Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/16/2008 Rating: Pg
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
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
not worth your hard earned cash:
What a disappointment. Like Alice in wonderland meets Mario Andretti. Bad acting,flashing lights and colors. I'm sorry I spent that much and geeting so little in return. Both young and old in our home agreed.
Not quite the sum of its parts:
There are plenty of good points about Speed Racer. There are plenty of efforts made that -- taken on their own -- are very respectable for their attempts if not the execution. Unfortunately the Wachowskis seem to have forgotten some very basic elements of storytelling amidst all these attempts, and the results are a movie that's mediocre at best. Speed Racer begins telling story of a young Speed Racer who's never had any interests other than racing from the time he was a grade school student. With his... more info
Speed Racer by Brandon M. Moskos:
I was pretty disappointed in this film. I thought it would've been a lot better. I bought it because Emile Hirsch is one of my favorite actors, (See "Into the Wild" if you haven't seen it yet!) I found the movie to be quite boring and I really found it difficult to watch the whole thing. The acting was average and so was the story. I give it a C. I think younger people under 15 would enjoy this movie more than older people. Quite disappointing.
fun:
great film, all the fun of the original series with updates. The actor who plays Spridal is annoying, and his segments should have been edited (or dropped completely...).
