The Animatrix: Kid's Story (2003)
Season 1, Episode 4
Stylish but plot-light
15 June 2003
A teenager has dreams of falling that feel more real than his actual life. He turns to the internet for answers and receives some cryptic replies via his PC. In school his mobile phone rings despite being turned off, he answers to be told by Neo that `they know you know and are coming for you'. The kid looks out the window to see men in dark suits coming for him and immediately flees on his skateboard.

In Reloaded there is a scene where Neo and Trinty return to Zion and are greeted by an eager kid who offers to carry Neo's stuff because Neo `saved his life'. I didn't understand who this was when I saw the film and it add to the appearance of a film with lots of loose ends it doesn't tie up. Only later did I see this short and realise that the `loose end' was actually a connection to this short. This is an interesting way to build a wider world around a film but when watching Reloaded I only felt it weakened the actual film. Anyway – the short.

The film is stylish and interesting. Plot wise it is similar to the discovery of Neo in the first film but it is done on miniature here. The main attraction is the visual design. The skateboard escape is all blurs and speed while the falling is nicely done and beautifully animated. It may not win any points for having a gripping plot but visually it worked for me.

The novelty of having Reeves and Moss supply the voices to their characters is just that – a novelty, they only have a few lines and I wouldn't have known it was them but for the cast list.

Overall this is an stylish if wafer thin short that is interesting because it supports the Matrix Reloaded. Before I saw this I had taken this strand of the story to be another area left unanswered by the film, having seen this I understand what it was about and am only left in doubt about the wisdom of doing it this way.
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