Redline

Cannes – What is the major sporting event armchair fans should be getting excited about? Wimbledon? The World Cup Finals in South Africa? Or an intergalactic road rash where the bionic-mutant competitors blow seven bells out of each other, while trying to avoid the cyborg fascist clampdown? Paul Martin gets his motor runnin' and heads out on the highway.

Sci-fi actioner Redline is the latest offering from Japan's Madhouse animation studio, a production stable which has fostered an enviable reputation amongst Western anime fans courtesy of the slick visuals and ambitious subject matter of such critical hits as Perfect Blue, Paprika and the really rather sweet The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. And the company's reputation for innovation looks only set to be reinforced by their new movie, which – at least in terms of aesthetics - attempts to take Japanimation in a direction that is both different and exciting.

For those familiar with the stock anime look of clean lines and bold colours, Redline will represent something of a shock. Director Takeshi Koike adopts a dark and gritty style, with far heavier inks and denser shadows than you might expect. The character design too is wild and unhinged; one co-driver is simply a fleshly cross with eyes, there is a race of dog people puffing on cigarettes, and there are more cybernetic modifications than you can shake a screwdriver at. The appearance seems less indebted to manga and more influenced by British and American comic books. In fact, imagine Richard Linklater giving an issue of 2000AD the treatment he afforded A Scanner Darkly and you will have a pretty accurate mental picture of how Redline looks.

If the visuals are super-fresh though, the plot is a trifle stale. Set in a madcap future, our central protagonist is JP, a TV dinner version of James Dean, all leather jacket and Leningrad Cowboys quiff. A full throttle opening sequence finds leather boy competing in the Yellowline, a science fiction Wacky Races that offers its winner a drive in the big one, the event the whole of the galaxy is agog in anticipation of, the Redline. And when that yellow finishing line comes rushing into view, it appears JP has earned himself and his behemoth of a car a berthing spot on the Redline starting grid - only for his victory bid to be derailed by a spot of sabotage, a sporting dive designed to make he and his four-thumbed mechanic Frisbee very wealthy indeed.

Battered, bloodied and beaten to the chequered flag by the determined Sonoshee, it looks like JP has blown any chance of featuring at Redline. However withdrawals soon put him back in the picture, and Frisbee is set to work on the car that will fire him from 25,000 to 1 outsider status to ultimate victory. In order to achieve this, some sizeable obstacles still need to be negotiated. One is the reigning champion, Machinehead, a hulking metal monolith who is literally one with his own vehicle. There are perils beyond the track too, with Redline having been outlawed by the fascist dictators of Roboworld, a loony ruling cabal with their own Nazi-style insignia and big futuristic chess pieces to shift around a big futuristic chessboard.

It is hardly surprising if that described storyline fails to trigger any flutters of excitement. It is heavy on sci-fi cliché, with the psychological intrigue of Paprika, for example, shunned in favour of something that is basically a cut 'n' shut between Death Race and the Evil Empire from Star Wars. If there is a cretin simplicity to the central plot then there is an excess of complications fluttering on the periphery. There are myriad bizarre elements that create nothing but viewer confusion. The most obvious of these a gargantuan 'bioweapon' named Funky Boy (no, really), who is unleashed from a subterranean holding cell for no apparent purpose whatsoever, aside to cause yet more clutter and confusion.

While we're talking flaws, it should be noted that this is really not a flick for any feminist anime fans. Sonoshee has been given one of those impossible figures by her creators where her waist is so tiny as to be almost invisible, her legs are longer than Route 66, and her car's airbags appear to have been fitted to her chest rather than the dashboard. Said airbags get a good showing in one pointless scene where she lazes around watching TV with her top off, and the other female characters don't strike much of a blow for equality either, with two female competitors at Redline being put in charge of a giant pink robot – a machine they control from twin cockpits situated in the robot's 'breasts'. How very mature.

Having said all of that, the superb quality of the animation is just about enough to maintain the interest levels through to the final podium placings, with the action-packed racing sequences that top and tail Redline also helping to ensure that it is never quite running on empty.

Rating on a scale of 5 demolition derbies: 2.5

Release date: TBC
Directed by: Takeshi Koike
Written by: Katsuhito Ishii, Yoji Enokido, Yoshiki Sakurai
Cast: TBC
Rating: TBC
Running time: 101 minutes