eX-Driver the Movie

Surprisingly, eX-Driver managed to get a movie, with the uncreatively titled “eX-Driver: The Movie”. And it's using the word 'movie' in it's title in the loosest sense popssible, since it's closer to an hour long direct-to-DVD special that managed to get a bump in animation quality.

The movie follows the three leads from the series as they enter and win a domestic preliminary round and advance to the eX-Driver world race competition held in Los Angeles as a representative team from Japan. Not long after arriving in LA, an AI car goes haywire, setting off a chain of events that leads out main trio into a ... conspiracy involving the race competition and some of the people involved with it.

If my reaction to the series was lukewarm at best, the movie doesn’t do much to change that. We don’t even get to see that many differences between how Japan and America deal with how they handle their AI cars, which would have made for some good world building and could have been a neat culture shock for the three main characters, and would have made the movie stand out more by giving it some personality.

Like I mentioned earlier, the animation is a step up from the series since the team behind it probably either had a bigger budget or had less to work on so what they ended up making ended up looking better, but unfortunately, much like the series was stuck with early digital animation, the movie is stuck with the early 2000s CGI used for it's cars. To be fair, it’s not the worst CGI that I’ve seen from the era, but that's such a backhanded compliment that there was no point in even bring it up.

But that’s not all, because on the same day that the movie was released, a short called “eX-Driver: Nina & Rei - Danger Zone”, which was featured as a bonus on the same DVD as the movie, and is a prequel to the series featuring two minor characters, who are the top eX-Driver team.

I’m going to include this as part of my review for the movie because I still want to talk about it, but I don’t think I can justify a whole review for it, especially since it’s only 24 minutes long, and doing a stand alone review with a minimum character/word limit would be stretching it out to it's breaking point.

The plot of "Nina & Rei - Danger Zone" focuses on a mysterious mini-AI car that terrorizes the city, and it’s up to Nina and Rei to stop it, all while having to deal with something or someone from the eX-Driver's past.

Out of the entire series, this is the most entertaining entry purely because it has no filler. Instead of 6 drawn out episodes or an hour long movie, this special gets straight to the point. The whole thing felt like an homage to an 80s or 90s buddy cop action movie, with the angry police chief cliche and everything. The villain for this special was also pretty fun, and I’m not going to spoil it.

While the OVA wasn't anything special, compared to the rest of the series it feels like a breath of fresh air, where something fun is happening instead of having to watch three under developed characters repeat the same thing over and over again. If anything, it feels like an episode of "You're Under Arrest!", which just makes me want to go watch that series again.

If anything, you could probably watch this without knowing anything about the rest of the series, even if you know nothing about the characters, and you would have to only spend 24 minutes at most to watch it, no more than a lunch break.

Quick Take: Storyline to the movie is actually much more enjoyable compared to the series it is based off of. If you like cars, you'll get enjoyment out of this series and movie, possibly even if you don't. While the series suffers from it's six episode short run, the movie faired much better in almost every aspect. Character development is still a bit short, but with the team now a known quantity, it is a bit easier to overlook.

I found the art style a bit lackluster and a little outdated i n the series, but the movie seems to be a bit more on par ... for the era in which it was released. The inconsistencies in the series' art is largely gone and the movie is much cleaner in both action and non-action scenes.

The sound remains truly stellar. The cars sound proper, that is to say a Europa sounds like a Europa and different from the Stratos. When the car shifts, the sounds changes properly and the voice acting (English dub) is better than many, even it's predecessor.

While there wasn't enough time to fully develop the story line and characters out in the series, the movie shows us what a longer show might have treated us to. The story line is not stellar by any means, but it was quite enjoyable. Whereas the original series felt like the action got old quick, the movie presented new challenges and situation. The plot was also decent and felt a bit more cohesive.

The same thing happens with the characters. With Lorna, Lisa and Sōichi now a known quantity, the movie shines a bit more in displaying their relationship as a team. It is now fully clear that Sōichi and Lisa are attracted to each other and as I suggested in my review of the series, they are able to use that budding love interest to lead to some fun interactions between them and other characters. It made for a much more enjoyable character set.

Even the characters outside the main three are better thought out and developed in the movie, which overall raises the score.

The most frustrating part of this series is its premature end. Worth a watch, especially if you like cars. If you were disappointed by potential in the series that was not fully realized, it is all a little bit more polished in the movie. It makes me little bit sad that there never got to be a longer run of this concept.