#Speed racer 2008 video game movie#
#Speed racer 2008 video game full#

The 'sport' element is completely removed from the storyline. To speed things along, they turn portions of the races into montages. The Watchowskis make it a chore to figure out who's in the lead and, during some of the more extreme moves, what's going on. Instead, they're a jumpy, jittery, and at times incoherent blur. Since these contests were executed entirely on a computer, one would expect them to have been developed with fluidity and clarity. He has a few allies - Trixie, his family, and the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox), a character who looks like a bad superhero knock-off.ДЄrguably, the most disappointing aspect of Speed Racer is the lack of excitement in the races. Thus begins Speed's quest to prove himself and upset the plans of the fixers. But there's a conflict of interests here: Speed races for the love of the sport but Royalton does it for the money and claims that all of the big races are fixed. When he wins a high-profile race, he catches the eye of big business mogul Royalton (Roger Allam), who wants Speed to race for him.

#Speed racer 2008 video game movie#

Most of the movie concerns Speed coming into his own on the track. Rex doesn't have a lot of screen time - he's burnt to a crisp during an early flashback. Trixie (Christina Ricci), Speed's girlfriend, is around so much she's like a daughter to Pops and Mom. (This hearkens back to the days when a surname represented an individual's craft: Carpenter, Smith, Baker, Miller, etc.) There's Pops Racer (John Goodman), Mom Racer (Susan Sarandon), Rex Racer (Scott Porter), Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch), and Spritle Racer (Paulie Litt). The story - or at least what passes for one - introduces us to the Racer family. The only interesting thing about most of them is the inventive means by which the Wachowskis transition into and out of them. Not only are there a few too many of these scenes but almost all of them last too long.

#Speed racer 2008 video game full#

Worse still, the dialogue during these supposedly 'moving' scenes is full of clunkers and clichГ©s. Occasionally, the movie dials things down and tries to remind us there are human beings in the movie by giving them painfully false 'character moments.' This may be the most insulting aspect of the movie - expecting us to accept these paper-thin individuals as anything more than animated props. There's a reason why Disney limits the running time of its animated pictures, but that's not a lesson the Wachowskis have learned. This is spectacle at 24 frames per second: colors, images, cars zipping and flying in all directions - everything for the ADD viewer, except I'm wondering what ADD viewer is going to sit through more than two hours of this. The laws of physics and logic have been stripped from the equation. When the cars look like hot wheels vehicles zooming around the track, one has to assume that was the idea. The sense of artifice is monumental and intentional, as are many of the cheesy graphics. Everything except the actors in this movie were manipulated on a computer. The difference between 'classic' Speed Racer and this is like comparing a horse-drawn carriage to a Lamborghini.

In crafting their 'live' version, the Wachowskis have tried to remain faithful to the source material while attempting a radical upgrade. Speed Racer is based on cartoon that is revered in some circles as an early pre-cursor to anime. At an exceedingly long 135 minutes, the film needs more than what might result from the explosion of a Crayola factory, and Speed Racer has nothing extra to offer - no heart, no excitement, no moments to cherish. What impresses with its 'wow!' factor early on becomes repetitive and headache-inducing later in the proceedings. Yet this kind of visual overdrive has its limits, and with little else to recommend it, Speed Racer passes the barrier between 21st century innovation and psychedelic diarrhea long before the cars have come close to the finish line. It's what I'd imagine it might be like trapped inside a video game or a pinball machine. There's no doubt that the Wachowskis' vision of Speed Racer is big, wild, and overripe with garish colors.