Episode 1: The Final Flight of the Osiris (6/10)

The sword fight at the beginning was really well done. The models and animation looked really good, especially for its time. That sexy tension between opponents is so early 2000’s, and I’m absolutely here for it. However, that was the high point. The characters looked like they'd set up residence in the uncanny valley, and the dialogue was okay. I liked the plot hook they introduced in the real world, and the action sequences where the crew shoots the Sentinels was pretty neat, but the realistic movement we saw in the opening scene disappears as soon as we enter the Matrix. The animation became devoid of momentum, which was really jarring. And on top of all that, this short story is missing a resolution. It just kind of ends, and it makes me wonder how those nine minutes could have been better spent.

Episode 2-3: The Second Renaissance Parts 1-2 (8.5/10)

This was fantastic! As soon as I realized this one was about the origin of the Matrix, I was hyped. Well, it was more about how the machines came to rule the world, but still. The animation was solid (when the shots weren’t 100% CGI), the story was good and well paced (I’m glad they took two parts to tell the story), and the dramatic irony paired with symbolic imagery was the icing on the cake (I know that sounds pretentious, but it’s true). Everyone, both human and machine, acted so realistically, it was kind of scary. I totally accept this as the canon origin story of the world of The Matrix. I loved this one; it’s going to be tough to top that.

Episode 4: Kid’s Story (7/10)

Kid’s Story is how I imagine a reboot of The Matrix would go: a high school kid feels himself slowly losing his grip on reality, until he is contacted by someone from the outside world. Agents descend on him while he’s in class one day, and he makes a daring escape by skateboarding around the school. I like the idea that the same basic thing that happened to Neo was happening to a kid, and how he handled it differently. The ending was the most interesting part, as it threw me for a loop several times. I also appreciate the wild artstyle; it added to the frantic nature of it all. I definitely wish this one were longer, but maybe it would have been too similar to the story we already know.

Episode 5: Program (8/10)

I’m disappointed that this was the shortest one of them all, because it’s also one of my favourite ones. The main character looks like a cross between Major from Ghost in the Shell and Princess Mononoke, and that’s not where the similarities end. The animation feels like it was plucked straight out of the ‘90s, back when everything was painstakingly hand-drawn, and it looks beautiful. Even the CGI animation is stylish; it matches the style well, and it never overstays its welcome. The only detractor was the English voice acting. The pacing of the dialogue was weird, and the acting was only serviceable. I’m sure the Japanese voice acting was better, and if I had that audio track on my Blu-ray, I would have definitely chosen to watch it with that instead. Nevertheless, this is definitely the one I’d most like to see more of: a movie, a show, or anything longer than the great seven minutes we got.
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Episode 6: World Record (5/10)

At first, I thought this one leaned into a more abstract form of storytelling, but that’s not the case. It’s just the unfortunate tale of someone who accidentally “woke up”, and the Agents stopping him. There’s no real building of tension (although, I thought it was cool how he managed to outrun the Agents), and the conclusion, while making narrative sense, isn’t very satisfying. Plus, the way they animated slow-motion running made it look very stilted. It’s not the best one of the bunch, but I guess it wasn’t that bad.

Episode 7: Beyond (6.5/10)

I liked the animation in this one as well, adopting a sort of Science Saru “cel shaded rotoscope-esque” style, and I enjoyed the idea that a haunted house is actually a bunch of glitches in the Matrix. That’s probably my favourite original idea in this anthology, in fact. Unfortunately, like many of these shorts, there’s little to no catharsis at the end, but the small moments where we see people play around in the glitches was pretty fun and cool to see. Also, I like that they called exterminators to get rid of the “bugs”. Clever.

Episode 8: Detective Story (7/10)

All these shorts have their own art style, each one noticeably different from the others, but this one really sets itself apart. Detective Story feels like it’s been ripped straight from a black-and-white Dick Tracy comic book, and the tone feels about the same as a typical, well, detective story. It’s a cool idea to get the Agents to hire a private investigator to find Trinity, presumably before the events of the first Matrix movie, and how it capitalizes on the Alice in Wonderland imagery we’ve seen in said movie. Unfortunately for our hard-boiled detective, it probably doesn’t end well for him, but the ending is slightly ambiguous about it, so who can say?

Episode 9: Matriculated (7/10)

Is this what it feels like to do drugs? If it is, I can understand what inspired some of the visuals.

The hook for this one took a while to happen, and it had the luxury of time to set itself up (being the longest of these shorts by a wide margin). Matriculated does a lot of showing with very little telling, but that’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t feel the need to hold your hand, especially if you know enough about the world of The Matrix. It’s a pretty simple but ingenious premise: what if, in order to help the machines understand humans, we built a Matrix for them? Seeing the machine learn how to be human is kind of touching, and it unravels slowly and methodically until it culminates into something the humans didn’t at all expect. It’s pretty, and even though it takes its sweet time to get going, it’s certainly a cool trip.

It's tough to give a general consensus for all nine of these short films, but if you're interested in anything related to The Matrix, this is definitely worth a watch. If you're mostly just interested in anime in general, I'd just recommend you watch The Second Renaissance, Program, Detective Story, and Matriculated. But that's just my opinion.