The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance Part II

I love history in all its forms, even made up movie history. And this movie was one hell of a history lesson. It displayed suffering like I've never seen before. It gave more meaning to the other movies. And it also made think. Is the human rebellion against the machine slavery just? (Don't want to express further thoughts about that in this comment because it would spoil the movie). And the animations were fantastic. In short: one hell of a movie.

With the human economy almost in complete ruin the world fights back against the machine city, but underestimates their resilience. With no option left but to black-out the sky and eliminate the main source of machine power, the humans launch an attack on robot-kind and are quickly cut-down. Those who are captured are experimented on in the beginning of the Matrix concept.

It's pretty depressing stuff, and highlights the cheapness and futility of human life. As with the film series, it's very, very much like the Terminator mythology, but as long as humans are greedy, vain, and stupid it will always be relevant.

IE: It will ALWAYS be relevant.

Wow, this was dark and depressing. If you thought the first part was violent, get ready for the next level! Here everything escalates and ramps up the intensity. We see the resolution of the war and the beginning of the human-machine symbiosis that we glimpsed in The Matrix (1999). Very effective in showing the brutality of the war.

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

There is no comparison to this short film. While it is the bloodiest and possibly has the least amount of plot, the idea and brutality of this story brings about a side of the Matrix that no one could ever have dreamed of. The eventual taking over of mankind was rather interesting, but the thing that was missing was the beginning of the human revolution and the first tests of the actual Matrix. But then again, this film did just fine without those two little plot points, considering the story moved along quite nicely. The only other question I have though is, why weren't the two stories combined for the sake of continuity?