Speed Racer Reviews: The "Mind-Numbing" Movie "Limps"

The highly anticipated big-screen adaption of "Speed Racer" opens this weekend, and so far the reviews are not that promising. Starring Emile Hirsch, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox and Christina Ricci, it's directed by the Wachowski brothers (Larry and Andy) of "Matrix" and "V For Vendetta" fame. The live-action adaptation of a popular Japanese cartoon, the film is about a kid who must win a race to save the family business. The film has already been reviewed, and the reviews are not very good.

USA Today's Speed Racer Review gave only 1 1/2 stars and said it "limped":

For a movie about velocity, the excitement factor is low and the races feel like a drag. Perhaps that has a lot to do with its length: 2 hours and 15 minutes, which is at least a half-hour too long for a movie based on a cartoon. Or maybe it's the predictable story about a guy who goes up against crooked corporate sponsors.

The AP, already picked up around the world, had an even less enthusiastic Speed Racer Review:

The Wachowski brothers have tumbled into a matrix of their own with "Speed Racer," one which has rendered them completely out of touch with the outside world.

In adapting the 1960s Japanese anime television series, writer-directors Larry and Andy Wachowski have created a noisy, overlong, mind-numbing extravaganza that seems tailor-made for nobody but themselves and their twisted sensibilities.

The NY Post Speed Racer review gave it only half a star:

This adventurously awful film is awful in many ways at once.

It is, like a Ferrari poking across East 42nd Street at rush hour, fast yet slow. It is futuristically retro. Its attention span is measurable in microseconds, yet it runs more than two hours. And it spent a trillion dollars imitating the look of a 10-cent cartoon from the primitive '60s - artistically, the Cro-Magnon era. I was initially awed by its splendors. But when I'd had my fill, there was still an hour-45 left.

Not to whine, but by the end, my eyeballs were on fire.

The New York Daily News Speed Racer Review was kinder and gave 3 of 5 stars:

Emotionally, "Speed Racer" stays in the family lane; when cars crash and burn, there are little bubbles called "quick-saves" that transport drivers to safety. The nostalgia factor is slight, and nothing new is added besides the effects. While that's not enough to make it a classic even among chintzy cartoon-born movies, middle-schoolers will have a blast.

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A San Diegan paper also had a slightly more positive Speed Racer Review:

Speed kills, but it also thrills. Watching Andy and Larry Wachowski's hyperkinetic, candy-colored "Speed Racer" is like spending two hours caroming through a pinball machine. Sense and subtlety are road kill as the cartoon-deep plot zips by, but your inner third grader will be too jazzed to complain.

If, that is, you still have an inner 8-year-old. If you're totally grown up, you'll find "Speed" a long, dreary, migraine-inducing slog.

The Village Voice Speed Racer review was let down at it's lack of a deeper meaning:

Like The Matrix (or its engagingly primitive precursor, the DOS-era Disney relic Tron), Speed Racer gives the not-unrealistic impression of taking place inside a computer. But love, hate, or ignore it, The Matrix proposed a social mythology. (Just ask Slavoj Zizek.) Speed Racer is simply a mishmash that, among other things, intermittently parodies the earlier film's pretensions...

The villain (Roger Allam, V for Vendetta's fascist talk-show host) is a slavering tycoon, while Speed Racer is, as his mother tells him, an Artist. In the movie, racing is itself a racket--the effluvium of decaying Capital within the Matrix. Multinationals sponsor drivers, fix races, and use the sport to drive up the market price of their stock. (So the Wachowski brothers might once have regarded Hollywood.) Ideologically anti-corporate, previous Wachowski productions aspired to be something more than mind-less sensation; Speed Racer is thrilled to be less. It's the delusions minus the grandeur.

Comics2film, who specializes in fare like this, had a mixed Speed Racer Review that ended with a warning:

Many will love the eye-candy portions of the movie. There are certainly several spectacular sequences that recall the cartoon but spin it in a compelling live-action way. Parts of it are truly beautiful. However, there are equally as many parts that just read to my eye like Easter eggs in a blender: the screen just seems a wash of luminous colors and glossy highlights, without any discernable shapes to latch onto.

I'm being serious when I caution epileptics to avoid this film.

So if you have yet to see "Iron Man," check it out this weekend.

Comments

[loki]

Here it is, the real Mach 5. They should have just toured with this and forgot the movie.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/article.asp?section_id=31&article_id=6466&page_number=2

[loki]

And they spent over 5 million building a real mach 5. cant do everything , but they spent like 250 grand just on special yokahama tires and I think it has the buzz saws to. Has a big azz 12 hole engine that pushes it to over 300 mph. That was worth spending the budget money on, and forgetting about making a decent movie.

[drblack]

Why didn't they make Ultra Man into a movie? Ha ha

[loki]

They will. They dont have anyone who can write movies anymore, so they remake old movies, or should I say, destroy them, and pull scripts from childrens cartoons now. Which would not be bad , if they would do them right.

