TL;DR – It’s fine, nothing amazing but not a complete mess.    

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Review –

I’ve been quite enjoying the jaunts into the world of Altered Carbon as of late. A world of switching bodies and switching cast members. A world of excesses and a world of death that is only real death half the time. I’ve watched both seasons, so when I heard there was an animated movie, well I had to give it a watch and well … it’s fine.

So after the events of the Second Season (I think, but I’m not entirely sure), we open on the planet Latimer. Here a young girl Holly (Brittany Cox/ Ayaka Asai) is running from her life through the upper streets as air cars and large holograms walk around her. She is being chased by two thugs, who are trying to catch her. Running into a club she is almost at a needle casting facility when a ninja slaughters the two thugs and turns on her. Things are bad but then Takeshi (Ray Chase/ Tatsuhisa Suzuki) arrives to save the day. Teaming up with local CTAC operator Gina (Elizabeth Maxwell/ Rina Satô) they get Holly to the safety of the Yakuza or as it turns out maybe into significantly more danger than she was before.

Now, this is an interesting film, in that we are usually a bit cagier about spoilers with films, but then it is also hard to talk about this film without getting into spoilers for both past seasons and a big reveal in this film. So with that in mind, there will be some big [SPOILERS] around character points going forward but not for the ending.

When it comes to the animation, it is done in 3d cel-shaded-lite style. This allows it to flow well in the action scenes as blood splatters across the screen and there is a lot of blood. Part of what makes it work as well as it did is that I think they used some really good motion capture to help get the baseline and improved from there. The cel-shaded-lite takes a bit of getting used to outside of the action because it feels slightly stylistic whilst still wanting to be realistic and that creates some awkwardness. This is added to by some animations around the moths that didn’t quite map to what they were saying. It is also filled to the brim with references to other works with its music, setting, and dialogue including Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell, and Terminator to name a few.  

The story as we mentioned picked off after Season Two, I believe, as it is mentioning Takeshi having to deal with some Yakuza issues back on Harlan’s World, but then it could also be in that time in-between him losing everyone at Stonghold and being captured by CTAC in the first episode. If it is the later it makes more sense why Gina who is actually Reileen in another sleeve is still around. If it is the first, well that asks more questions than it answers because Reileen real-deathed in Season One. Overall, I didn’t mind the story but it was very but the numbers and I am not sure anything was that much of a surprise. Actually no, I take that back there was one moment at the end that had me go ‘oh’ as it showed more context on a character but nothing more than that. It did feel a little odd that they had Chris Conner back to voice Ogai even though he has nothing to do with his other character other than the fact they both run hotels and while Altered Carbon has skewed a little more into the realm of bombast previously this took it to the extreme at times. I will say that it was good that if you happened to stumble across this without seeing any of the series, the film does give a quick primer to the universe to get you going.    

In the end, do we recommend Altered Carbon: Resleeved? Well, if you have liked the shows previous to this, then Resleeved will be a nice continuation into this world. If you have not seen the show, I would not say there is anything here to recommend to you. However, if you liked Altered Carbon: Resleeved I would also recommend Blade Runner 2049.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you watched Altered Carbon: Resleeved?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Altered Carbon: Resleeved
Directed by – Takeru Nakajima
Screenplay by – Dai Satô & Tsukasa Kondo
Based on – Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan and Characters created by Laeta Kalogridis
Music by – Keigo Hoashi & Kuniyuki Takahashi
Cinematography by – Yoshiyuki Okada
Edited by – Shun Tokuda
Production/Distribution Companies – Studio Anima & Netflix.
Starring – Ray Chase, Doug Stone, Kaiji Tang, Chris Conner, Brittany Cox, Elizabeth Maxwell, Jamieson Price, Ayaka Asai, Kôji Ishii, Jôji Nakata, Rina Satô, Tatsuhisa Suzuki, Kanehira Yamamoto & Kenji Yamauchi          
Rating – Australia: MA15+;