Final Flight of the Osiris

This is the first of the Animatrix shorts, found on the DVD of them. It is arguably the most entertaining. This maintains a rather fast pace throughout the entirety, without ever becoming overwhelming. It takes place a little before, and sets up, Reloaded(and also the Enter the Matrix). That doesn't mean it is a requirement to view this, however. The plot is well-written, and the story-telling is good. The CGI is stunning, incredibly naturalistic and quite close to being seamless. This was animated by the people who also made Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and you can tell that their talent was applied to this. The visuals are amazing all the way. The music is fitting. The sound in general is great, and the voice acting is nice. The characters are well-written, but there is little time devoted to developing them, particularly beyond the two leads. This is 9 minutes long, and the focus here was on making it feel like one of the awesome action scenes from the films(this is definitely the one most true to that aspect of the trilogy). They succeed. This has strong sensuality, but not particularly anything objectionable beyond that. The disc also holds a making of, six and a half minutes, very worth watching, with the crew talking about it, clips of it, and we even get a glimpse at some of the short they created to prove they could pull this off. I recommend this to any fan of the concept and the movies. 8/10

Presents a new wave in the marketing of trilogies. In 2004, "The Year of the Matrix", the filmmakers have promised us not only parts 2 and 3 but nine parallel mini-features - some of which are downloadable from the web. This, longer, mini-feature has a mini Matrix story using the high-tech animation (fully life-like characters) that we saw in Final Fantasy. The two leads manage to exude sexiness in an initial sword-play fight scene, the main objective of which seems to be to remove / slice off the opponent's clothing. the second scene involves a battle with seekers.

Unlike most the people who saw Dreamcatcher, I knew that this trailer was attached to the movie- though honestly- I went and saw 'The Core' and snuck in just to see this trailer. The people who did the fantastic CG work on 'Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within' improved on their techniques and realism with their newest work that raises the bar on CG animation, which at many times becomes indistinquishable as CG and appears to be real actors! The sword fight scene was sensual, sexy and OMG the girl was super hot. Put me in the Matrix! The action and drama is suspensful as you realize the situation they have encountered. This short certainly helps to progress the story of the Matrix and certainly makes me more anxious in seeing the Matrix: Reloaded and its sequel Matrix: Revolutions.

Set just before the beginning of The Matrix Reloaded, the crew of the ship Osiris escape a flurry of Sentinels by escaping to the surface where they see the massive drillers begin their descent into Zion. The crew must warn the city before it's too late.

This could have been a spectacular short, but they just don't know what to do. A chunk of the running time is made up of a superfluous fight scene right at the start, and there really isn't much story. The visuals however are amazing (director Andrew R. Jones designed the SFX for Titanic and Superman Returns), even for 2003 standards the motion capture is very photo-realistic.

It's just a shame that it doesn't amount to much.

Animatrix: The final flight of Osiris is a short, computer generated film which demonstrates the wonder-stuff that is the Wachowski brothers.

Osiris is a ship that like the Nebacaneza and crew of the Original Matrix feature film flies aimlessly around the matrix trying to avoid nasties and keeping its small crew alive.

The opening fight training scene is amazing to say the least. The use of this short animation film as a background filler to the release of The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions (coming out in 2003) is a clever idea that definitely gets the juices flowing and wanting more.

A tantalising teaser of what is to come and what we want to see.