User Reviews

I am not too big on either the Matrix or on Film Noir. Well.. what i mean is I am okay with both, but not a great fan like some are. So I was very positively surprised that I managed to appreciate this Animatrix segment. It's probably in my top3 favorites and the reason may be that it was nice to see an actual character from "The Matrix" in one of these. Of course, I am talking about Trinity here. It's not the inly segment directed by Shinichirô Watanabe (also co-writer), but it's certainly his superior effort. The story was pretty good and the voice actor of the private eye also did a fairly decent job here. A pretty enjoyable and atmospheric watch of over 10 minutes I must say. Recommended.

This is one of the periphery stories told by the Animatrix that isn't directly relevant to the war stopping One glorifying plot of the films, but Trinity, voiced by Carrie, does appear in it. it features a private detective who is hired for big money to look for a hacker named Trinity. we see his search which features other PIs, only one who he meets, who has seemingly gone mad from his own experience trying to track Trinity down. eventually he makes contact with Trinity who he assumes to be a man of course - told in the narrative and something that firmly puts us in his own perspective despite what we already know - on a hacker chat-room, and solves a riddle which forces him in a hurry to catch a train. he forgets his hat but his faithful cat throws it to him in a moment of ludicrousness so absurd it's hilarious.

he meets her on the train but the ruse is thereby revealed when agents attack; the agents were using him to get to Trinity and Trinity was trying to free the PIs sent after her, which he doesn't know of course, and which isn't explicitly stated in the animation itself, something common to film noir titles, which often hint at plenty of interesting back-story, subplots, developments etc. but don't show you more then the core story and a limited point of view to create an extra air of mystery and intrigue.

almost everything in this short is in black and white, the music is reminiscent of film noir and the offbeat, old fashioned yet dedicated detective is the perfect protagonist for a film noir title. the trivia section of this title's entry on IMDb also helpfully presents a few references this title makes to hardboiled literature, something it also borrows heavily from, a genre of mysteries for detectives, gangsters etc. who engage in challenging conflicts readily and often. animated aptly by Studio 4°C and directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, it is an enjoyable variant on the usual matrix story.

This was, in my opinion, the best of the Animtatrix shorts.

It has a great atmopshere and animation, and the plot was mysterious and interesting.

Even after all this time, it still left me the same excellent impression I had back then, when I watched for the first time.

This short looks gorgeous, but doesn't necessarily add anything either to the Matrix storyline or the overall Animatrix short's exploration of the world. It makes sense that the Agents would hire private investigators to track down the hacker avatars of the main characters, but nothing really useful is made out of this story. Instead, the animation itself is really just an homage to the film noir stylings that are homaged in the main movies, especially the first Matrix. It's pretty, there's no denying that--but a lot more could have been made of it.

--PolarisDiB