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Overall Rating
  Awesome: 77.61%
Worth A Look: 19.4%
Average: 1.49%
Pretty Bad: 0%
Total Crap: 1.49%
3 reviews, 49 user ratings
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| Red vs. Blue |
by Erik Childress
"More Addictive Than Video Games Themselves. And 100 Times Funnier!"
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I’ve just finished my second viewing of Red vs. Blue and I can tell that this will be one of those joy-fulfilling excursions that I will share with friends as well as something I can just keep on in the background even when I’m not watching it. Simple to the point that your buddies could have sat down to create it and yet so audacious in its execution that you sense mad geniuses were at work. There’s a simplistic way to describe what it is, but one with so many levels that each proceeding explanation curves your smile a little more. It’s a mighty successful video game film based on a series of webshorts based on a video game. More importantly, Red vs. Blue is animated anarchy on par with one’s enjoyment of shows like South Park and Ren & Stimpy.Red vs. Blue is not technically a “film” at all, but an edit of the season one internet shorts entitled The Blood Gulch Chronicles. Adapted, so to speak, from the enormously popular xBox game Halo, what this creative clan has done is lift segments of the game imagery and then dub their voices over in a technique they refer to as “machinima.” Unlike the addictively entertaining Most Extreme Elimination Challenge on Spike TV, their scripts are already written. They just need the footage. Chances are you may have called your friend a “team-killing fucktard” while playing Halo. Only you were playing to an audience of one.
RvB is set on a distant planet where two armies (defined by their colors) are fighting for control of two bases. Why either of them should care about domination in the “middle of a boxed canyon” is amongst the several conversations they will have, bored out of their armor, as they await the other side to make a move, a la A Midnight Clear. All the aliens have been killed. What else have they got to do?
The red boys pass the time debating the name of their new ATV (the Warthog) with a commander who shrugs off alternative suggestions as being mythical animals (like the unicorn or the...walrus.) They also wonder why it’s necessary for a spaceship to haul down a giant tank as a weapon. Why not just use the spaceship? The blue guys aren’t much better, picking on their own rookie much like the reds do and being completely inept when it comes time for battle conditions.
This may sound like something more suited for short doses in five-minute downloads but when the 19 episodes are spliced together it works effortlessly. This may be considered nothing more than high-tech geek cinema since jokes directed towards objectives of the actual game (flag capture) and familiarities (weapons, vehicles) will fly right past the casual observer. Don’t despair because the humor isn’t streamlined only for game players. There’s enough pointed military satire and references (2001, Star Wars and even It’s a Wonderful Life) for anyone to laugh consistently throughout. Plus, anybody who can throw in a Voltron joke and make it stick gets my props. OK, I proudly vaunt my geek memoirs.In fact, it takes precedence for me to give everyone listed on the credits their props. Writer/director Burnie Burns along with Geoff Fink, Gus Sorola, Randall Glass, Matt Hullum, who also provided voicework alongside Yomary Cruz, Dan Godwin, Joel Heyman, Jason Saldana and Kathleen Zuelch have all given us something to laugh out for years to come and they’re just getting started. Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles ends with a cliffhanger that is liable to send people rushing to www.redvsblue.com to check out the beginning of season two. RvB joins the emerging revolution of filmmakers to use the internet to share their ingenuity with millions and its time to take further notice. HomestarRunner.com is a weekly venture in my home. RvB will now certainly be as well. Although maybe I’ll wait until Season Two is complete since the first one was so much fun watching in its entirety.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8857&reviewer=198
originally posted: 03/12/04 09:23:10
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OFFICIAL SELECTION: 2004 SXSW Film Festival. For more in the 2004 South By Southwest Film Festival series, click here.
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USA
25-Nov-2003
UK
N/A
Australia
N/A
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