Speed Racer (2008)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Directors:

Andy Wachowski
Larry Wachowski

Writers (WGA):

Andy Wachowski (written by) &
Larry Wachowski (written by) ...

Release Date:

9 May 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Family | Sport

Tagline:

Go

Plot:

The story begins with Speed Racer who is a young man with natural racing instincts whose goal is to win The Crucible...

Plot Keywords:

Speed | Racer | Race | Racing | Mach 5

Awards:

8 nominations

Cast

Emile Hirsch	...	Speed Racer
Nicholas Elia	...	Young Speed
Susan Sarandon	...	Mom Racer
Melissa Holroyd	...	Speed's Teacher
Ariel Winter	...	Young Trixie
Scott Porter	...	Rex
Gian Ganziano	...	Everyman Announcer
Peter Fernandez	...	Local Announcer
Harvey Friedman	...	Harold Ledermann Announcer
Sadao Ueda	...	Japanese Announcer
Valery Tscheplanowa	...	Russian Announcer
Sami Loris	...	Italian Announcer
Olivier Marlo	...	French Announcer
Sean McDonagh	...	Celtic Announcer
Kick Gurry	...	Sparky

Also Known As:

Race Chasers (USA) (fake working title)
Speed Racer (Germany)
Speed Racer: The IMAX Experience (USA) (IMAX version)

MPAA:

Rated PG for sequences of action, some violence and language.

Runtime:

135 min

Country:

USA | Germany

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS | Dolby Digital | DTS

Certification:

South Korea:12 | Ireland:PG | Finland:K-11 | Singapore:PG | UK:PG | Germany:12 | Philippines:PG-13 (MTRCB) | Malaysia:U | Venezuela:PG-13 | USA:PG (certificate #44193) | Netherlands:6 | Argentina:13 | Hong Kong:IIA | Norway:11 | Sweden:7 | Brazil:10 | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | Portugal:M/6 | Taiwan:GP (original rating) | South Korea:All (DVD rating) | New Zealand:PG | Austria:10 | South Africa:10M (theatrical rating) | South Africa:13V (DVD rating) | Australia:PG

Filming Locations:

Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

According to producer Joel Silver, this movie was largely shot in green screen.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: During the second leg of the Casa Cristo 500, when Speed spins around to avoid Snake's oil spill, the back side of the Mach 5 goes off the side of the road. The effects and angle of the car are the same as if the car was completely on solid ground.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Race Announcer: All drivers to your cars, please. All drivers to your cars.

Movie Connections:

References Little Caesar (1931)

Soundtrack:

Free Bird

This movie will be underrated but it will go down in cult history

I saw a preview screening of SPEED RACER yesterday and I was uncertain going in. The trailer looked visually stunning but just too bright and just too juvenile for my tastes. I'd been interested to see the movie for a while, but when I told friends about it their immediate questions were: "who's in it?" and then "who are they?" Not everyone knows of the original cult-anime series so really it seemed to me that SPEED RACER was living and breathing (barely) off of the name of the Watchowski Brothers. Then I saw it and it took my breath away! There has not been such a visually overwhelming experience put on the big screen in decades! Not since the likes of the sci-fi masterpieces of the 70's has there been anything this powerful or this mesmerising. The effects are overtly lavish - yes. The humour is juvenile - certainly. The story is peppered with unconvincing characters and events and laced with back-story and yet it still manages to be perfectly understandable and (better yet) quite easy to follow. Basically Emile Hirsch plays Speed Racer, a brilliant race car driver whose family has a long and colouful history in a world obsessed with race car driving - racing like no one has ever imagined and hopefully no one ever will outside of the movies! It's a "little-man-takes-on-the-big-companies-and-triumphs" story and predictable as mud in retrospect. All the same you can't help getting caught up in it's unstoppable momentum - by the end you will be cheering Speed Racer on right alongside the million and one animated extras and loving every minute of it. There is enough eye candy in Hirsch and co-star Christine Ricci for the teens, enough childish slapstick for the kids, and just enough action to keep the parents attention-span going. This is, overall, a family movie, but I cannot imagine anyone with any sense of silliness in them not being able to find this absolutely fantastic to watch. This is not BAMBI, and it's not HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL - it's CARS on Adrenalin!!!! This movie is almost a guaranteed flop, but I have no doubt it will last the distance and become a cult classic.