“Speed Racer Has Completely Changed the Equation!”
SO…
I kind of liked this Speed Racer movie (and yeah, I guess I only blog about movies now).
It’s not the greatest thing in the world or anything, but man… Crazy gleaming psychedelic candy visuals, jumpy-kicky Kung Fu cars, enough wipes to kill a thousand George Luci, one Christopher Hitchens lookalike, one ninja de-pantsing, Walter Sobczak dressed as Mario, RAAAAAAAAIIIIIINNNN, muttonchops, and the triumphant drinking of milk all merged to form one colossal Voltron of ridiculous, and frankly, I giggled like stupid through the whole thing. Well, maybe not during the Spritle parts, but still. (Did that kid really do the “sneaky walk” at one point? I think the last time I saw the sneaky walk was when I was forced to animate it at CalArts…) The experience of seeing Speed Racer is sort of like being strapped to a Tilt-A-Whirl clamped to a runaway roller coaster in the center of a Skittles explosion while having a stroke,* which, let’s be honest here, is not your typical movie-going experience. And that’s probably why I wanted to go in the first place: The thing looked WEIRD. SILLY weird. I’ve never seen the TV show and the last two Matrices were kinda iffy, so “silly weird” is about all that could’ve drawn me in.
Unfortunately, it seems very few people felt that same compulsion to indulge in silliness last weekend, because Planet Earth has pretty soundly rejected Speed Racer. I mean, OUCH. That’s sort of breathtaking. But I’m not exactly sure why it was such a failure… I mean, it’s not as if the world public has any particular aversion to big-budget Hollywood silliness. Maybe it just looked too strange, you know? Speed Racer definitely isn’t the safe, comfortable, warm-blanket kind of silly that gets people lined up for National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. It’s some new, unfamiliar strain of silly. Possibly dangerous silly.
Or maybe it just came out too close to Iron Man. And Narnia. And Indy. It could be that people looked at the multiplex menu for May and figured Speed Racer was the one they could skip. And maybe it is the most skippable, I dunno… I personally liked Iron Man a lot more (it’s Robert Downey Jr. in a robot suit!), but I do sort of feel like Speed Racer might be more… important, somehow. Like twenty years from now, Iron Man will be remembered as one of the better mid-aught superhero movies, but Speed Racer will be seen as a bleeding-edge, one-of-a-kind, pop art freakout way ahead of its time.
Y’know, like Sharkboy and Lava Girl.
What do you guys think? Did anyone besides me, my wife, and Heidi MacDonald enjoy this movie? And what’s with all the sneery grave-dancing over the Wachowskis’ failure here? Is it just standard-issue “my suffocating personal insecurities can only be momentarily alleviated by posting snarky comments about others’ misfortune, preferably the same snarky comment five or six times because it didn’t appear immediately after I clicked the button the first time and god forbid the earth be denied my precious, indispensible brainfarts for even one single second” internet stuff? Or are people still angry about those Matrix sequels and love that these guys have finally imploded? Or- ah, I’ll shut up now.
If you have an especially high tolerance for silliness, don’t suffer from motion sickness and want to see something genuinely unique on the big screen, go see Speed Racer soon, before it’s dead and gone forever.
*We all know what this feels like.
I thought it was spamtastic! i have no other words for it. The cartoon i grew up watching made into something like this is everything i had hoped for. I wish other people could enjoy it as well, but the matrix seemed to have taken away some of the brother’s’s credibility. Amen.
I thought Speed Racer was faboo…. Very silly, lots of fun, probably mind blowing if you’re on a controlled substance. I thought the bit with the ninja was absolutively hilarious… “Was that a ninja?” “More like a non-ja… It’s pathetic what passes for ninjas these days.” Considering I’m usually all jaded and full of spite for bubblegum movies like this, it’s amazing how much I liked it. Not nearly as awesome as Iron Man, but still, not to be missed.
Oh man, its too bad, but that caveat about motion sickness is gonna deter me, now. Cloverfield left me with a splitting headache and that Nascar Imax movie made feel like i had a migraine (complete with nausea and a desire to claw my own brain out).
Thanks for the warning though.
The Wachowski bros certainly put a lot of effort into making Speed Racer… the movie overall looked and felt like a cross between anime, a kaleidoscope, that Flintstones movie, a video game and the Dukes of Hazard
I was really looking forward to Speed Racer, if for no other reason than “cars and John Goodman, how could you go wrong?” But as I never actually watched the cartoon, I was unprepared when I read the review in the Rocky Mountain News. Apparently there’s a wise-cracking little brother? Strike one. And a monkey? A monkey!? Me never watching the original cartoon seems less like an oversight on my part and more like proof of a benevolent god. Probably good for a rental, but I doubt that it’s worth the ten bucks.
look, i was a fan of the retro anime before it got not one but two next-gen shows. the movie does not look very appealing to me. btw, i wonder if Sharkboy of TNA wrestling fame ever got his check for copyright infringment over the name likeness.
BUt, that whole thing about Walter looking like mario alone makes me want to see it. you may have convinced me Mr. A.
I remember watching old Speed Racer episodes on Cartoon Network as a kid and thinking “How awsome is the Mach 5!!!” Going to see this movie for me was awsome. They totally nailed it! Speed racer never was logical, it never was ment to make sense. That was what was so cool about what was carried over.
Plus: Racer X is awsome.
I think people went in expecting some kind of serious epic or something and forgot it was rated PG and was a family movie. I think it also would have helped to see the cartoon to some extent and realize where everything was coming from, like the monkey, the silly names and the ninja and stuff. I freaking loved it and am -SO- going to go see it again. And I see someone watches Colbert 😉
OH- and did anyone else have a temporary freak out at the whole Racer X thing? I’m glad it turned out the way it did, I almost had to punch someone (this really only means anything if you’ve seen the original anime..).
I just dont want to see it because it sounds like a movie that can give you motion sickness….i dont need that…also….i just plain hate Speed Racer….yeah…the anime would make me physically angry as a child….
but all together, im not going to the theaters anymore, im just really tired of the whole experience, i hate all of it, the popcorn, the sticky floors, THE COMMERCIALS!!!!, the way the sound system makes it sound like you just crapped yourself…its not fun anymore……..oh also alot of the movies coming out today are just dumb….im really tired of superhero movies….ive had enough….
That was possibly the most useless statement ever made in any thread about anything ever.
Hey…I loved the Matrix sequels…
Really, I want to see Speed Racer the same way I wanted to see Transformers. For the crazy of course; I’ve never seen a preview so brightly colored. I don’t see why everyone is so outraged, this IS based off of an old anime. I was amused when I saw the brothers would be working on this. I mean, Bound>The Matrix>sequel>sequel>V for Vendetta>…Speed Racer?
Now I know I have to see this.
I loved Speed Racer. It was the hight of wackey fun. When i first heard that there was going to be a Speed Racer movie, i thought “oh god, their going to make it all blah.” and then i saw the preview, and i loved it. they totaly nailed it.
“That was possibly the most useless statement ever made in any thread about anything ever.”
no id have to say that your statement was far more useless.
Well, lets see, you came into a thread about liking a specific movie, then say how much you think it would suck without having seen it, then mention that you don’t even have any intention of seeing it, then make the majority of your post about not liking movie theaters, which has dill to do with anything at all. And of course, when this is pointed out, you reply with the classic second-grader response, “No, YOU’RE stupid.”
Meh, I’m done with this.
Haha ^^ nice, is there a section to follow the RSS feed