Review of Redline

First Impressions: A shallow endeavor of style over substance, and that's not a bad thing. The plot of this movie is fairly simple. Our Protagonist wants to win the race, he meets a girl and he wants the girl too. He has a friend with questionable allegiances who has to choose a side, and oh, also the government of the planet that the race takes place on is trying to indiscriminately murder the racers and everyone involved because the race is disturbing peace and order. ^ That over the top irony is exactly what gives away this films sense of self awareness. This is a prettystupid movie, but that's exact what it's supposed to be. Being self-aware is only half the battle, the other half is effectively achieving the goals that the movie sets for itself, and as far as I can tell this film has done just that. This is a feel-good action film and it almost literally goes down the list and checks off everything one would expect from an over-the-top "campy" anime: hyper-stylized art direction, mecha, big anime tits, atomic bomb inspired explosions originating from a space laser, giant government-experiment mutants, its all here! and It's woven together into a pretty nice quilt that's nice to bundle up in with a beer, some snacks and good friends. (maybe get different blankets for your friends depending on how close you are.)

I don't really see the sense in picking this film apart like I would with a cerebral film like Ghost in the Shell or shows like Ergo Proxy and Evangelion. Redline is the polar opposite of that affair and I don't think it lends itself to any more analysis other than: did you have fun watching it? At the end of the day, Redline was entertaining, had some good laughs and alot of those "this is fucking awesome" moments that so many other works try way too hard at but utterly fail due to taking themselves too seriously.

I'd recommend this movie to anyone who needs to relax and completely turn their brain off for an hour and a half.