On the edge of a human colony, two `runners' surface from the sea and plan a homing device to call the sentinels to attack. As the sentinels approach, the runners are drawn into a trap by the human guards.
Part of the series of animations making up the Matrix companion piece `The Animatrix', I saw this as a stand alone piece recently at a festival of shorts and animations and it displayed a problem that I noticed in some of the other shorts that I had seen on other days - that of fitting in with the matrix. In this short, the humans capture a robot as part of trying to convert them to join them and fight against the other machines. However in the Matrix itself we never see this side of the story. While I'm open to the idea that this was set many years before the films, in a more advanced time than the Zion we see, it still should have really done more to fit in.
Given that it doesn't, it matters more whether the short works or not. The plot goes all a bit funny as they try and trick the robot and it clearly is going for style instead of substance. In terms of leaving out substance it does it very well - producing a film that doesn't do very well in regards logic and engaging plotting. In terms of style it only does so-so. It is good at the start and end but in the program it just seems to be as many colours as it can get rather than a style that is clever or stimulating.
Overall this was the least of the shorts for my money. It has an interesting idea at the end that isn't delivered very well, thus fitting it in well with the rest of the short that never really interested me in the slightest. It doesn't fit with the incarnation of the matrix as we know it from the films and it didn't impress me with it's style or substance. The animation is good but that is not enough by itself - which it sadly was.
