Dark Fury
I hope the trend toward filling in plot gaps between movies with anime continues. Anamatrix gets deserved credit for lining up many of the best animators in the business to create a series of compelling shorts. Dark Fury picks up the trend, bridging the gap between Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick. Peter Chung, best known as the animator responsible for Aeon Flux, delivers his fluid techo-violent style, giving Riddick the same looming presence found in Vin Diesel's live-action version. Characters, including Riddick, are voiced by the movie stars, keeping the entire production artistically consistent. The story is a creepy encounter with a psychotic intergalactic bounty hunter collecting killers as art. At 35 minutes, the animated story is complete, but I still want more. Extras on the DVD include behind the scenes material and some sneak peaks at Chronicles stuff.
Combine the most popular sci-fi universe of the last decade with visuals created by some of the most talented animators from Japan, Korea and the United States and you get The Animatrix; a visually diverse collection of 9 Anime shorts that fill some of the story gaps in The Matrix plotline. While the plotline of each story is heavily influenced by The Matrix creators, Larry and Andy Wachowski, each animator is given free reign to apply their style to the story they tell. Whether you've watched any of The Matrix trilogy or not the individual shorts are artistic and stand on their own as a showcase for the talents behind them. A few of the stories (World Record and A Detective Story) lean toward visual style over storytelling substance, but stand up to several viewings without disappointment. The History and Culture of Anime featurette is an effective cursory introduction to Anime. As a straight to DVD release, this is both a recommended rental and worthy addition to every sci-fi movie collection.
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