Movies
Speed Racer
Colorful, to say the least. Color-overflowing, to say a little more. Color-engulfed. The live-action version of the late-Sixties made-in-Japan TV cartoon is of course, in this day and age, only partly live-action: real people like Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, and Matthew Fox inserted into a world of total artifice, a world of Madison Avenue utopianism, pop color, ping-pong nonsequential editing, CGI landscapes, video-game action — although “action” sounds a little precise for the mere motion into which they, and we, are plunged, an Osterizer in smoothie mode. (The auto races possess no more materiality than those in the completely computer-animated Cars, and a lot less clarity.) The Wachowski Brothers, Andy and Larry, have undeniably given the movie a look, and no more deniably given the moviegoer eyestrain. While the thing might to some degree be original in its details (e.g., cut-out figures gliding laterally across the screen, superimposed at the dimension of giants), or anyway original in the new heights to which these details have been piled (even shaving off an inch or two for every “comical” chimpanzee reaction shot), it is not to any degree original in its basic strategy: to wit, no idea is so puny or puerile — an existential racecar driver born and bred for no other purpose, surname Racer, forename Speed — that it cannot be put over with a pumped-up budget, a protracted running time, a surfeit of special effects. Or in other words, no idea so puny or puerile that it cannot be sold, sold, sold. If they were honest, the Wachowskis would surely have to identify not with their individualistic hero but with the villainous corporate manipulator: “People like you,” the hero lets him know, “have way too much money.” People like the Wachowskis. 2008.
Reader Rating:
MPAA Rating: PG
Length: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Official Web Site
What a bunch of nonsense, this movie. With the racing and the sliding around of the cars...oy vey.
By jhutt 3:35 p.m., Oct 8, 2008 > Report it
I've learned with these kind of movies you just have to ignore the critics and see for yourself. To me, the movie was true to the cartoon. The visuals were great, the W. bros really went out of there way to capture the feel and the (very cool) absurdity of the Speed Racer cartoons. I mean come on, buzzsaws coming out the front, Speed racing up the side of a mountain, you cant do that stuff without throwing all reality concepts out the window and make the movie according to the rules set in it's own cartoon world. Speed Racer the cartoon was never met to filmed on a regular Nascar track, nor was the Mac-5 meant to filmed as some kind of Camaro, W. Bros did what any Speed Racer fan would have done themselves, they stayed true to the material. I hope they make a sequel and have the Mammoth Car in it.
By Talls 10:38 a.m., Nov 19, 2008 > Report it