It would be petty and small to hold against The Wachowski’s and refuse to see Speed Racer based on the mismanagement of The Matrix trillogy.
Still – I have to wonder if some of that was in play this weekend consider the movie’s second place finish at the box office. It’s share of the pie was $20.2 million. Under normal circumstances, that would be quite respectable. Even in the face of Iron Man’s $100 million bow a week ago (and it’s 50% drop off this week) you wouldn’t fault Speed Racer for making an honest attempt.
The clencher is that the Cameron Diaz / Ashton Kutcher romantic comedy boiler plate What Happens In Vegas… was nipping at their heels wth $20 million. Long term, this can’t be good for Speed Racer.
When I first saw the trailer for Speed Racer, visually I thought it was a marvel. If anything, the extensive and experimental CG work is what was going to get me through the door. The Wachowski’s pedigree in this era has already been firmly established. What would they come up with next?
But as time went on, my enthusiasm for the film faltered. The marketing of the film couldn’t seem to decide if it was a kids movie or a straight up action picture. As reviews started filtering in, the consensus was that it was a kids film – which is fine. But we were also being told that it was over two hours long – entirely too long for a film with a threadbare plot. After that, the bottom fell out and I lost interest.
After a while, however, I started to feel guilty about not wanting to see Speed Racer. It seemed unfair to hold it up against the last two Matrix movies. Maybe they were going in another direction? Maybe I would kick myself for missing it. The 35% positive score at Rotton Tomatoes seemed to reflect a williness for critics to hate this movie out of the gate and, admittedly, I saw a lot of that reaction online as well. I became convinced that Speed Racer wasn’t getting a fair shake.
I wasn’t able to make it to Speed Racer this weekend. Instead I saw Iron Man for the second time with a friend I hadn’t seen for a while. By the time I was weighing my options and considered going on Sunday night, box office reports were in and things looked dire.
I feel somewhat lame admitting that I was influenced by Rotten Tomatoes and box office figures, but I never felt a strong affinity for Speed Racer and – if I went at all – it would be more out of some sort of geek-cred obligation. The stats and figures eventually supported my decision in a way that I felt was fair. You can’t argue with the numbers.
I know some people will dispute me. After all, I’m the guy who was ready to follow Iron Man into hell. If the movie sucked, I would have denied it to my dying day. I’m sure there are some people who feel the same way about Speed Racer. Personally, I would love to hear that perspective. It may not be too late to change my mind. But we’ll see.
Tonight on The Triple Feature talkcast, we’ll be talking about Speed Racer and – from what I’ve heard – Joe loved it. Joe can sometimes be a little sensitive about explaining why he liked a film when he’s in the minority, so we’ll have to see if we can coax it out of him. I’m really most interested in understanding what I’m missing. Barring that, you can always go to his site and read his review.
We’ll also be talking about next week’s big release Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. More specifically, I will be talking about the re-release of the original films on DVD in stores tomorrow. I received advanced copies and Cami and I watched all three films last week. I have some particular insights about the extras included with this release and plan on sharing them tonight. There will also be a full review here on the site tomorrow.
Remember, the show starts at 9:00 PM CST and you can participate LIVE. So if you saw Speed Racer over the weekend and want to chime in, please do so! We’d love to hear your thoughts!
See you then!
Sorry for the delay with the comic this morning. We had a little database hiccup after trying to clean house on our server a little bit. But we’re back now! Welcome!
Originally I was going to have Tom “transform” into manga style and have Jared’s reaction be very muted. Like it was nothing new. Then I thought, “This would be kind of shocking” and changed Jared’s reaction appropriately. Eventually, I just decided to go whole hog with the concept and push it into the luducris areana. Sometimes it’s just fun to end a strip randomly. Plus, I kind of wanted to see what a fully blown manga Tom and Jared might look like.
Incidentally, today’s strip owes a great deal to this clip from Clerks: The Animated Series
“Bear driving car? How can that be?!”
Not too much more for me to say about Speed Racer, so I guess I’ll just leave it at that.
Oh! Regarding the clean house we were performing this week. Something I noticed in the comic archive is that the last few comics have been TWICE their normal size. Not in their dimensions, but in the amount of background information in the image. Basically I was outputting them for web at the highest possible resolution. So instead of a comic that was about 80k to 100k being downloaded to your browser, the comics were anywhere between 160k and 200k. In some cases 250!
I know that this is less and less of a problem in a digital environment where DSL and high speed connections are more common. But for those of you on slower connections who noticed the site was dragging in the last few weeks… well, that was the reason why.
I’ve since reformatted those comics, so hopefully you should notice a pick up in performance if you’re browsing through the archives.
That’s it for today! Thanks for checking in and we’ll see you here on Friday!
Let me take this opportunity to express regret for any misgivings about Speed Racer I may have previously communicated.
One week after Iron Man was released, I was in a bit of a haze, but I remember the internal conflict that kept me from seeing Speed Racer in theaters: the marketing is sending mixed messages, the reviews are terrible, the trailer makes it look like a Willy Wonka NASCAR fever dream.
All of that was a mistake.
Speed Racer is a visual marvel, one of the most hyper kinetic, viscerally exciting films of the year. Forget eye candy. This movie is eye heroin.
Things get off to a slow start, but only because there is so much exposition to cover. Through a series of flashbacks, we learn how the young Speed Racer thinks of nothing but getting behind the wheel of a T-180 and dominating over the competition like his big brother Rex. Family tragedy threatens to derail the Racer family legacy, but nothing can quell the indomitable spirit of racing. Speed beings to make a name for himself out on the track.
