Our focus as we're taken into the film's slightly crazy world is a racer who goes by the name of JP, as on the one hand we explore his relationship with mechanic and long-serving friend Frisbee as the latter wheels and deals in race fixing to pay off old debts, while on the other we find a burgeoning love interest for our quiff-sporting hero in Sonoshee McLaren, a fellow racer with more interest in machines than men. While Redline could get by quite easily by simply feeding us adrenaline-pumping race after race for the entirety of its running time, it nonetheless does offer us a couple of on-going plot threads across the course of the movie. For the next ten minutes we're treated to a fireball of colour, movement, noise, blood, sweat and tears, all of which are animated with an often stunning eye for detail and a superb appreciation of how to convey the feeling of movement and intense speed, occasionally in some rather innovative ways. As the race enters its final stretch, we soon get a taste of what this form of sport is all about - an anything goes blend of Wacky Races meets Cannonball Run, but with missiles and harpoons. In all honesty, the best advice to any potential buyers of Redline would be to find a way to watch its first twelve minutes, which sees us joining a gathering crowd of weird and wonderful creatures from around the galaxy before both they and us are blown-away by the arrival of a motley crew of racers currently engaging in a road race known as the Yellowline. Reviewing Redline for its physical UK release is actually rather a daunting prospect for a couple of reasons - firstly, on account of the ever-swirling hype around this animated movie which spent so many years in the making, and secondly because it's such a visually arresting film that trying to sum up its impact and appeal in words alone is a challenge in itself.
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