Speed Racer (2008) Reviews
Critic & User Reviews
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Critic Reviews
Aimed squarely at family audiences, the Wachowski Brothers' return behind the camera for the first time since the "Matrix" trilogy is a blur of video action painting and very loud sounds notable solely for its technical wizardry. In every other respect, it's pure cotton candy -- entirely non-nutritious but too sweet and pretty for young people to resist.
Read the full reviewUnlike a Pixar cartoon that embraces as wide an audience as possible, Speed Racer proudly denies entry into its ultra-bright world to all but gamers, fanboys and anime enthusiasts. Story and character are tossed aside to focus obsessively on PG-rated action and milk-guzzling heroes.
Read the full reviewThe movie demands you be a glutton for sensation and then has the nerve to ask why you're not hungrier.
Read the full reviewBorderline-experimental in the way it challenges the limits of perception. It's forward-thinking, visionary, and much of the time unwatchable.
Read the full reviewIf this action extravaganza represents the future of movies, it's going to be a sad, dead and awful future.
Read the full reviewThere is one high note. You can approach Speed Racer as the trippiest stonerfest since Stanley Kubrick took his space odyssey.
Read the full reviewAt an exceedingly long 135 minutes, the film needs more than what might result from the explosion of a Crayola factory, and Speed Racer has nothing extra to offer - no heart, no excitement, no moments to cherish.
Read the full reviewYoung boys are the only suitable audience for Speed Racer, the elaborate live-action adaptation written and directed by "Matrix" creators Larry and Andy Wachowski. And even they might feel an urge to squirm.
Read the full reviewYes, it's a candy-colored Day-Glo world, but there's a liveliness missing from this lead-footed Speed Racer.
Read the full reviewThis movie sets out to honor and refresh a youthful enthusiasm from the past and winds up smothering the fun in self-conscious grandiosity.
Read the full reviewThe state of mind brought on by Speed Racer the movie is more akin to that phenomenon by which young infants, exposed to more stimuli than their systems are equipped to handle, will simply shut down.
Read the full reviewChances are, after they've passed the two-hour mark, viewers will share the same collective, if unspoken, wish: Go, Speed Racer. Go.
Read the full reviewThe fakeness of it all overwhelms, dampening any real excitement. It's hard to care about characters so stiff and one-dimensional they out-cartoon the cartoon originals, and it's hard to watch them bop around like avatars in a flat, airless, digital world.
Read the full reviewThis toxic admixture of computer-generated frenzy and live-action torpor succeeds in being, almost simultaneously, genuinely painful -- the esthetic equivalent of needles in eyeballs -- and weirdly benumbing, like eye candy laced with lidocaine.
Read the full reviewReview excerpts provided by Metacritic.com.
The Metascore® designation for this movie is 37
User Reviews
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AMAZING!
"i absolutely loved it.i honestly don't see why everyone is being so harsh.i was honestly scared to see it, but i'm REALLY glad that i did"
Better than critics' reviews
"The acting job by all the characters was good, including the poop-throwing chimpanzee. Very confusing in the beginning, but as it progressed it turned into a decent film"
QUITE POSSIBLY THE WORST MOVIE OF THE DECADE
"Mind-numbingly awful with a grotesque NASCAR-mentality that doesn't even attempt emotions real or fantasy-based... just a big, overblown grunt of a movie that feels like it was the result of the sound John Goodman makes whenever his "character" is upset at something... saw it with a whole row-full of friends at the MAX theater and every one of us were deeply offended by it. It doesn't even seem to mind that it's view of "the future" or this fantasy world it presents is so horribly ugly and mean and desperately bleak."
Speed Racer quite possibly best movie of the year!!!!
"This movie has everything any movie wants, and needs, to be a hit. Action, amazing graphics, amazing sound, comic relief, the list can go on and on. Those crazy Wachowski Brothers took a gamble on an already major hit, tried to improve on it, and left with one of the best remakes of any movie ive seen in my life. GO SEE THIS MOVIE NOW! STOP READING THIS REVIEW AND DRIVE TO THE THEATER, SIT DOWN, AND JUST WATCH IT AND ENJOY!"
HOT, FAST AND FUNNY
"I took our 10.9 year old Granddaughter to this cool flick and we both enjoyed it. She learned a good movie lesson on "good and evil". We love the cars. The racing scenes are so intense they can be hard to follow. I agree that the adult language was not necessary. Considering the plot the violence was inevitable, almost leaning towards a PG-13 rating. Good performances, overall including Chim Chim. The principal female characters are HOT! It will be in our library. I smell a sequel....."
NOT A KID FRIENDLY FILM - CUSSING GALORE
"Being a PG film and not a PG-13 film I thought it'd be ok to take my brothers kids to see it. They are 12 and 9 years old. In the movie they say the S word 4 times, the A word 9 times, one kid flips off an adult (essentially the F Word), they say a few others like God **** and they bleep out one time when he say's F out loud, but you can read his mouth.I can not believe this film got a PG rating....I left mad. I would not have exposed them to this kind of language...I'm no religious freak, but that much cuss words for a film that is rated for kids under 12 is not right. This should be a pg-13 film."
What a pleasant surprise
"First of all, I have not been surprised in a POSITIVE manner by a movie to this extent since the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and before that I can't even remember the last time. It was SO TRUE to the cartoon I felt like crying SEVERAL times in the movie remembering my childhood. Saw it at the IMAX in Los Angeles...and let me say this...I almost couldn't even HANDLE IT it was so incredible. I have noticed a trend, the old boring lame critics, and the perpetually incorrect Rotten Tomatoes.com all rated this movie poorly, yet I have not found a single person that I know who did not at the LEAST like the movie, and most loved. Classic example of a wildly over-achieving film and cast. It had everything, love, family, courage, strength, perseverance, and a PERFECT amount of comic relief from Chim Chim and the younger brother. When Chim Chim pulls out the wrench and smacks the guy accross the face, I was literally ROLLING on the floor with two of my friends, after I got over the initial shock at such an ingenious sequence...not since the ORIGINAL Pink Panthers have I seen better and funnier fight scenes. I encourage ALL to see this"
Too long, but fun enough for old fans
"A great film for the family with older kids, 11up, loaded with winks and nods to the fans of the classic TV cartoon. Hearing the jump sound fx made me feel as if I was a little girl again. Special effects were spectacular and I laughed again and again at the campy moments throughout yet it didn't cross into being a parody. However, it was way too long. The beginning was poor, it lost its way at times and after a while you just didn't care what happened with the villains. But - I still found it rather entertaining ... for me, a low B"
2 THUMBS UP ALL THE WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"This movie was very enjoyable. I would recomend this movie to anyone, especially if you loved the show. This movie was defenitly not a let down!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Let the Critics rip it apart...the Audience LOVED IT!!!!
"I've been going to the movies my entire life...for the last 45 years...and...the Wachowski Brothers have done it again! Where they succeeded in making the Matrix movies, and blowing the doors off sci-fi movies with them, they have done the same for Speed Racer. I went into it not expecting much...in spite of the rep of the Wachowski's.... but was completely blown away before the movie even really started...it was wonderfully mind-blowing. One of the best movies I have ever seen in my life...I'm a big fan of live action/animation combos, and the incredibly vibrant colors used... 3 words..Amazing, AMAZing, AMAZING!!!!Thank you Wachowski's for another great film! I can't wait to see what you do next..."
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