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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 3193
Released: September 16, 2008 |
| Our Price: $2.10 |
| Used Price: $1.09 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Start your engines and fasten your seatbelts for the high-octane adventure Speed Racer, combining heartfelt family humor and groundbreaking visual effects. Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) is a natural behind the wheel of his thunderous Mach 5. With support from Pops and Mom Racer (John Goodman and Susan Sarandon), girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci), younger brother Spritle (Paulie Litt) and the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox), Speed takes on fierce competitors to save his family’s business and protect the sport he loves. When Speed steps onto the track, it’s not just a race. It’s an adrenaline-fueled, high-speed charge to the finish. Go, Speed Racer, go!!
Description of Speed Racer (Widescreen Edition):
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
Speed Racer (Widescreen Edition) Reviews:
A 2-hour arcade game 
2009-12-12 - I disagree that this is a great film OR a technical feast for anyone except CGI fans. This reviewer is not one of those.
Of course movies aren't real, but some realism is expected unless it's a completely animated film. CGI effects look like a GAME rather than quality filmmaking, and that's what "Speed Racer" really is....a classic tv show repackaged as a two-hour game.
The frail storyline just isn't enough to hold interest for the duration of this film, especially for fans of the original. The talents of the fine cast, including John Goodman and Susan Sarandon, are completely wasted.
Don't recommend this to anyone but CGI fans and very young kids. Let's hope another director gets it right.
THIS MOVIE WAS AWESOME!! 
2009-11-29 - Great Movie! Exciting, visually out-of-control! This is one of those movies that make you want to cheer at the end! Great job by all involved acting wise! Spectacular effects! Kids will love it as well as adults! Go Speed Go!!
The most fun i've had at the movies in a long time.
2009-11-29 - A came into Speed Racer expecting to be entertained and just that. What actually happened blew me away! I was gripped and mesmerized. I felt like a little kid again hanging on to each scene. The bright colors and over-the-top characters, combined with the amazing special effects, made this movie a thrill ride of excitement that blew me away!
Great Movie...Great Eye Candy!
2009-11-12 - I have to admit, when I saw the previews for this movie I wasn't interested. People told me it wasn't any good, so I didn't see it. We decided to rent it and was blown away. It was just awesome! Define awesome... well imagine all the cool things you can do in a cartoon, but can't do in real life. Some how this movie has bridged the gap. The computer animation was off the chain, but what made it a good movie was the fact that it had a sense of depth at the heart of it. Something here in America we can relate to.. That some fat cats out there want to turn everything we love into a cash cow and a lot of time don't mind breaking the law to do it. (economic crisis ring a bell?) Take football, basketball, etc its not about the game anymore its about the money...but even though this is a movie, it calls to those who wish someone could just break up the greed, exploitation, and marketing BS. Bring it back to the love of it all...
Not the Original, but at least it's the Mach 5.
2009-10-25 - When I first saw the preview for this movie I was enraged at what they had done to my childhood favorite. All my life I had wanted to se SR come to the big screen and it finally gets there and they do this to it. Now having said that, being a real SR fan and as long as the car looked mostly accurate, I gave it a chance and went to see it in the theater. Long story short, I think I stopped at 8 times. I took everyone that would go with me, to see it. The Mach 5 is really what the show was all about, nothing else matters. And as long as they created a version of the car that was at least a respectable effort, that was all I cared about. I am not a film critic. All I know is that the film moved me emotionally. But that was mainly because the characters were so dear to me. And of course, the coolest car ever created, real or otherwise. I really just got a huge kick out of seeing a real life depiction of the Mach 5, and they did alot better version that that one guy did who custom-made a couple to auction them off. I still would love to see a more accurate version of the car, I mean exactly like the original series. Critically speaking, this movie did not get a fair shake. I saw soooo many reviews for this movie from people who never actually saw it! who reviews a movie they haven't watched!!! Yes this movie is a little acid-trippish. Yes it is long. Yes it is not exactly as the original. But it's SPEED frickin' RACER, and it's on the big screen, and the car looks totally awesome! 5 STARS.
