Speed Racer (2008/Blu-ray + DVD-Video/Warner Home Video)
Picture:
B/B- Sound: B/B- Extras: D Film: D
“No Speed Racer,
nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!”
When a
movie is as bad as Speed Racer,
people who have not seen it often ask me if the film can really be that
bad. After all, the original series is a
classic in its U.S. syndicated 1960s version or original, unedited 1960s
Japanese version and the material is still as interesting and enduring as it
ever was. The several animated revivals
were disasters including the new Next
Generation dud, a few attempts to do a live action feature were considered,
including one where Johnny Depp would have been Speed and Nicolas Cage as Racer
X. Then the film was finally greenlit by
Warner Bros. and we got this mess.
Emile
Hirsch was cast as Speed, Matthew Fox as Racer X and all in the hands of The
Wachowski Brothers, whose Matrix
films were a big enough hit and darker films like Bound and V For Vendetta
(which they produced) are still more than noteworthy. The duo decided to make the film into a giant
global candy car world with colors to match, slanted towards comedy and the
first film they and producer Joel Silver ever explicitly made for a young
audience. The result is their first PG
film and possibly their last.
So what
went wrong? Hirsch was passable as Speed
and somewhat looks the part, but he seems petulant and his dialogue is often
flat. Racer X is underdeveloped. The inclusion of Chim Chim is a mistake,
though Paulie Litt deserves points for bringing Spritle to life in his original
heavy form (versus an animated version where he was “skinny/healthy”) instead
of a PC redux, John Goodman as Pops and Susan Sarandon as a mother nearly
nonexistent mother in the original show are obvious but competent and then
there is Christina Ricci as Trixie. Oh,
geez!
In one of
the worst performances of the year if not all time, Ricci is supposed to be
Speed’s girlfriend, but is almost as too old as Diana Ross was playing Dorothy
in The Wiz walking around looking
more like his teen mother than a girlfriend.
In addition, her idea of acting in the role is more about slowly bating
her oversized eyelashes than giving any kind of performance, but at least the
eyelashes are young enough to be on Speed’s girlfriend. Will The Razzies remember this?
Giving
Sparky a British accent is not a problem and the international casting may seem
unlike the show at first, until you remember the crazy mix of characters the
old show had, so it is not as much of a stretch. The irony of Japanese animators doing
Americanized Disney faces on the characters is another story, but that part is
fine.
However,
the main problems include the film starting ideas is cannot seem to finish or
follow through on, as if the mere suggestion (think the 1998 Godzilla) is adequate, but with the
huge budget here, an insult and joke.
There is the stupid figure-eight race track that already proved stupid
in the 2002 Rollerball remake, but
this film seems to want to repeat many such mistakes throughout. That goes down to the children’s approach,
which puts it at least two generations away from the original show, but easily
reflect the bad liberties all the revivals have in common.
This
becomes a tired and very long and drawn-out affair at 135 minutes, which is too
long for material this thinned out for a young audience to enjoy. The whole thing was shot in High Definition
video, which may be colorful, but is also weak and with CG animation of the silly,
unrealistic races rendered in technology that is a few generations behind the
far superior Pixar Cars, it looks
like a bad videogame that sat on the shelf too long.
This new Speed Racer was a huge mistake,
starting with its lack of respect for the original show, which remains a
serious classic and this remake will go down as one of the biggest missed
opportunities of all time.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image is somewhat soft on the Blu-ray and
anamorphically enhanced DVD, but they insisted on an HD-only shoot and that was
the biggest mistake of its kind since Bryan Singer shot Superman Returns that way, but I guess it will take two
bombs/near-brake evens for Warner to comer to their sense on spending so much
money on this early kind of HD. David
Tattersall, B.S.C., at least knows how to give hit some form, but is fighting a
losing battle; one that becomes increasingly obvious as you watch this
again. That is if you don’t fall asleep.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 mix is weak on both formats, with the Blu-ray having slightly better
AC-3, but the few defenders of this mess rightly complained that it should have
been Dolby TrueHD on the Blu-ray. That
would further prove that it’s decent, if characterless sound mix could not save
it and to think this was blown up for IMAX.
Those who were not happy with the film still praised Michael Giacchino
for delivering a good score, but it was adequate at best for me and considering
what he was given to score, could have been worse.
Extras
are the same for both releases, including the Digital Copy disc (a separate DVD
had to be included in the Blu-ray set for this), but the Blu-ray adds a dumb
DVD game dubbed the Crucible Challenge. It
is as weak and lame as the film. Both
versions also give you three featurettes on the making of the film, but they
just show the anatomy of this annoying bomb.
For
another look at how bad this film was, try our review of the original
theatrical release:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6962/Speed+Racer+(2008/Theatrical+Film
- Nicholas Sheffo