[drblack]

The look of this movie reminds me of a line from another bad movie. In "The End" when Burt Reynolds tries to kill himself with a handful of various pills and spits them up on the glass topped table in front of him he says "It looks like Walt Disney threw up".
Speed Racer looks like Walt Disney threw up. The Matrix was SOOOOO GOOOD but the two sequels were mediocre. I have yet to see V for Vendetta but I would think these guys have enough talent to make an original movie.
9 times out of ten the ONLY reason that these rip offs of old TV shows, comics etc are made is for money, not art.
Iron Man and Pirates of The Carribean are two exceptions, but these movies tried to do something with the material and not just capitalize on a familiar theme.
This movie looks like a nightmare. I doubt I could stand to look at it.

[CaptainHowdy]

Judging by the trailers, this has got to be the UGLIEST film I have ever seen, in my whole life.

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING???

I know exactly what. Americans are no longer interested in anything but idiotic SPECTACLE.

BIGGER, LOUDER, FASTER, MORE COLORFUL AND MORE ANNOYING!!!!!!!!!!

[jubo]

The systematic attraction to kitsch is mind numbing.

[Leper]

Whatever happened to "Distance Racer"?
"Slow Racer"??
"E-Racer"????
"Speed Racists"?????
"Little Rascal"?????????

Just curious.

[Nyland8]

Slow Racer came to a stop

E-Racer got rubbed out

Speed Racists are still doing time up at Chino - they don't come up for parole until 2021

Little Rascal grew up - now called ... you guessed it, " Big Rascal "

8

[wndrwrthg]

Remember, critics and reviewers are people that cannot hold a real job.

[CaptainHowdy]

You didn't really just lob a CRITICISM at critics... did you?

LOL!!!

[LiberalBuzz]

I'll give it a shot. Most Hollywood remakes of old badly made movies are usually not very well done but you never know.

I remember the original Star Wars reviews. They were SCATHING. Anyone know how that turned out?

I can think of dozens of movies that got terrible reviews and turned out not to be that bad at all.

I can also think of more than a few where the reviewers were practically creaming themselves to praise them and I walked out of the theatre determined to track down the critics and rip them a new one.

So I like to go to the flicks anyway and I'll give this one a shot. I wasn't expecting much out of Ironman and it blew me away.

[Jezdukowski]

I wholeheartedly agree, Ironman was very good - but keep it mind, it was the story and the acting that kept it engaging IMHO - NOT the effects (although they were cool too). Too many movies out of Hollywood these days are trying to dazzle us with eye candy and ignoring what really makes a movie engaging to audiences - STORY IS KING! I've seen the trailers to this and quite frankly, it looks like just another visual effects extravaganza, but I'm seeing it anyway. As far as critics picks - remember Titanic? Good lord, quite possibly one of the WORST movies ever made.

[drblack]

Remember how great the Star Wars trailers looked? The space fight scenes alone made it worth seeing.
This movie looks so terrible ...terrible to look at. Painfully terrible.

[TakeSake]

Yes, I too watched it. It was on at 6:00 in the morning on Sundays, just before "Hercules". I remember it being interesting. Consider when it was made: early 1960's Japan - only 15 years after the war. The rotation view of Speed jumping out the car really wouldn't be seen again until the Matrix (which I have not seen). For the time it definitely has it's merits.

A remake of Mahha Go Go Go shouldn't be frenetic or sappy - it needs some level of quiet and seriousness to balance out, and to pick up the feel of the original. It sounds like the remake broke those rules. They should have spent some time watching Kamen Rider.

Actually, the original Japanese source for Power Rangers is really fairly good. It got ruined in the conversion.

[BruntLIVE]

Speed Racer MISSED on one issue, one issue alone. We all know? THE ANGLE STEP OUT, classic speed racer, and this guy didnt do it. And why so angry and intense Speed Racer, it's Speed Racer, not Speed Rager.

[Indubio]

Speed Racer...the cartoon...was fun when I was 12. I find that anyone might seriously believe this cartoon would make a decent movie astonishing. The entertainment industry is capable of making original and highly entertaining films but an awful lot of what they do end up creating is crap; even much of the reasonably entertaining movies are lame in that they lack originality (forget character development and characters we care about!). It's as if there is a dearth of new ideas so the film makers need to troll the past hoping to find an idea...any idea. Whatever, if the movie ends up making money we can expect a Speed Racer 2...

[Irons]

I saw the trailer in a theatre the other night. Horrid.

[jayrayspicer]

The original cartoon was shockingly stupid. I remember watching it as a kid thinking the characters (especially Speed) were idiots, the plots insipid, and the physics beyond cartoon-physics unlikely. I'm not shocked the movie leaves something to be desired.

[fedupwiththis]

Critics don't like movies with CGI or special effects as a major component. I guess they feel it's just not "cinema."

[WriterGuy]

Then how do you explain the rave reviews for "Iron Man"?
Maybe "Speed Racet" is as bad as the trailer and the website suggest?

What happened to the Matrix guys, anyway? Maybe they only had one great movie in them. My only hope is that Speed Racer isn't as disappointing as The Matrix 2.