Speed Racer
Speed Racer: (Blu Ray) Follows the Racer family of car-enthusiasts as their son Speed takes on the biggest companies in the world. Off the bat this is blatantly aimed at kids but off the bat I didn’t really care much because this looks absolutely outstanding. The Wachowski‘s mash together so many elements for the visuals: the Jetsons space age, Metropolis, 1920s, Al Capone, Neo Tokyo, extreme sports, The Gumball Rally, Wipeout & Rollcage games, and the list just keeps going… pretty much all green-screen. The editing adds another layer on top, with some awesomely bamboozling wipes and cuts. The comic roots shine through as the overall visuals sit somewhere between classic manga and souped-up CGI. With all of this behind it, the visuals are almost too good as it ends up being a sustained assault on your eyes over the 2hr 10min runtime – especially during every race / ‘Car-Fu’ battle. Looks aside, the story & characters are terribly textbook and the absurd Kid & Monkey combo kept trying their hardest to make me hate the film, it started to work by the end. There’s some genuinely funny nubs of humour throughout like the R-R logo and Paul Frank ‘human’ shirt on the monkey. There’s also a nice James Bond assassination-attempt homage and couple of criminally underused actors – like Moritz Bleibtreu. The BD Picture’s is among the best I’ve seen so far – with everything from the huge city-scapes down to the roads rendered so sharply it feels like 3D in parts – the sound quality is less impressive but the mix still flies out all the speakers during the action scenes. Overall, despite the plain story and shallow characters I was absolutely mesmerised by the spectacular visuals. One of a kind.
Score: 5.5/10
I saw this one at the cinema and loved it – don’t want to ever see it again for fear that it doesn’t stand up on the small screen
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If you can watch it on Blu Ray on a huge-ass TV I’d recommend it. Parts felt like I was having a visual meltdown / stroke but it was a sight to behold.
I was so ready to hate the shit out of this when I loaded it up but was pleasantly surprised.
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What giant piece of crap this was. For all intents and purposes it had potential and a few moments of savings graces, but I’m pretty sure I was semi-comatose threw the first half. An uber disappointment.
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I imagine that this is what drugs feel like. I got a headache from watching it, though I will concede it was visually interesting.
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It’s like eating 6 bags of sugar and then walking around a Japanese games arcade. All flashy lights and bright colours. Really liked this film though.
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As a fan of the Speed Racer anime, I felt like I had to experience this knowing full well it was going to be a piece of crap. And yes, entertained I was. :D
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