Too much of everything

Best movie ever!

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.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

"Matriculated" is the last segment from the "Animatrix" movie. It is the longest or among the two longest in terms of runtime at roughly 15 minutes and in my opinion, unfortunately, it is also the worst. With one or two exceptions I fail to see any Matrix references here anymore. I wish writer and director Peter Chung could have stayed a bit closer to the Wachowski movie. Also, it's not real anime anymore, but that is somehow not surprising looking at Chung's body of work. An Asian name may not be enough. Then again, the "anim" in Animatrix can also stand for animation. However, the style is not the problem. the problem is that there's no really fascinating story in here as there is in some of the other segments. I was a bit disappointed with this one as I hoped they could go out on a high note. Sadly, they did not. Not recommended.

Whereas the rest of the Animatrix shorts attempt an animated realism or an animated surrealism, this one is going full-fledged psychedelic. A resistance group attempts to re-program robots to join their side, basically (as I can understand it) by seducing them in a program of their creation. Somehow this is supposed to tie into choice and discussions of slavery and will, but really it's more like an attempt to see brightly colored naked figures run through phantasmagoric flowing light. It's story would be kind of sad if it wasn't for the fact that it's pretty much nonsensical. I can't even tell if its set during the primary narrative of the Matrix trilogy or if it's set before (the robot designs are different). Instead, just sit back and enjoy the visuals. It's kind of hard not to.--PolarisDiB

Somehow the Animatrix shorts with the most interesting premises have the worst outcome. Matriculated is the worst of the bunch (although it's a close call with Program), as it takes a great idea (showing the machines the beauty of mankind by plugging them in) and turns it into the worst experience of the 9.As I said, the story begins promising and interesting, but ends with a long, long, long sequence of 'weird' images, a cross between the famous scenes from 2001 and VGA-rain (who can remember it), but not as interesting as neither of them.Too bad as the Animatrix wasn't great to begin with. Add the fact that Revolutions as well as Reloaded were a huge disappointment... who knew it would end this way 5 years ago when we were all in awe of The Matrix... don't you hate sad endings? 3/10.

On the edge of a human colony, two `runners' surface from the sea and plan a homing device to call the sentinels to attack. As the sentinels approach, the runners are drawn into a trap by the human guards.Part of the series of animations making up the Matrix companion piece `The Animatrix', I saw this as a stand alone piece recently at a festival of shorts and animations and it displayed a problem that I noticed in some of the other shorts that I had seen on other days - that of fitting in with the matrix. In this short, the humans capture a robot as part of trying to convert them to join them and fight against the other machines. However in the Matrix itself we never see this side of the story. While I'm open to the idea that this was set many years before the films, in a more advanced time than the Zion we see, it still should have really done more to fit in.Given that it doesn't, it matters more whether the short works or not. The plot goes all a bit funny as they try and trick the robot and it clearly is going for style instead of substance. In terms of leaving out substance it does it very well - producing a film that doesn't do very well in regards logic and engaging plotting. In terms of style it only does so-so. It is good at the start and end but in the program it just seems to be as many colours as it can get rather than a style that is clever or stimulating.Overall this was the least of the shorts for my money. It has an interesting idea at the end that isn't delivered very well, thus fitting it in well with the rest of the short that never really interested me in the slightest. It doesn't fit with the incarnation of the matrix as we know it from the films and it didn't impress me with it's style or substance. The animation is good but that is not enough by itself - which it sadly was.