Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Of the Animatrix shorts, this is the third, and, obviously, of The Second Renaissance, it is the second part. After the first one(which perhaps had more to say, but that is debatable) told us the events leading up to the war, this shows just that: The stand-off between the two forces. We already know the final result, so this is not about the destination, but the journey. The depiction is very dark, bleak and apocalyptic, and it achieves what was obviously one of the things they went for: It is not a pleasant sight. The irony is bitter and arguably cruel. The story-telling is similar. The animation is nice, with a well-integrated mix of 2D and 3D. Very effective direction and choice of color schemes. This has nudity or what comes very close to it, and definitely violent and disturbing images, and is not for the faint of heart. This is controversial, just as the one before it. On the DVD, there is a making of that goes over both, and is very informative and well-done, and a commentary track, not in English but with subtitles, and it is definitely worth taking in. I recommend this to any fan of the Matrix franchise, Part I of these(watching it is a must for the experience of this one) and/or science fiction in general. 8/10

TSR parts 1 and 2 are probably the most important shorts on the Animatrix, being the story of how humanity ended up being slaves to the machines. Despite that, it is over-the-top in it's delivery, but none of the story seems to make sense unless you think humanity is an utterly incomprehensible monster with no common sense, ethics or sense of perspective.***SPOILERS***A robot kills his master, precipitating a worldwide destruction of robots, adapting footage from riots and insurrections the world overt, including a particularly disturbing scene of the rape of a robot woman. Throughout this series, humans are depicted as a race of Nazis on steroids.Their mindset seems to be "if you accidentally bumped into me on the street, I will shoot you and kill your entire family". Berserk animals so unrealistic it would almost hurt my love for the Matrix movies if this was the first thing I were to be exposed to. It's as thought the Wachowskis couldn't think of a reason why the war started, or perhaps they wanted to avoid a story too similar to The Terminator, so they settled on an idiotic parody of mankind as being the aggressors. In a series with people flying, turning into ghosts, and stopping bullets with their mind, it is The Second Renaissance that is the most unrealistic.3/10

Who is the lesser of two evils?I think the hook in this film was how the machines located their city, 01, in an area of great turmoil: The Middle East.When the peaceful robots offer recognition, the world reacted negatively. When the world fell, 01 tortured the world that abused and refused them.Is it really justice for the machines to enslave humanity? Is it really the best interest for the world to destroy itself to destroy its enemy through private agendas and contractors, likewise, is it really the best interest for the enemy to the world through terrorism and fear that the world will continue to use them for what they can only provide?The terror does not come from 01 or the world, it comes from people with personal interest, great influence, and strong ideology.Like all good films, they are the red pill stories. This is one of them.Wake up, it's not a dream! IT IS REAL! An inevitable end...WAKE UP! Delay the apocalypse by taking action and responsibility for ones own mistakes.

With the robot city isolated and it's ambassadors ejected from the United Nations, a trade war begins to protect the human economy from superior products. When the trade war escalates into war the machines begin a seemingly unstoppable march across the globe. With solutions running out man darkens the sky to try and shut out the machine's main energy source, but the machines keep coming and the war for earth reaches it's horrifying conclusion.The second part of the history of the Matrix leaves aside the civil unrest and political build up and launches straight into the war for earth. Where part 1 used fictional news footage to good effect, here the main use is cameras belonging to the human soldiers. The violence, terror and speed of the war is well brought out and I found myself unable to look away as it was really gripping. Some of it is very gory but the overall impression is that man was overcome by sheer weight of numbers.As a sister to the films this works very well. You don't need to have seen this short to understand the film but it enriches your experience. Unlike some of the other shorts that you do need to see to understand the films (or bits of them anyway). The animation is very frantic and very slick and the thing is pure style with the strong substance.Overall it is easy to dismiss this but it does have enough style of it's own to justify it's existence as a short in it's own right. It suggests that (unlike many blockbusters) this trilogy (for all it's flaws) was established in a world that was planned rather than one which was expanded when the box office suggested that it would be a good idea to try to do so.