This film is an experience. If you weren't sweating by the end of it then you are doing something wrong. Every burst of flames, every scream of joy or pain, every tire that hits the pavement. Redline does it all in one of the most incredibly high-octane piece of film making in existence.
That being said, it's not perfect. The story gets slowed down by a somewhat trifling secondary story and the characters suffer from that, the film still delivers what we're all here watching it for. The absolute thrill of it all.
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[ART]
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This is the most important aspect of the film. While the screenplay may have took around a few weeks to write, the animation and structure of the film, understandably, took over five years to create. It's a masterpiece.
Every frame is beautiful, cinematic, and stylistic. All three of these aspects create something that is wholly creative from top to bottom. It plays homage to a lot of older films with it's designs and storytelling, however, don't be fooled. The animation here is like nothing you have ever seen.
There really is no comparison to something like this. However, i'll be doing a comparison regardless. I've always been critical of anime... but mostly television anime. I think the industry is pretty lame and dull, television wise. However, animated films in Japan have a higher chance of being impressive to me.
This is because for once it doesn't feel like it's there to appeal to a demographic i'm not a part of. It sets out to do something and it has all the tools to do it.
Put simply, Redline is like a Shounen adaptation that actually has the budget and time put into it to back up how crazy and absurd it becomes. I've seen the likes of FMA, HunterXHunter, and all the shows in between... and each one of these kinds of shounens tries really hard to be epic and badass.
They literally all fail, in my opinion, because of how lacking the actual visuals are. Either they have around ten or so seconds of great animation or twenty minutes of horrible animation. Nothing actually feels substantially awesome.
Redline is the first time I feel like a Shounen has what it needs to transcend corniness and become truly badass. This is undoubtedly that. Point is, this movie is fucking incredibly animated. It has just about everything you would want from a dumb action film set in some crazy alien-filled space world.
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[SOUND]
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This is the second most important part of the film. If you can't tell, this film is going for aesthetic over everything else.
The sound is thankfully awesome as well. The theme to this movie is thoroughly captivating and every riff that the side-characters and other racers get are memorable.
However, what's more important is how the action sounds. Spoilers. It sounds fucking awesome. Every lever turning and nitro injection feels powerful and energetic. It's a great auditory experience that fully immerses you.
There's also a distinct lack of background music during certain scenes which really does help. That and the fact that the sound designers knew when to cut the sound off to deliver the most impactful sequence or explosion made me giddy.
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[STORY]
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The story is mediocre. It would've been easier to stomach without an overlong and not-so-interesting B-story involving some sort of war. However, this story did factor into the actual race so while uninteresting, it served it's purpose for the final act.
That being said, the love story that occurs within Redline is also corny and overly saccharine. Unlike the movie itself, the love-story is gentle and fluffy, which either acts as a huge juxtaposition or as this weird detour from an otherwise metal movie.
Personally, I would have loved for the love between the two protagonists to develop in a way that fit the tone of the film. The girl plays as the emotional support for the man, which although cliche, at least gives her a role in the story she would be a part of.
I do appreciate that the film cuts off quick. The ending is abrupt but the more I dwell on it the more I enjoyed that. There really wasn't anything else the film needed to show after the race was over.
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[CHARACTER]
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The characters serve as the least important aspect of the story. Which feels a little disappointing, however, is wholly understandable. The secondaries are your every day quirk-filled racers that wear their personalities on their sleeves. While our protagonist's friends are generally there to be supportive.
The one aspect of the story, and in turn the characters, that I really enjoyed was the dynamic between JC, the protagonist, and his friend Frizbee. It served as a break from the overly cliched scenarios placed on the film.
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[CONCLUSION]
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When Redline focuses on the race itself it's perfect. Unfortunately, only about 2/3 of the film are oriented around the race and the rest is generally either setting up the story or expositing needed information. Neither of these were done well, however, the absolutely gorgeous animation helps.
Once the final act starts, albeit with a bit less buildup (in the dramatic sense) than I was expecting, the story speeds up as well. The characters play as puppets for the glorious spectacle on screen.
Studio Madhouse really outdid themselves with this one, which is saying a lot since I'm generally not a huge fan of theirs. They killed it with just about every single frame in Redline. I think this may be the most visually impressive spectacle in animation history.
If I were to recommend this film for one reason and one reason only it'd be to see the final act, which ratchets up just about every lever past ten. There are no breaks on what an exhilarating ride this film became towards the end.
The characters and story suffer from what I can only call "animation tunnel vision," however, apart from some choppy editing mistakes, the audio-visual design of this film is flawless.
Watch the movie. It's an unforgettable action experience. However, the action experience is all you'll be remembering by the time the credits role.
