8 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
The Animatrix - Avoid it if you're feeling depressed.
Date of Review: Jun 18, 2003
The Bottom Line: Contains a lot of graphic violence, and could make your day worse if you're already feeling down.
I enjoyed the Matrix and its sequel, and so I figured I'd kick back, relax, and enjoy the Animatrix one evening after work. The Animatrix did an end run around my expectations, and I found myself feeling sad and depressed after the viewing. Here's why:
The gore/violence level.
The Matrix movies contain a lot of sanitized violence. Neo beats up on various agents, shoots people, etc... but there's no gore. Not so in The Second Renaissance Part I & Part II. There's blood and gore galore, and it's not like the gore found in some other anime series. The director doesn't seem to be doing it in order to stimulate the audience or sell his product. Rather, he's making an anti-war, anti suffering statement. Thus it's no surprise the director puts the destruction of robots on par with killing human beings. (Oil and plastic substitute for blood and flesh, but it has the same effect.) I found those two sequences very hard to watch.
Depressing/Hopeless Plots.
The humans lose the war in The Second Renaissance Pt. II. Another film short has an apparent teen suicide, and in three other shorts the protagonists die. Pretty depressing stuff. It's even harder to take because most of them are really well done. The directors and writers took their time putting the material together and it shows. However, the material just happens to graphically demonstrate death and suffering, and the futility of our efforts to combat death and suffering.
So, what does this mean to you, the consumer?
Don't buy or rent if you're not ready to be immersed in a depressive and gut wrenching experience. Personally, I already know death and suffering sucks for all those involved, and I was not ready for the content in this dvd. I'm thankful I rented instead of buying.
