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Speed Racer (Three-Disc Special Edition + Digital Copy) [Blu-ray] | ![Speed Racer (Three-Disc Special Edition + Digital Copy) [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511m499HvoL._SL160_.jpg)
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| Directors: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski
Actors: Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox
Studio: Warner Home Video
Category: DVD
List Price: $35.99
Buy New: $14.78
You Save: $21.21 (59%)
New (41) Used (16) from $8.72
Rating:  170 reviews
Sales Rank: 285
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language), Portuguese (Original Language)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: Blu-ray
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Number Of Discs: 3
Running Time: 135 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 1000026375
UPC: 085391176459
EAN: 0085391176459
ASIN: B001CD6FKS
Theatrical Release Date: 2008
Release Date: September 16, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 09/16/2008 Run time: 116 minutes Rating: Pg
Amazon.com
An over-the-top, sensory overload experience determined to replicate its frantic, television-anime origins, Speed Racer is wild enough to induce a headache or wow a viewer with one dazzling effect after another. Adapted for the big screen as a live-action feature, Speed Racer is written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, the sibling team behind the intensely satisfying The Matrix and its busier, less interesting sequels. Where the rich mythmaking of The Matrix was entirely accessible, however, Speed Racer's overwhelming and gratuitously complicated story exposition is an enormous challenge to follow, let alone embrace. After a while, one simply surrenders to the unbroken din of dialogue concerning corporate chicanery, corruption in the sport of racing, and a value conflict between racing as a family business versus multinational cash cow. At the same time, the film's hyper-real equivalent of the old Speed Racer cartoon's great whoosh of color, motion, and edgy production design--such as inventive uses of scene-changing wipes, bold framing, shifting perspectives--are more overbearing than fun. Emile Hirsch plays Speed Racer, younger brother of a deceased racing legend, Rex, and son of car designer Pops (John Goodman). The latter invented Speed's Mach 5, and is singularly unimpressed by an offer from a giant conglomerate that would lock Speed into exclusive racing services. Speed opts instead for family loyalty, incurring the wrath of the conglomerate's unctuous head (Roger Allam). With family honor on the line and the affections of girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci) behind him, Speed hits the track in hopes of fulfilling his destiny as a master racer. The cast is largely enjoyable, including Susan Sarandon as Speed's mom, Matthew Fox as mysterious Racer X, and a pair of chimps as the irrepressible Chim-Chim. All well and good, but in a movie that lives or dies by the excitement level of races that look like computer-animated Hot Wheels action, Speed Racer is a dreary adventure. --Tom Keogh
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| Customer Reviews: Read 165 more reviews...
 As exciting as when I saw it at the theater!!! December 1, 2008
Francisco Pifano (Miami, Florida United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Ever since i was a kid, I always dreamed of the day they'd make a Speed Racer movie. So when it finally came, it was going back to my childhood years!!!! I was so excited that at the end I was shouting with the audience!!! Now, having this wonderful Blu-ray edition at home allows me to enjoy over and over again the adventures that kept me going as a child!!!
The Perfect Live-Action Cartoon December 1, 2008
Sir Charles Panther (Alexandria, Virginny, USandA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Now, I've seen my share of cartoons elevated to live-action in The Big Hollywood Show. Some were abysmal, like Casper. Some actually were pretty good, like the first Scooby-Doo movie. But while the movies and the originals are related, they're still separate elements, each their own thing. A cartoon can't be live-action and stay true to its cartoon-ness. Cartoons offer impossible contortion and endless manipulation of set and scene, action and POV, and most importantly the complete and total abrogation of the laws of physics, not to mention that whole life/death thing. But then came this movie. This movie is as true to the original Speed Racer cartoon as it possibly can be; it is without a doubt the best live-action cartoon that has yet to be made.
Now, what do I mean by live-action cartoon? Well, Shoot 'Em Up is a cartoon, and its success is that it knows this, and doesn't take itself that seriously. But junk like the The Fast and the Furious and The Transporter Collection movies, they pretend to some kind of legitimacy, while telling an action-packed story they're essentially remaining in the realm of the possible, despite physical laws and imperatives going out the window with the first chase scene.
A live-action cartoon is not just swapping people and sets for cells and/or backgrounds, auteur production designers for Korean animators, and the mandatory CGI green screen. It's so much deeper than that. A true live-action cartoon is about the delicate translation of the unique cartoon cosmos, the rhythm and feel of the original cartoon into live action, about pacing and timbre and capturing the essence--nay, the very soul!--of a that 2-D rendering in the immensely challenging venue of full-on 3-D, with real actors.
Of course, the CGI helps immensely, and this movie has got it like mad. But, despite the numbing presence and absolutely crucial role CGI plays in setting the scenes and keeping the action excruciatingly intense, the computer power does not overwhelm and take over the film, as so unpleasantly was the case in the The Golden Compass, Narnia, etc.
If you're a deep fan of the original Speed Racer cartoon, you'll love this film. You'll see more in the characters, the scenes, the posing and in the action than others will. You've got the original Speed Racer theme song, pumped up and roaring. You've got Spritle and Chim-Chim in the trunk, with the candy. You've got the cartoon-impossible car-racing action, right out of the original show, with the gadgets and flips and spins. You've even got Speed's classic pose from the end of the opening credits, if you're quick enough to catch it.
Two of the film's fight scenes, one with the family in a hotel room and the other with the bad guys in a mountain wayside are what made this film for me. Both are right out of the original cartoon, with Pops wading in with his moustachio'd, huge-armed ferocity and hilarity. The editing and pacing are right out of the cartoon, with the moves and even the camera angles so very similar. This was as live-action as it could get, and they worked as original/derived action sequences, while evoking the sweet childhood memory of afternoons sneaking off to a buddy's house to watch the cartoon.
