Redline

Frankly I must admit that I'm not a big anime fan and this was my first anime. But to my sweet surprise this is a very good and entertaining. This has everything that you can expect in a racing related movie. I was more astonished to find out that it took them 7 years and more than 100000 hand drawn pictures to complete this movie which only increased my appreciation for the movie.

But Redline is absolutely brilliant. It's an over-the-top, action packed movie with great characters that leaves you twitching with adrenaline.

The animation, visuals, sound, and music really bring this movie together. Once it starts, it's a non-stop rush until the end. The characters are great and are developed as much as they need to be. As far as the plot goes, it's fairly simple, but the writing will keep you entranced.

I've seen both the subbed and dubbed versions, and they're both great. I usually avoid dubbed foreign movies, but the English cast is actually pretty good here.

P.S. Watch this movie in HD with surround sound.

There aren't any spoilers in this review, but even if there were, the whole movie is on youtube cutesy of the creators. It's English dub, which is done really well, for a movie the dub really didn't even need to be good for.

Wow is this movie an experience. OK first of what everyone is going to say, the visuals are amazing, maybe the best I've ever seen. They spent 7 years(7 YEARS) drawing this film. So it's worth watch once to look at.

The other things that keeps you in this movie, besides the awesome racing scenes, the characters are entertaining, maybe more than the creators realized. JP is a kid at heart, and has high ambitions, a great protagonist for this movie. All the other characters are fun as well.

The plot was not deep, but like it needed to be at all for a movie like this. I actually felt the movie focused to much on the roboworld plot(anyone else get a Nazi feeling from them?). It's like they were trying to emphasize how crazy the final race was going to be when I'm sitting here like "hey you have cool characters here let's develop them more." But none the less you don't need a crazy plot for this movie.

Basically, if you enjoy anime, this movie is a must see. To everyone else, if you just want to completely lose yourself for an hour and half and go on a thrill ride, than buckle up and put on Redline.

Redline (2009) is one of those films that I saw a few clips of and decided it looked interesting enough to sit down and actually watch the whole thing. After all, I enjoy a good anime, and if I don't have to get invested in a multi-season show, all the better. Of course, anime can also be quite weird. As long as it looks cool, though, it doesn't really matter. Sometimes, the more stylized an anime movie is, the more entertaining it is to watch. And Redline is certainly a stylized anime.

Produced by Madhouse, Redline has a distinct visual style that aligns with their other works. I'd probably say it's closest to Trigun in terms of overall feel, but that's likely because Trigun was one of the first anime I watched while growing up. There's an almost manga-like quality to the visuals here. Plenty of hard black outlines and shadows, but with room for its bright colors to dazzle. The character designs are also decidedly unique, giving off a wholly science fiction vibe to match the high-octane race plotline. Redline is almost like someone took speed and watched Speed Racer.

I probably wouldn't put Redline up there with some of the great anime films like Akira (1988) or Princess Mononoke (1997), but I would consider it entertaining. It's flashy and fast-paced, and I don't expect to get anything more out of it than to sit back and chill for an evening. Of course, the target audience is definitely male, with all the blatant fan service and action-packed machismo. These are things that are often hard to avoid in this genre of animated films, but at least I was the target audience, so I didn't mind too much.

A uniquely stylized and entertaining anime film, I give Redline 3.5 stars out of 5.

Out of random happenstance I went and saw this movie at the Reel Anime movie festival as it came to Canberra Australia. My only regret is that I didn't see this in a higher quality cinema.

When you see this movie, have the sound loud and the screen big. Its an experience I haven't had with a movie in a long time. I went in without any preconceptions other than the movie looked very zany after seeing the trailer on YouTube.

What surprised me most other than the very energized racing sequences, is that there seemed to be a whole back story to the universe where the races were taking place. There were hints of politics, history and other tidbits that made each of the locations that are visited and the characters shown have a lot more substance than just a pretty backdrop. You can almost imagine a whole prequel movie leading up to the events in this movie.

Of course this is anime so they did have a few of the cliché characters such as dashing yet arrogantly confident pretty boy and the "I have to be independent and strong" female character that gets his attention. Plus the usual loud characters or cool tough guys. But don't let that stop you, as it is what gives this story a bit of depth rather than being a series of mindless races. Plus the characters are a fun mix of races and designs.

The movie isn't about the subtleties of racing such as taking corners well or the art of overtaking by any means, its very much a "I'm much more driven and angrier than you, so now I'll catch up and overtake!", but with the world this is taking place in, the different array of vehicles all going up against each other and the obstacles that keep popping up, its just fun.

There is a scene where there are some boobs hanging out, but the story never gets sexual, so if you don't mind your kids seeing a little bit of breast you should be fine. The violence is a hard one, there is some serious fighting and some of the concepts as to how a person died may be a little scary to the younger kids, but a lot of this happens very fast.

Do see this movie if you want something visually engrossing, good for when friends are over. Just remember, have it loud and on a big screen!