FF:QLD Speed Racer

It's out on Thursday.

Lets see it.

: D

 

As is The Incredible Hulk. But I wouldn't rule out seeing them back-to-back.

 

Yeah, Thursday is Hulk day.

 

I'll have to do a matinee double header - I have regular plans for Thursday nights.

 

Saturday night?

 

I was planning on seeing it tonight, but circumstances have forced a postponement.

In short - re-schedule?

 

Was out tonight celebrating a work collegue's birthday, and noted there was a session of Speed Racer that we could make it to directly after, so Paul, Luke(Shogun) and I went along to see it at Victoria Point.

All I can really say at the moment is that the movie is SUGAR COATED JOY. The boys will attest to the fact that I was dancing in my seat. I'd see it again in a heartbeat.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to clean up what is left of my dribbly, melted brain.

 

For my part, I came out of it thinking it was a dumb movie with an awful script that suffered from going so far out of its way to be slavishly true to the cartoon, but that it looked really really cool. The driving sequences were really great, and I wish there'd been more of them, not least because it would have meant a whole lot less of the annoying kid and the monkey, but it was fun. The final race at the end was especially cool to watch, even though it felt at times like my eyeballs were being slammed out the back of my head by the all the colours.

I've got a feeling that if you're a devotee of the cartoon (which I've never personally seen) then you'll probably get more out of the story aspects of it, but I felt like the "note-for-note adaptation of the old cartoon that really isn't very good but that we all have loving memories of from childhood" thing hurt the film as a whole, and that if they'd been more picky with the aspects they took from the series it could have made the whole thing hang together better.

Still, was fun.

 

Hmm, I'd say the movie was simple, rather than dumb. I don't think the script was that awful - swimming in cliche, sure - cheesey to no end at parts, but I got the feeling that it was intentional.

To me I got a similar feeling when I saw Sin City - it's larger than life. Sin City felt over the top and had what I first thought was really bad and cheesey dialogue, until I remembered I was watching a comic book literally brought to life before my eyes - suddenly the way they spoke and acted all made sense.

Same thing with Speed Racer - it's super-real. It's never intended to be normal-realistic, so the dialogue is campy and cheesey, the plot is made of lego blocks, and the colours are saturated and vivid to say, "hey look, this is a bit of fun - let's roll with it."

I honestly didn't even mind the annoying kid and his monkey so much, and usually such characters do make my head hurt.

I guess I enjoyed it so much that any issues I might have had in a more cynical viewing mindset just stopped mattering.

Ahem, don't mind my Monday morning tangental mumbling. Just thinking out loud.

(Would it be poignant to note I've not really seen the cartoon/much of it? )

 

Speed Racer was a bad movie, but it was fun.

The story was ok, the acting was ok, but the script was bad, bad, bad.

But it was pretty, and the races gave that edge of your seat vibe. So all in all I enjoyed it, but it was a bad movie.

 

Finally saw it, enjoyed it very much.

It's a good family film, something not enough of are made anymore. I also like they tried to grow the concept up a bit; by which I mean have you ever loved a cartoon as a kid, then come back older and rewatched it and found it wasn't as good? I get the feeling that's how they approached Speed Racer, they kept what worked, and retooled what didn't.

Also, it gives me hope for a Robotech film. That scene at the end where Speed becomes a God of Racing? Transport that feeling to a Robotech film during the Max and Miriya fight and it would be awesome.

Be seeing you,

Magnus Darcrider