Speed Racer is a hotshot young driver with a superfast car, the Mach 5. When he wins an important race, he is courted by industrial giant Royalton to drive for them. Should he sign this lucrative big business contract, or remain in his small independent family team ?
I like this film a lot since a) it's about racing cars, b) it's stuffed full of amazing visual effects (by John Gaeta and Dan Glass), and c) it has an incredible design style, and I'm a big fan of all of these things. It goes for an ambitious look that blurs the differences between live action and animation, and it succeeds fantastically well as the ultra bright colours leap off the screen at you. Other movies have tried this before (Dick Tracy, The Flintstones, much of Ralph Bakshi's stuff) but due to the sheer volume of CGI work and digital film shooting this surpasses those technically, and because it feels much more like a kids' cartoon it also scores over contemporary flicks like Sin City or 300. The style does have good points and bad points however; the cars squeal around the tracks, spinning, jumping and hurtling by, and the camera rushes everywhere, zooming between drivers as they talk rather than cutting around them, but the action is frequently so fast that it's impossible to figure out what exactly just happened. The story is also confusing at times, particularly in the first half-hour, where flashbacks are cut both against and directly into the narrative. I guess my main complaint is that the movie could be a bit more focused - it's quite clearly for kids (it has a funny extended scene where a boy and a chimp go on a chocolate-fuelled crime spree), but kids really need a simple, clear story and too often the movie bogs down into complexity and heavy scenes. The cast play it well, old-fashioned good guys and bad guys style. The design elements are just fantastic, with almost every scene featuring amazing backgrounds, vibrant red-blue-yellow-green colours, and wild looking cars and racetracks. Based closely on a sixties Japanese cartoon series, Mahha GoGoGo, by Tatsuo Yoshida, with much of the look and feel from the original show. Produced by Joel Silver, and shot at the famous Studio Babelsberg in Potsdam, this is a boundary-pushing, eye-popping, action-packed, fun flick. Go, Speed Racer, go !
I like this film a lot since a) it's about racing cars, b) it's stuffed full of amazing visual effects (by John Gaeta and Dan Glass), and c) it has an incredible design style, and I'm a big fan of all of these things. It goes for an ambitious look that blurs the differences between live action and animation, and it succeeds fantastically well as the ultra bright colours leap off the screen at you. Other movies have tried this before (Dick Tracy, The Flintstones, much of Ralph Bakshi's stuff) but due to the sheer volume of CGI work and digital film shooting this surpasses those technically, and because it feels much more like a kids' cartoon it also scores over contemporary flicks like Sin City or 300. The style does have good points and bad points however; the cars squeal around the tracks, spinning, jumping and hurtling by, and the camera rushes everywhere, zooming between drivers as they talk rather than cutting around them, but the action is frequently so fast that it's impossible to figure out what exactly just happened. The story is also confusing at times, particularly in the first half-hour, where flashbacks are cut both against and directly into the narrative. I guess my main complaint is that the movie could be a bit more focused - it's quite clearly for kids (it has a funny extended scene where a boy and a chimp go on a chocolate-fuelled crime spree), but kids really need a simple, clear story and too often the movie bogs down into complexity and heavy scenes. The cast play it well, old-fashioned good guys and bad guys style. The design elements are just fantastic, with almost every scene featuring amazing backgrounds, vibrant red-blue-yellow-green colours, and wild looking cars and racetracks. Based closely on a sixties Japanese cartoon series, Mahha GoGoGo, by Tatsuo Yoshida, with much of the look and feel from the original show. Produced by Joel Silver, and shot at the famous Studio Babelsberg in Potsdam, this is a boundary-pushing, eye-popping, action-packed, fun flick. Go, Speed Racer, go !