English Dub Review: Mars Express

Overview

In 2200, private detective Aline Ruby and her android partner Carlos Rivera are hired by a wealthy businessman to track down a notorious hacker. On Mars, they descend deep into the underbelly of the planet’s capital city where they uncover a darker story of brain farms, corruption, and a missing girl who holds a secret about the robots that threatens to change the face of the universe.

Our Take

Director Jérémie Perin previously served as producer and director on various series, such as “CO2,” “Nini Patalo,” and “Socks,” and most recently wrote and directed the lauded “Lastman” series, based on the French comic of the same name. Now, if you’ve been reading Bubbleblabber for a while, then you know that we here at this magazine very much adored Jeremie’s work on the Lastman series that, unfortunately, is difficult to find right now depending on where you’re from, but it really is one of the crown jewels of French-produced animation.

Likewise, Mars Express further extends Jeremie’s auteur in that we get a just as gritty take on a very slick and technologically-enhanced future on Mars where humans once again find themselves in problems caused by humans. In this instance, we get a Terminator-esque premise in wondering what happens when humans rely on machines too much, but the result is a far more beautifully intense turn that breaks the mold of the sci-fi genre. AMC’s Pantheon goes here a bit, but with the setting of this series being on a distant planet, we’re faced with a premise that wholly recognizes the human condition and focuses on that. Regardless of the future setting or the incredibly rich architecture, what boils down here is a jarring plot set against a mixed 2D/3D world that doesn’t let up for one second.

For my money, I love the films that give you the roller coaster experience. Some critics use the term “roller coaster” colloquially as a term that refers to a plot that goes up and down with twists and turns. For me, a roller coaster experience is the slow incline up the steep hill before you barrel downward at a rate of G-force, and that’s what Mars Express does. The English dub cast dazzles in its execution with Morla Gorrondona in the role of “Alina” and Josh Keaton in the role of “Carlos” who team up at first to track down a hacker on orders of “Chris Royjacker” played by Kiff VandenHeuvel. And just when you think this is a simple “cat and mouse” plot, Perin’s script turns you upside down and inside out and the ride is worth more spins.

Perin’s love for anime comes through a lot here in a film that is not unlike Ghost In The Shell but Mars Express does Ghost In The Shell better than Netflix did Ghost In The Shell and the streamer has the actual license for the anime, so we needed a dude from France to give it to us correctly. Run, don’t walk, to the theaters to see this.