Redline

As a anime movie there has been a lot of effort put into the making and drawing of this film. However it appears the plot is a mix up of other movies. It fails to hold your attention and becomes predicable very quickly. There's plenty of better anime movies out there :)

Short on plot and completely pointless this anime makes a good attempt to fry your brain via your optic nerve. I almost switched it off a couple of times as I couldn't be bothered to try to keep up with it. Less entertainment, more an assault on your senses. Recommended only for the enthusiast of the genre.

There are a few anime these days that are visually striking, yet steer clear from the usual CG animation. Redline is old school anime with impressive character animation, fast and furious action and loony set-pieces. The story is...there, just for the sake of it. There is a love-story there, inter-galactic turmoil and mafia goons around to fix races. But the story is completely bonkers...you know it when you realise when one of the baddies that appear in the film is called Funky Boy and trust me, its BIG. The dialogues are hammy but fit well with the tone of the anime. The characters are versatile but only a few a memorable. JP the lead is over-confident and stylish and Candy Boy Lover Somoshi is attractive.

But now on the highlight, the race itself. The anime has got the intro race called Yellowline which is quite long and exhilarating. However, the Redline race itself fails a bit in comparison because there is so much going on. Soldiers attacking, giant monsters unleashed, bullets spraying - it's just way too much.

Overall, this anime could have been with the classics like Akira and Ghost in the Shell if the story was more focused rather than mixing a lot of ingredients (don't want to spoil anything - if you watch it, you'll understand) and because of this, the action focuses on loads of different story aspects which detracts from the main race.

Overall, the anime is fun to watch and visually it's striking. It has its lows but it doesn't bore, which is a good thing.

The animation is sublime, especially considering it was hand-drawn and uses very little if no computer-generated imagery at all. The art direction is quite unique and the colourful characters and vehicle designs, as well as the concept behind the film, remind me of the F-Zero videogame series.

Unfortunately, as with most Japanese anime, the story takes a backseat. It's by no means bad, but the flow of the narrative sometimes causes lulls in the pacing and the motivations of some of the side-characters make no sense. It's not a special story, but it adequately serves the back-drop of a wacky, futuristic cyber race which evokes the Pod-Race scenes of The Phantom Menace.

Amazing detail and probably one of the better dubs i've seen.

The action scenes, soundtrack are amazing as well as the actual story the only down side to this is that the ending is too predictable. Definitely and homage to some classic manga from the past. It's 2 hours of pure mindless entertainment.