The cartoon fantasy starts immediately. Physics as we live it is completely irrelevant, with cars traveling somewhere around 500 mph, the drivers intentionally doing flips, spins and pirouettes while airborne as part of their racing craft. The physical structures in the scenes are beyond outrageous, as are the characters, the cars and the engines that power them.
In keeping with the original cartoon, no one is killed in this movie. My mother forbade me to watch this show, its fighting and gunplay, car wrecks and explosions too violent for her taste. I nodded in solemn resignation, then went down the street to Adam's house to watch it every day. But in this film, as in the cartoon, no one dies. It's like the The A-Team; the driver is thrown clear from his car, with futuristic escape and safety devices. The physical violence is thoroughly cartoon-y, with no blood or gore.
The film even keeps the original character names, with Snake Oiler and even Crusher Block. Inspector Detector plays a major role, but I guess that CGI just hasn't progressed to the point to always have his beard sticking perpendicularly out from the side of his face. You've got the car acrobatic team, racing through ice caves, driving up a mountain, helicopters chasing the race, a bit of Mammoth Car homage, and with more than enough Japanese content to place the film in its original Nippon.
And the colors, oh, the dizzying colors. They are intense as they can be, a near-nauseating blast of sparkling, flashing, whizzing and blurring colors, with everything in motion. This isn't the straightforward chromatic assault we got from Dick Tracy, but is a thousand times more intense, all of the colors brighter, more day-glo, more intense, and always moving.
The film bogs down only slightly in a couple of spots, when we get a bit too deep into Speed's adoration of his martyred brother and the overemphasized father-son relationship themes. Racer X's treatment and portrayal are outstanding in every way, right down to his car. I was disappointed to see the ravishing Susan Sarandon made out to be far more of a boring matron than I perceive her to be.
Bottom line: I loved Speed Racer as a kid, but watching the original cartoon now is a joke because it is so low-budget and truly one-dimensional. It's clear the Wachowski Brothers loved the show, too, so meticulous is their deep and spot-on translation of this Japanime classic into a CGI-powered memory for the next generation.
A Complete Rollercoaster Ride! November 30, 2008
The Sanctimonious One (Foster City, CA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The critics were absolutely DEAD WRONG about this movie. If you Metacritic this movie, the disconnect will become readily apparent. The Critic average was 37% while the User average was 79%. I unfortunately didn't pay much attention to the general public reviews at that point, but seeing Speed Racer utterly changed my opinion on that, especially after the critics gave Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a 75% average (I can only assume that they were paid off).
Luckily my sister convinced me to give Speed Racer a try. I was blown away. It is the most visually innovative film I have seen in I don't know how long. The races are spectacular, from the CG cars burning through the completely improbable tracks to the mid-race close ups that zoom from car to car, never breaking the flow of action. I expect the visual techniques used in Speed Racer to be emulated in much the same way that the techniques of The Matrix were and still are today.
As for the story and characters, they are fun, simple and over the top, precisely as they should be for this kind of movie. This brings me to one of the main points about this movie and why it succeeds so well, where so may other movies fail. Consistency. There is a consistency of language, tone, themes and visualization in this movie that is completely engaging. It never breaks its hyper-realistic form. Few films achieve the level of consistency that Speed Racer does. It's not Shakespeare and it never tries to be. It is a fun and exciting rollercoaster ride that rarely, if ever, lets up, all the way through to the spectacular ending.
Forget the critics on this one. If you want to have a fun, furious, visually explosive movie-going experience you owe it to yourself to see this movie. I can't recommend it enough.
 Primary coloured and neon lit November 30, 2008
Mr. Stephen Kennedy (Doha, Qatar)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Clearly, if the creators (The Wachowski brothers, directors of The Matrix) of the movie want you to remember anything about it- it's the BRIGHT COLORS.
This is movie making from the pages of a comic book, with the colors, acting and plot that this entails. When it started, it was so garish and hyperkinetic that I prepared myself for the worst... however, I have to admit that as I watched it, it actually did start to suck me in to this bizarre pseudo reality, and I began rooting for Speed Racer (That's his name, not just his title..).
Speed Racer is the car obsessed son in the Racer family, his father the designer of racing cars. When he starts performing in major races, a huge corporate sponsor woos him, but amazingly, it turns out that the big corporation has money, and not the best interests of the Racer Family, at heart. A few chases later, via a mysterious ally, an uneasy alliance with a rival Japanese driver, and ninjas, we reach the good versus bad confrontation.
Nothing about this is real - everything is hyper real in a calculated way - remember, this is adapted from a Japanese anime. Yet the actors, even in a wide eyed cartoon style way, do gradually do make you accept they might just be believable. Even if on the podium the winners drink a hyper white milk, rather than any other sparkling drinks...
The story linking the action scenes is actually passable, and is actually a welcome relief from the action scenes which could leave you woozy with an overdose of movement and primary colors which are pretty sickly after a while...just remember this is skewed young, yet the story does have a little depth for grown-ups too.
The gimmick here is the effects, and though the effect may not be to everyone's cup of tea, the effects are seamless. This sort of cartoonish hyper reality may just be what cgi was meant for.
The movie as a whole is not a complete success.. that's for sure. But neither is it a disaster.. this is at the very least innovative and imaginative cinema - you wont see another movie like Speed Racer this year, and the derision it received in some quarters smacks of close-mindedness. So if you can stomach the nausea inducing frantic movement of bright pink and red and yellow, and want to see something a little different, then why not give it a shot?
Great deal! November 29, 2008
Lenny
The 3-disc set is great! The bonus features are cool and the digital copy is nice to keep on your computer. Blu-ray graphics are amazing!
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