Speed Racer the Movie, Your Thoughts

[Blue Weirdo]

I actually liked it. I had mixed emotions about the visual effects in some scenes it looked cool in others it was kinda silly. The plot was complex and full of turns but honestly I felt it was properly along the lines of a Speed Racer episode plot.

 

[Ilikemuppets]

I saw it last night at 8:40 PM. It was bad. Even my mother thought it was bad. It's like they took Dick Tracy, Spy Kids 3D, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, and Talladega Nights:The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, put them in a blender, vomited on them before turning it on, and when they did turn it on. They came up with this train wreck. It made Dick Tracy look like Batman. The only thing remotely appealing was the cameo by Peter Fernandez (the voice of Speed Racer on the original cartoon, as well as the director and writer of the english language version), and the scene where the kid and the monkey are being chased through the lobby set to Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird. I'm seeing Iron Man next week, which looks alot better and more worth the time and the money unlike THIS train wreck of a movie. Those **** brothers are just a bunch of CGI whores.

So you're saying it was better than the "Fast And The Furious", than?

 

[RedPiggy]

I actually liked it. I had mixed emotions about the visual effects in some scenes it looked cool in others it was kinda silly. The plot was complex and full of turns but honestly I felt it was properly along the lines of a Speed Racer episode plot.

I liked it too. It got one-and-a-half stars in the newspaper, which me and my bro thought was silly. The reviews said it was confusing and over animated. Forgive me for not remembering a lot about Speed Racer -- but it didn't really strike me as "deep" when it was a cartoon, either.

Boy likes racing.
Boy races.
Boy has trouble racing.
Boy has incredibly cool car.

That's about it. Any reviewer who was expecting more should be ashamed of themselves. Not everything has to be a thoughtful commentary on something. I think they succeeded in making it look like an absolutely gorgeous live-action anime. If only DB will look this good.

I totally want the soundtrack to this, too.

 

[Elwood Blues]

So you're saying it was better than the "Fast And The Furious", than?

Why would I be saying that?

 

[Ilikemuppets]

Why would I be saying that?

Cause anything it better then that movie to me.

 

[Count von Count]

Who has seen the movie? And what did you think of it?

 

[Ilikemuppets]

It tied with "What Happens in Vegas" with 20,000,000, so movie going audiences muhc be kind of iffy about it. Don't know about hard core fans though?

Have a looks-see

 

[Sgt Floyd]

My dad bought too boxes of reeses puffs just so he could get the speed racer toys inside. hes a weirdo, lol

 

[frogboy4]

Um...it's skippable...

I am sorry to say that the last two hours and fifteen minutes (yes, that is Speed Racer's running length) was spent in dismay about how Warner Brothers could allow a film to be released this way. I am not saying the picture is terrible, or even bad. It's merely mediocre yet with the existing footage could have made a much better film!

Acting: The cast was very good (with the exception of the younger version of Speed Racer who made the kid in Star Wars Episode One's performance seem like Brando) and I agreed with the choices - especially Speed Racer himself, Emile Hirsch. However, the Wachowskis' direction failed them.

Story: There was much needless exposition, camera mugging and scenery chewing (usually perpetrated by Royalton's Roger Allam). The Wachowski brothers didn't seem to understand where the story was - on the track! The story is in there, but surrounded by so much uninteresting junk. The eye-popping visuals are excellent and beautiful as expected. Somehow I thought the racing would take up more time than it did. Instead the movie just plods along until the final half hour or so.

Direction: In film school they teach us that excess footage is "fat"; unnecessary component that weighs down the movie's flow and tries the patience of the audience. This film should have come in at under two hours running length, not two hours fifteen minutes. Cut, cut, cut. The head of the film is so fat with repeated information that 15 minutes can be chopped out of the first 20 with ease. I was restless and every kid in the theater was too!

History: The last little bit of hubris from the Wachowskis is the theme music. Yes, the Speed Racer theme is instrumentally threaded a bit into the score, but the original theme song with all the lyrics is never played from beginning to end even in the closing credits. The credits crawl has some uninspired hip-hop/rap/techno/dance mix treatment of it and then an instrumental of it followed by a partial cut of the original theme. I'm not much of a Speed Racer fan, but isn't that a big part of the whole Speed Racer experience? Not even the ads played the theme and I believe that could have stirred up more business. The Wachowskis should have used every opportunity to call on that theme instead of treating it like a contractual partial inclusion. Those guys are going to get some mail on that alone.

Conclusion: If the film included more of the theme, cut about half an hour leaner, allowed the real emotion (that was trying to poke through) unfold instead of manufacturing it and spent more time in the action this would have been a bigger grosser. Unfortunately the crummy Ashton Kutcher film smacked it into third place!

Again, it’s not a bad film. It’s just not lean and Speedy as it should be. C- (and that's being kind)

 

[wwfpooh]

Somehow I thought the racing would take up more time than it did. Instead the movie just plods along until the final half hour or so.

Actually, the show itself was a lot like that. It plodded along with side stories until the big race and Speed--and Racer X sometimes--would face down a big challenge and come out on top. However, I do think that the theme song should've been included more, for even the butchered version of Inspector Gadget--which had Don Adams, the original voice for Gadget (and the original Maxwell Adams of Get Smart), voice Brain--had a version of the theme song included!