Touches You

So much average

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is one of the most popular segments of the Animatrix and this may be due to the fact that several actors from the live action movies do voice acting in here. The protagonist is a boy who seems to feel that something isn't right. Before he gets killed, he manages to get out of the Matrix. There are quite a few parallels here between Neo very early in the first Matrix film and our hero here. Just like the other Animatrix segments, this was written by the Wachowskis and the director here is Shinichirô Watanabe. I do not think the 15 minutes stated here are correct, this was certainly closer, maybe around 9 minutes. I enjoyed watching this one because it actually had a real connection to the live action "Matrix" films unlike most of the others. One of my favorites from the series and I recommend it.

This is a bizarre one. The animation, especially of the fall, is intensely surreal though not necessarily to a dream-like effect. It's hard in some places to get one's bearings while viewing the movie, but that's kind of the point and a lot of the character design and movement is purposefully chaotic and fractured.It's been a while since I watched the Matrix sequels, but I'm pretty sure "Popper" is the kid who appears as Neo's little fanboy in the movies. If that's the case, it's neat to see his story, and bizarre to think about how it may have come to place. On the other hand, I can't help but get giggles thinking that some extreme Matrix fans with no sense of reality could use this story as direction and try to jump off of high buildings to escape the virtual world. On a more serious note, I'm glad that hasn't happened, because it's not like we need another reason to blame movies for stupid people's actions.Enough of what isn't. What is is that this animation is a really neat speculation on alternative ways people can come to escape The Matrix, alongside of the other short featured in somewhat of the same style, "The World Record." --PolarisDiB --PolarisDiB

This is not the best of the animatrix series. The artwork is sub par and the story is quite thin. What saves it is the believable feeling of paranoia and the end scene in the graveyard.*SPOILER*When one teacher says to another (from memory):"Some kids are so insecure they need to make up some safe place where they can escape to" <looks towards the sky/heaven>. "but he will be better of where he is now". That comment and the nice rendering of how the adult was completely unaware what he was saying about his own religious beliefs really enthralled me. I had to replay the scene multiple times before going on.

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.