When you think of Anime, slow motion action sequences, unique artistic special effects, and a solid story immediately come to mind. Although “Redline†provides plenty of action, the story is weak and like the driving action that encompasses most of it, it tends to go off in different directions.
While this movie provides plenty of whacky characters, the lame dialogue will cause you to lose interest. The opening car race scene is intense, but the film slowly spirals downward with several useless story arcs that try to build up to the climax and fail miserably.
It’s Beautiful, but it’s ultimately an uneven and disorganized adventure.
“Redline†is about the most deadly and biggest race tournament in the universe. Only held once every five years, everyone involved wants to stake their claim to fame, especially JP, the main character, a reckless daredevil driver oblivious to speed limits with his ultra-customized car. All the while, organized crime and militaristic governments want to take over the race to their own ends. Amongst the other elite rival drivers in the tournament, JP falls for the lovely Sonoshee- but the question remains if she will prove his undoing, or can a high speed romance survive a race of mass destruction?
Overall, Â the solid animation and action get the job done. The bad news is that the plot is extremely weak and the characters, at times, are obnoxious. The curses and mostly lame dialogue kill the flow. While this was supposed to be a racing film, the story seemed to slowly drift away and focus more on useless character development. This made the movie much weaker. It proved to be a complete let down as time went on.
It’s not all bad though. There are several parts that will remind you of the “Fast and the Furious†movies and “Death Race,†with all the shooting and gun fire that everyone unleashes on each other. It all goes astray though after the cool shots become repetitive. Most of the time is spent on slow motion shots of JP while he fights, struggles,and tries to reach the finish line. As the race gets more intense, so did JP’s facial expressions to the point that he began to bleed from his nose and his eyes. Even though this is an anime film, that particular effect was a turn off and displayed an uncreative effect that would be seen in other cartoons.
In the middle of the film, we witness several characters that are whacky and quite annoying, but the film’s demise is the cheesy love story that involves JP and Sonoshee. Upon reaching the climax, the action and the excitement starts to pick up again, but unfortunately it doesn’t save it to from being utterly spectacular. The truth is that the storyline destroys what potentially could have been a massively fun anime flick.
A pretty look is not the same as a good story. “Redline†just never learns that lesson.
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