In the present, Speed’s talent has attracted the attention of Royalton Industries – a giant business conglomerate that wants to add Speed to its stable of racers. Conflict is set into motion when the proudly independent Speed declines Royalton’s offer and it is revealed to him that racing is merely a front for business deals and technological advances. Races don’t matter, drivers don’t matter and any competition of merit has been fixed since the 1940’s.
I only recount the details of the plot to frame them within the context of how little they matter. These details only serve to tie together the film’s three large set pieces – the races themselves.
Granted, a movie strictly about racing would be pretty boring so it makes sense that the filmmakers tried to put a little meat on these bones. But they tend to overdo it. And, for a kids film, spend entirely too much time inflating the value of what Speed brings to racing as an incorruptible force.
Several times in the film, Speed’s driving ability is compared to that of an artist, essentially contrasting the soullessness of corporate influence to the beauty and innovation of the artistic spirit. It’s kind of an odd statement to make considering how much of the film’s $120 million budget is literally splashed onto the screen.
But once I got past the second act, several of the criticisms I had set aside peeled away and disappeared into the slipstream. Even though Speed’s victory is assured, the film does a great job of drawing out the tension and injecting nervous anticipation into his final race. The film ended with me feeling proud for his accomplishment and in the same celebratory mood as Speed and the rest of his family.
Considering everything that transpired on screen was merely the figment of some Ritalin-starved animator, that’s a pretty impressive feat.
I don’t mean to overlook the human component of Speed Racer. The casting for this film is excellent from top to bottom. Emile Hirsch plays Speed with the appropriate amount of innocence and competition. John Goodman was born to play Pops and manages to wring some emotion out of what could have otherwise been a stodgy family conflict. Christina Ricci is a delight as Speed’s girlfriend Trixie (I move to make it a law that Ricci keep her hair in a permanent bob) and even Matthew Fox comes off well behind the deathly serious (and slightly wooden) exterior of Racer X. I even found Paulie Litt as Speed’s little brother Spritle endearing when I usually cast disdain over over-expressive child actors. Keep an eye on this kid. He’s the new Spencer Breslin.
Considering the technical innovation on display in the film, it’s curious that the DVD extras are reduced to two anemic behind-the-scenes offerings. If there was any question about whether or not Speed Racer was a kids film, it’s answered in the feature “Sprittle in the Big Leagues,” which features Paulie Litt as he wanders around the Berlin studio where Speed Racer is being filmed, learning about the film making process.
Interesting facts in the feature? We learn that Speed Racer took 60 days to film and that Emile Hirsch wears shorts inside the gimbals of the Mach 5 instead of his full racing suit costume!
The other feature “Speed Racer: Supercharged” gives an overview of the different cars created for the film using spinning 3D models and a cacophony of technobabble to describe the various engines, weaponry and technology packed into every car.
Incidentally, directing siblings The Wachowski’s are nowhere to be seen in either feature. Suffice to say, Speed Racer did not get the appropriate treatment it deserved in terms of delivering a more detailed look inside the development of the film.
It’s hard to imagine any film being so thoroughly drenched in digital glop that it could spawn a whole new sub-genre of film. Movies like Hostel and Saw helped coin the term “torture porn.” Speed Racer could easily be the catalyst for “CG porn.”
For fans of movies with a unique visual identity, there’s lots to love in Speed Racer. Plan on taking advantage of your DVD’s “pause” button when dissecting the level of detail, color and fury squeezed into every shot. Those of you looking for a satisfying story are probably best left to the original cartoon series. But give Speed Racer a shot. You won’t be disappointed.
Speed Racer is available to own on DVD, Blu-ray and On Demand. For more information, check out the official site at www.speedracerthemovie.com
I got the idea for today’s comic when we were talking about Time Magazine’s publication of their Top 10 films of 2008 during The Triple Feature Monday night.. The ice cream analogy wasn’t discussed at the time, but the more I got to thinking about it, the more it fit.
On the whole, I don’t find much to disagree with in term of Richard Corliss’s picks. I think it’s a good mix of populist and obscure. That he puts Wall-E at the top of his list is a great harbinger of things to come. As much as I loved Iron Man this year (and wouldn’t shut up about it), Wall-E is who I’ll be cheering for come awards season. I really believe it’s a film that will stand the test of time and it accomplishes that in what is tantamount to a few, simple brush strokes (so to speak).
But back to Speed Racer and The Dark Knight. I don’t mean to characterize Speed Racer poorly. Although I was apprehensive of the film while it was in theaters, I fell in love with it once it was on DVD. The movie truly is an underrated gem.
But on Corliss’s list, it sticks out like a neon thumb. Glowing even brighter in the absence of the gothic gloom of The Dark Knight which was so perfectly assembled by Christopher Nolan that it is probably the most critically and financially successful film of the year. By leaving it off the list, Corliss is ignoring something important that happened in movies this year. A film like The Dark Knight doesn’t make A HALF BILLION DOLLARS from the domestic box office for nothing.
Certainly critical or financial success shouldn’t dictated prominence on an end of the year list. There is something to be said for expressing a personal preference. Judgments on art are always subjective anyway.
But despite Speed Racer’s hidden quality, he looks a little bit out of touch by promoting a film that was pretty my panned by critics and ignored by audiences at the start of the summer blockbuster season that cost three and a half times more to produce than it reclaimed at the box office against the first “comic book” movie that is generating serious buzz as an Oscar contender. In his pursuit to pick an unconventional choice, he leaves many readers scratching their heads.
Food for thought.
That’ll do it for me today. Thanks for stopping by and I’ll see you here on Friday! Have a great day!