OK… so first i neeed to say that i was never a big fan of the original Speed racer show. I know it seems like i shouldn’t be the one to review it because i have no love for it going in, but that perspective will be reserved for 6of6 in another review. Trust me when i say that the fact that i wasn’t a fan didn’t color my review of this. (i know its hard, but try)
I HATED THIS MOVIE… and here is why..
So… where to begin… I’m a fairly visual guy, so ill start there. The good part is that individual elements are outright awesome. Most of the cars look slick. All of the characters look appropriately comic-bookie. The Tracks look daunting and sorta badass. The environments and cities look fairly impressive. So what is wrong with all that? ITS TOO DAMN MUCH EYECANDY!!! Seriously your eyes will burn out in this movie. I am soo glad i chose a seat farther back in the theater than i normally do, cause i think i would have blown out an ability to see at all. There is no priority on anything in this movie. Little to no motion blur, focusing, or color variation on anything makes everything a huge blur of sparkles and colors. Scenes were handled with little to no finesse or artistry at all. But why would i be expecting that in this movie, right? Its a movie of a cheezy old anime. Should i expect more… Well that brings me to my next point.
Everything in this movie is out of balance. It seems to me like all of the movies i have seen lately that are trying to take a comic or a tv series and make it either exactly like the original or try to take it to a new level by adding something to up the complexity or drama of the movie. This movie could never figure out where it wanted to sit, so it never did any of it well, or anywhere approaching well. Characters would try to show emotion or complexity, but the scenes that did this would drag on till you felt like falling asleep or yelling at the characters to STFU. Scenes that showed the racing would try so desperately to go over the top that the racing didn’t make sense any more. The goal is to get from one place to another fast… so why are they taking time to make all these stupid spins at every turn? There were some things that were handled perfectly. The air jacks were used well just about every time, and sometimes the jumping looked reeally cool. The casting was perfectly done to recreate the original characters. Heck, i even thought Racer X was pretty cool. (even though he was wearing some wierd bondage costume) But these things couldn’t save the movie from all of the over-the-top useless action, or the over-the-top useless dialog.
When i left the theatre i couldn’t imagine anyone liking this movie. Kids would be bored to tears with half of it. Adults would be dazed and confuesd. Where was the appeal besides the con artistry of roping in original Speed Racer fans. Just two minutes into the movie i commented to Gamin “Now i know what it would be like if Uwe Bowl and George Lucas had a clone baby that started to make movies” And it sums it up pretty well. The directors never stopped to ask themselves if they were doing things badly or overusing special effects. They just blundered on, blindly believing that they were doing great. As little as i cared for the show, i was left feeling like i would much rather of watched it for two hours.
Definitely a contender for one of my least favorite movies of all time.
This is one of the few times a letter grade system fails me. An F could be anywhere between a zero to a 50% good. So here is something new.
An F with an 82% chance of being crap. Some people will not be disappointed, but it will be few.
-The j suN
This movie sucked. Not even the chimp could save this movie. Poor poor chimp. I bet the other chimps are like “I’m sorry dude, that movie sucked. Let’s go throw some poo, it’ll make you feel better.”