World Famous Comics: Speed Racer (Widescreen Edition)
Speed Racer (Widescreen Edition)
Starring: Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon Directed By: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) Binding: DVD Format: Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Warner Home Video Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: September 16, 2008 Running Time: 135 minutes Theatrical Release Date: May 09, 2008
Amazon.com: An over-the-top, sensory overload experience determined to replicate its frantic, television-anime origins, Speed Racer is wild enough to induce a headache or wow a viewer with one dazzling effect after another. Adapted for the big screen as a live-action feature, Speed Racer is written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, the sibling team behind the intensely satisfying The Matrix and its busier, less interesting sequels. Where the rich mythmaking of The Matrix was entirely accessible, however, Speed Racer's overwhelming and gratuitously complicated story exposition is an enormous challenge to follow, let alone embrace. After a while, one simply surrenders to the unbroken din of dialogue concerning corporate chicanery, corruption in the sport of racing, and a value conflict between racing as a family business versus multinational cash cow. At the same time, the film's hyper-real equivalent of the old Speed Racer cartoon's great whoosh of color, motion, and edgy production design--such as inventive uses of scene-changing wipes, bold framing, shifting perspectives--are more overbearing than fun.
Emile Hirsch plays Speed Racer, younger brother of a deceased racing legend, Rex, and son of car designer Pops (John Goodman). The latter invented Speed's Mach 5, and is singularly unimpressed by an offer from a giant conglomerate that would lock Speed into exclusive racing services. Speed opts instead for family loyalty, incurring the wrath of the conglomerate's unctuous head (Roger Allam). With family honor on the line and the affections of girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci) behind him, Speed hits the track in hopes of fulfilling his destiny as a master racer. The cast is largely enjoyable, including Susan Sarandon as Speed's mom, Matthew Fox as mysterious Racer X, and a pair of chimps as the irrepressible Chim-Chim. All well and good, but in a movie that lives or dies by the excitement level of races that look like computer-animated Hot Wheels action, Speed Racer is a dreary adventure. --Tom Keogh
A Wonderful Surprise So, how does a movie with hero's, villians, youth, love, family, superheroes, gansters, guns, dazzling effects, well thoughtout details, action, heart, and even a monkey bomb so poorly at the box office? Easy- the people who remember the cartoon didn't take kindly to the numbing effects, and the story was too layered to appeal to kids.
I fought watching this movie tooth and nail. I even tried to watch it once but turned it off after about 15-minutes. Then a long time friend emplored me to watch it in its entirety, and man am I glad I did. I am sorry this franchise never took off and is on record for being one of the worst box office failures of 2008, because I would have loved to have seen where the Wachowski Brothers took it next.
Give this movie a shot. Give yourself reason to let your imagination take you, and give in to the fantastic film event that is Speed Racer.
5 for visual, 1 for Story This is one of those films you put in your Blu-ray to show all of your friends who don't have one what it is like. The colors and sounds are just incredible. But it is also one of those films you don't sit down with them and watch all the way through. Speed Racer would be a decent little film. Instead it is a bloated huge budget movie that tries to be more than it is. Speed Racer was a fairly simple cartoon with really archaic animation. They really tried for a grand storyline, but it failed. They should have stuck with a simple storyline and smaller scale and just pumped the budget into the incredible race scenes. I would rent this before making a purchase. Many will love it, I didn't.
Don't believe the official reviews - experience it yourself! (review of film only, not format)
When I first heard about a Wachowski follow-up to the Matrix, I was excited, but when I heard it was Speed Racer (a cartoon that for some reason none of us watched or it didn't even air in my part of the country), when I remembered it was their name on the horrible V for Vendetta, and when the official reviews trashed it, I just let it speed by. My mistake!
This movie is thrilling, exciting, funny, and is as much an invention in ways of storytelling as The Matrix was (and has none of the drudgery that V for Vendetta has).
The official reviewers, Berardinelli and Ebert amongst them, must just be getting too old - they don't seem to understand that there's a new kind of storytelling going on here. I don't have names yet for what it is or how it's done, but if you've seen the film you know what I mean. Quick cuts and pans and other ways of getting the plot, characters, and emotions to move along and tell a compelling story.
The opening scene was absolutely thrilling. Spliced flashbacks and whirlwind racing, all with a heartwarming story about brothers, duty, memory and doing the right thing - I almost jumped out of my seat and cried in empathy and joy! The rest of the movie doesn't quite match this scene, but I was still stuck to the screen and cheering for most of it.
Bad parts: -Parts of the rest of the film really dragged - lengthy dialogue that served no purpose as far as I could tell. -The tour of the big capitalist's facility dragged on. -Jack Shephard (oh right, Matthew Fox) was great as Racer X, but couldn't he have been more tough looking or something? He seemed to just stand around a lot. I loved how he spoke in an obviously "cool" voice that didn't help with diction or anything - the camp-ness was great. -A chimpanzee? Even if it's in the original cartoon, do we really need that? The chubby younger brother is great, but do we need to do this to the chimpanzee? -What about women? OK, Speed's girlfriend is important, like Ricci's role in Sleepy Hollow actually, but it's still rather second-fiddle to the guy. The mom makes pancakes, how cute! OK, she welds or something too, and gives good advice in one scene, but I just wondered about the portrayal of women in the film. -The races - they were fun and fast and all, but I would challenge any viewer to say just exactly what each car was doing at any given moment. It was too quick, blurry and rushed to be of any narrative use. They could've just put a blur in the background and taken the lines from the script (RACE CONTINUES, CARS SPEED BY, SPEED RACER PASSES THEM), since I didn't see anything else going anyway. I'm willing to let the laws of physics go by the wayside (it's a movie after all, and done by the guys who brought you the guy who learns that the rules of physics don't always apply), but it would be nice if the racing scenes actually propelled the plot. See, for example, The Road Warrior, where visuals (instead of dialogue) tell the story - the feral kid reaching for the shotgun shell on the hood of the tanker that Mel is driving... Nothing like that sticks in my head from this film.
Aside from those criticisms, oh and that its intellectual content is definitely designed for children (unlike The Matrix which could work at many levels), this movie was a blast.
I'm sorry I listened to the official reviewers. Something wonderful is going on here that they have no idea about. Go Speed go!
awesome story if i were twelve, beautiful visuals to show off HDTV the title says it all. i was never a big speed racer fan... i watched and enjoyed it when i was a kid (as well as gigantor and astroboy) but i didn't watch it religiously. that being said it feels just like the show. the star of this blu-ray are the incredible visuals. this is very colorful like dick tracy or johnny depp's version of the chocolate factory. in other words a showcase for your video setup.
disappointed Too bad...I really didn't appreciate the language in this movie. I wasn't expecting it, so it came as a bit of a shock. What did the movie in the rest of the way (besides the totaly unnecessary piranha routine) was the worse than lame scenes with the littlest brother. This movie had some good elements, but was ruined by...what do I even call it? Watching the boy and monkey spin out of real world into...a pathetic anime attempt? Is that what it was? I don't know. But it totally disrupted the movie's flow and subtracted in general from its likeability... For me, at least.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Not Available Comics
Trevor
