• » Aronofsky for Robocop
• » Di Caprio: You bastard
• » Robin's world's greatest
• » Ledger's Oscar Knight
• » Be afraid. Be very afraid.
• » Batman III?
• » DJ for Sherlock
• » Buffy geek: Busy
• » Four’s Ripper trilogy
• » No strike for De Niro

• » Donkey Punch
• » Win with 10,000 BC
• » Win: Drillbit of a to-do
• » The Forbidden Kingdom
• » Kung Fu Panda
• » The Mist
• » Hancock
• » Prince Caspian
• » Sexual Faliures
• » Wanted

• » Ghost Town
• » Exclusive: Donkey Punch
• » Quantum of Solace
• » WALL-E
• » Death Race
• » Benjamin Button
• » Choke
• » Burn After Reading
• » X Files 2
• » The Dark Knight

• » McFly In The Web
• » Coldplay teed off
• » Aronofsky for Robocop

Speed Racer

If ever proof was needed that the Wachowski Brothers are a pair of one-hit wonders, then Speed Racer is it.

Watching this film is like sitting in a cinema watching a technicolour yawn spread across the screen. And not in a good way.

I was never a huge fan of the 60s cartoon that Speed Racer is based on. That said, this movie doesn't really make me want to go back and acquire a taste for it.

It does make me want to travel back in time to buy the Wachowskis' father a packet of condoms. Yes, the film is that bad. It's too long, for a start.

Two-and-a-quarter hours is much, much too long for what is basically a kids' film. And it's much, much too talky — there's so much chatty exposition going on between the race scenes that most of the kids at the preview screening were starting to get restless about halfway through the film. And the final proof that this is a bad movie? A chimp is one of the main characters.

I'm not going to go into the plot in great detail — basically it's about a boy named Speed Racer (I kid you not) who wants to be a race car driver. That's about it, really.

He had an older brother named Rex Racer (who was killed in a car crash ... or was he?), his dad is Pops Racer (who designs and builds racing cars), and he has a girlfriend named Trixie (played by Christina Ricci, who really should know better than to appear in this sort of twaddle).

Oh, and John Goodman, who plays Pops, should know better too. Speed also has the requisite annoying little brother, who has the afforementioned chimp for a sidekick. And their mother is played by Susan Sarandon, who hasn't really done much that's decent since The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The blending of live action and computer animation is impressive, but it all feels too false and heartless and at no time does it even attempt to engage the emotions. It's as soulless as it is fast-moving and colourful, and a waste of time and talent.

1/5

This chappies over at Screenjabber.com kindly provided this review.

share this story: