The story of Redline is pretty simple, but at the same time kind of hard to explain. Basically there is a car race called Redline where the best drivers from various species pilot insanely tricked out vehicles to compete in a no-holds-bar battle to win the coveted tittle of champion. The location of this race can be on just about any world imaginable and it just so happens that this year's Redline is on Roboworld, a planet populated by militant cyborgs who want nothing to do with the popular sporting event and set out to stop Redline by any means necessary. Our main character is Sweet JP, a talented human driver who has been to jail for fixing races. The cause of this dishonest behavior however, is JP's best friend Frisbee, an alien race car designer who has gotten in over his head with a mafia syndicate. Rounding out the cast is another human driver, the beautiful woman Sonoshee. Though younger than most of the other competitors, Sonoshee is one of the most determined racers in the field, a quality JP cannot help but be attracted to.
In terms of a narrative, Redline is just nuts. There are so many outlandish characters (drawn from a variety of archetypes) and over the top action sequences that it would be very easy to get overwhelmed as a viewer. Yet the simple and straight forward nature of the movies three main characters (JP, Frisbee and Sonoshee) somehow keeps the whole movie from collapsing into an orgy of nonsensical craziness. It's this very recognizable story about a would be great racer (JP) and his lifelong engineering partner (Frisbee) that keeps the film grounded despite its insane setting. Couple this with the inspiration brought about by Sonoshee and you end up with a surprisingly engaging plot.
To give you some idea of what I mean, let's talk about the short - but very effective - flashbacks used in Redline. In these sequences we learn a lot about the movies three stars. We find out the motivation for JP to become a racer, the mean streets that JP and Frisbee grew up on as well as the origins of JP's affection for the ever driven Sonoshee. These brief glimpses into the simple motivations of JP, Frisbee and Sonoshee are the perfect counterbalance to the outrageous and slightly schizophrenic events that surround their participation in Redline.
That's not to say that Redline doesn't have any writing problems, because it does. For one thing, some of the foreshadowing is overly telegraphed, especially in regards to the necklace worn by Sonoshee. Additionally some of the craziness taking place durning the Redline race itself can be a little hard to follow with some of the events never really coming full circle. Then of course there's the lack of anything resembling a deeper message. While I personally found the story of Redline engrossing, I'll be the first to admit that there's nothing insightful or intelligent to be taken away from it. I wouldn't go as far as to say the movie is just "dumb fun" but I believe it fair to say that it's your eyes that will be getting a work out, not your brain.
When it's all put together though, I really liked the story of Redline. The characters are charming, the setting is outrageously fun and the visceral personalities of JP and company really help this movie work. True, there's no subtly or subtext to Redline, and while I openly praised the simplicity of characters like Frisbee I have to admit there's plenty of room for more characterization. Yet despite these shortcomings Redline still manages to work somehow. While not for everyone, I have a hard time imagining anyone outside of the most pretentious action-adventure animation fans not enjoying this story.
Something that all animation fans should enjoy are the visuals in Redline. With some of the boldest art direction I've seen in a long time, Redline manages to create a truly unique looking film, something we shouldn't take for granted considering how homogenized Japanese anime can get at times. In particular I loved the heavy black shadows used throughout the movie. Instead of using transparent shading to give characters volume and dimension, Redlines director Takeshi Koike went with a high contrast look that reminds me of something you would see in a black-and-white comic book, but with color. There's almost a European sensibility about it, but I can't point to any particular example to back that up. Regardless the art direction and styling found in Redline is amazing.
Besides the film's design, Redline also features expertly crafted traditional animation. Apparently this movie saw some delays during production, and while I don't know that the cause of this was the enormous number of hand drawings required to make the film (reportedly it took 100,000) I will say that the end result was definitely worth the wait. While taking for granted that the movement here is completely fluid, what impressed me most about Redline's animation was the way the artists could transition scenes of realism into exaggerated and stretched out moments of near surrealism (this usually happens when JP uses his car's boosters). Visually epic in scope and near perfect in execution, it is no wonder this film took seven years to complete.
Purely from an eye candy perspective, there are very few films that can top Redline. But while history has seen plenty of animated movies that look great only to then drop the ball in the story department, Redline also manages to tell an engaging - if somewhat shallow - tale about visceral characters competing in an outrageous race that makes Speed Racer look like a go-cart driver. So basically if you like car races, action-adventure or just want to see some mind blowing animation then you should check out Redline.
