generated, it’s the least demanding short, seven fast minutes of racing hoversubs, squiggly Sentinel drones and skyscraper diving. If that’s not enough to engage the vital 1315-year-old male demographic, _Osiris_ also throws in a sword duel that leaves the heroine wearing little more than a thong. The short is visually enthralling and its digital heroes manage to outemote Keanu Reeves. Still, _Osiris_ is more video-game interstitial than anim. _Matriculated_, my favorite, is written and directed by Peter Chung, creator of the ground-breaking if perplexing MTV anim _Aeon Flux_. Chung grasps the creepy biomechanics at the heart of the _Matrix_ world. His machines and humans alike are faintly insectoid and fatally interdependent on each other. Remember how Morpheus talks about going “down the rabbit hole”? Well, _Matriculated_ pulls you there and then some. Chung takes the concept of humans living in a computer-generated world and turns it on its head, plugging a machine into a kaleidoscopic human dreamworld. The result is electricKool-Aid brain candy, with a twist of unexpected pathos. With its focus on the obscurer parts of the _Matrix_ mythology, _The Animatrix_ will appeal to dedicated acolytes. Less obsessive cinema buffs will appreciate it too, as engrossing entertainment and a popular expression of the sometimes obscure anim form. If nothing else, _The Animatrix_ provides a reminder of why so many of us loved _The Matrix_ in the first place. 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