Speed Racer trailer (for better or worse, it's what anime looks like in real life)

With DVD and merchandising it will make its money back.

 

This movie must blow.

 

the movie's pretty good, a little long. i know this will be the third time, kids don't know who speed racer is. another thing is, speed racer is from the 60's. I think not even a lot of my generation is into it. the people who first experienced this cartoon are pushing 50, not a great demographic for comic strip/cartoon based movie. unlike spiderman/hulk, it really wasn't pushed hard to later generations. these comic movies are all about a) nostalgia, b) kids, this is light on both. when you think about, its really kind of surprising it got such a big budget. hind sight, it was a risky proposition.

 

I am 43 and I take offense to that remark.

Other than that, I agree with the review. I will probably take the kids to it again when it gets to the dollar cinema, which at this rate may be next weekend.

 

yall still have a dollar cinema? I don't think there is one left in Houston, the last one I knew of was at Sharpstown Mall and that one closed.

 

There is at least one in Houston. It is on Westheimer near Eldridge. It is not what you would call clean. It is a real throwback since it has pinball games (which the kids love) for a quarter.

 

I hope so. While I have no real interest in seeing this movie, I like that the studios took a chance on trying to make something different. So even if it does flop, at least it could still break even hopefully and it won't deter risk taking ventures too much in the future. $120mill minus $30mill leaves a long way to go in terms of future tickets and merchandising.

The Last Samurai was a movie I really enjoyed. It costs $140mill to make, made $24mill opening weekend, and did end up turning a profit after worldwide tickets sales and DVDs. It did have decent staying power: $24mill, $12mill, $13mill, $15mill, $23mill before dropping down to $5mill.

Speed Racer has a bunch more things to make money on than Last Samurai like toys and crap, but the ticket sales are declining much more rapidly so far: $21mill, $8mill....this trend doesn't look good especially with all the new big movies each week. Time will tell I guess.

 

I saw that and wow, that's alot of $$ for a movie, especially that one, as it didn't feel like a $120MM movie...When all get said and done, i think it'll recoup its investment...I will definitely be owning this on DVD...

 

I couldn't disagree more. I'm 32. Speed Racer was a childhood staple for me and for all my buddies who went to the midnight showing with me. On top of that, they are ALL younger than me by anywhere from 1 year to 7 years. My cousin is 21 and is looking forward to seeing it (he's been busy with finals and graduation).

When I saw it, the theater was packed mostly with a 30 and younger crowd.

 

the numbers don't lie. if its so popular why is it bombing. i'm thirty three , and I will say that transformers/spiderman/x men/ etc. were all substantially more poplar during my childhood, and more popular now. not even close. speed racer is niche

not only that, if you're not familiar with spiderman or speed racer, what's going to get your attention more, a movie about a guy swinging from buildings or a race car driver. of course speed racer is more than race car driving, but if you're not familiar with the cartoon, how do you know.

 

Dunno what to tell you, man. I was merely refuting your original point. I think superheros will always be a bigger draw, so I agree with you there. I also thought the marketing campaign for Speed Racer was poorly conceived and probably hurt the movies performance more than helped it, but I still really liked it and will be buying it when it becomes available, but they really didn't do themselves any favors with the adverts leading up to the whole thing. Sometimes, that's all it takes.

 

Not going to bother reading the whole thread, but figured I would toss my $.02 in..

It was an OK movie, I'd give it maybe a 7 out of 10.

I thought the same thing about this movie that I thought about the last three Wachowski movies (I include V in this): They need an editor with some guts.

There were some genuinely great things in this movie, seriously. But when even my 7-year-old son is sitting there fidgeting in boredom during parts of it, then something was wrong.

Basically, it comes down to this:I watched Speed Racer as a kid, as a lot of people did, but it has probably been over 30 years since I have seen an episode of it. So, the only real reference point I have is my vague memories, which include the cool car, the saw-blades, the clear dome (no underwater driving though? come ON!), Speed always doing that gasping thing he did, Trixie always yelping 'Speed! Look Out!', Pops blowing his stack, the evil corrupt bad guy bosses and their nasty evil driver flunkies, and always Racer X saving the day.

Funny thing is, until I saw the movie, I had completely forgotten about spritle and chim-chim.

And after seeing it, I can understand why it was forgotten.

95% of the movie bits with that little kid and the chimp should have been left on the cutting room floor. Not one of those little shtick bits of those two works, not one. They fall flat, and drag the entire movie down.

An editor with guts would have convinced the Wachowskis of this, and saved the movie from the dud it's going to wind up being. A movie like this depends heavily on repeat viewership for success, and my son has begged, for example, to go see Iron Man again, while he has not said one word about Speed Racer after seeing it Saturday. I doubt many kids are hammering away at mommy and daddy to take them to see it again.

Now it sounds like I am bagging on the movie, and I am not. I liked it, for the most part. When it comes out on disc, I'll get it on Blu-Ray, and just skip over the parts with the kid, no biggie.

There is a lot of great stuff in this thing - Goodman was awesome, and apparently Susan Sarandon didn't kill her career with Enchanted after all.. (although, for all I know, maybe Speed Racer wrapped principal shooting before Enchanted ever even started), Emile was fine.. I am not a Christina Ricci fan, but there wasn't enough of her to detract from anything, and I don't get all the fanboys' reactions about her in this. All hype, no substance. Fox was fine with what he was asked to do, and the bad guy boss was well done.

The Wachowskis did manage to really capture the spirit of it all, I think, especially with moments at the end, when Speed finally felt the glory of winning the biggest race, and really letting us in the audience in on the emotions. Lots of good moments, like that, it has genuine heart and sweetness about it.

But in the end, it all boils down to the fact that it is a live-action remake of a relatively obscure (by today's standards) cheesy japanese import cartoon from two generations ago. I think they did the best job that could be done with something like that, but it's possible to take dedication to the source material a little too far; it's not like the cartoon series is some kind of sacred text or anything. Wayy too much monkey and kid if you ask me.

It'll be worth a Blu-Ray pickup.

 

Watching it on blu-ray right now and WOW my eyes, the colors are ridiculous!! I like the looks of the cars and the effects. That alone is keeping me int he movie. The mach 5 really looks fantastic.