The Animatrix

Featuring nine animated shorts set in and around The Matrix, written and directed by the cream of Japanese anime creators, with the Wachowski brothers' blessing, The Animatrix arrives with a weight of expectation similar to Reloaded.

However, while it's visually sublime - a magical mystery tour of animation styles- it doesn't fully deliver. Overall, the disc is debilitated by story issues and an overwhelming number of downbeat endings, which place it far from the cathartic exhilaration of the original movie.

The Wachowskis themselves penned The Second Renaissance Part 1, a beautifully designed look at life pre-Matrix, using a faux newsreel style to chilling effect as the machines rise.

Dark-edged, brutal and less smoothly styled, T...

Ooooh, yeah, I just ripped into Revolutions for breaking from the way The Matrix and Reloaded looked and now... the Animatrix.

And I'm not going to do the same thing.

All the segments looked a little different, which I liked. But this comes along and it sort of fills in the backstory of the Matrix world. Almost like the, brothers at the time, sisters now looked at the Matrix and realized that Sci-Fi geekdom was loving it and they had to really explain a history so that the geeks like me had something to sink our teeth into and argue about at the comic book store on Wednesday nights.

And then, with the Animatrix, they gave it to us... and THANK YOU.