Disclaimer: I am 100% biased as this is in my top 3 favorite movies of all time but good lord the sheer craftsmanship of this film gets buried beneath the goofy tone and anime aesthetic way too much.
Seriously, just go watch the first 15 minutes of this movie and tell me it doesn't pack an absurd amount of exposition, emotion, and character building into that time while managing to keep it tense and exciting. The opening race tells you everything you need to know about pretty much every character.
Speed is the best of the best but loves his older brother so much he'll slow down so as not to beat his record. Trixie loves Speed for who he is, even if who he is is an oddball kid who is so into racing that she's a (very close) number 2 in the loves of his life. Ma Racer is simultaneously scared shitless and entirely in awe by what her sons can accomplish but absolutely, totally loves her family no matter what. Pa Racer is principled, has capital-O Opinions about racing and how to do it "right" but still torments himself about how things went down with Rex. Rex WAS the best of the best, but gave it up for... something we don't know yet, and it destroyed him.
In 15 minutes we know more about 5 characters than most movies manage to tell in their entire runtime - all while a visually stunning and exciting race is going down.
And it's not like the movie slows down from there. It's never boring, consistently funny, and the finale race is one of the single best things ever put to film. The Wachowski sisters peaked here. I mean it.
Watch this god damned movie
Say what you will about Speed Racer but there has never been another movie that looks anything like this one. Really unique visual style
We really need to make Warner Bros finally release it in 4K HDR before whatever merger finishes off physical media for good
Ideally they can, uh, remaster some of the CGI haha. Not change the physics but like the street scenes outside their house are rough.
I also wish Universal would re do the CGI for The Mummy haha
Not possible they shot on 1080p cameras one of those early digital movies. It can be enhanced but it doesn't look good
Tron: Legacy was also 1080p and it looks stellar in 4K with HDR. Not sharper necessarily, but the WCG and higher peak brightness helps a lot
it was the only truly successful(in visuals not money) attempt at creating live action anime. Every character, every design, the action all feels like an organic part of the world we are presented with. Nothing else comes this close.
And that is also why it failed in the box office. The movie was a decade too early, presented to the audiences that didn't really know what they were looking at. A movie like that is itself a pop-culture reference, it relies on the audience understanding where it's coming from, where it borrows from. The visual shorthand that it was using was simply not decoded by most.
I saw it for the first time recently and actually had the opposite thought - if this movie had been in theaters a decade earlier with 90s practical effects, it would have been a cultural phenomenon: Tyco RC toy cars, Speed Racer lunchboxes, probably a new animated series on Kids WB to tie-in with the film. (Obviously the Wachowskis couldn't have made it in 1998, but the script is extremely 90s).
I love the visual style of the film, but IMO the excessive CGI was too much for mass audiences of 2008.
As it has aged, on a first viewing it was obvious to me that the film is a genuine masterpiece of postmodern art, and breaks new ground in terms of cinematic storytelling techniques, but does this in such an extreme way that basically scared everyone away from further experimenting with the style.
I felt the world just wasn’t ready for it, in a post-9/11 world.
Something that colorful and ridiculous many felt was too crazy for the time it was in.
I remember people saying how it would have been a better film if Speed was emotionally devastated by the death of his brother and just became really hellbent on winning.
The scene transitions alone are beautiful and fascinating. The Wachowskis are visionary filmmakers.
I'm afraid this will be a karma-killing "hot-take", but even in the absence of, really ANY, good writing, I thought the actors' portrayal and the tone/direction of the live action Cowboy Bebop nailed the anime tone. Obviously, as with many of the Netflix attempts at live action anime, they did NOT stick the landing, but the tone was what kept me watching. I was fascinated by the uncanny valley impact of watching real actors in an "anime world".
I worked at a movie theatre when this came out. Watched it so many times with extremely few other people in the theatre. Think my kid is about to the age he’ll be able to watch it.
I worked at Blockbuster when Blu Ray was the hot new technology and Speed Racer was one of the go-to movies we would have playing to show it off.
I still love how most of their pockets and clothing decals are painted on. Like they're cartoon clothing come to life.
That is the mark of a costuming department that absolutely understood their mission.
I'd argue Scott Pilgrim vs The World but that's still is very much its own style too
I got a bluray player right around when this movie came out, and it was the first one that I watched in Bluray and I just remember being stunned at how beautiful it looked.
I also remember cackling at how bad the "More like a Non-ja" line was.
Shark Boy & Lava Girl and Spy Kids 3D all have that cartoonish look. Also Sky Captain and Ultraviolet
Sky Captain is so good and so under-appreciated. Even if you don’t like the movie itself (you’re wrong), it pioneered a lot of the same techniques they use now for stuff like the MCU and modern Star Wars movies.
Kerry Conran never worked in Hollywood again, and that’s a damn shame.
Genuinely curious, what did it pioneer? Feel like a lot of those effects were already being used in Attack of the Clones a few years earlier but I am not too familiar with Sky Captain beyond the visuals
The entire film was shot on a blue screen with digital backgrounds that were added in post. The leads have talked about how unnatural it was and how they had to get used to it as production went on.
I feel that's because the style was generally considered to be an experiment that never quite worked. The film felt a bit soulless and ungrounded, what with nothing looking or feeling real at any point.
It was just a really fun movie. I went and saw it just sort of because I remember seeing the anime dub and it looked super corny but John Goodman was it it, so all of those scenes couldn't possibly be bad.
When he shows up to beat the crap out of the thugs and he punches and there's a slow motion zoom in to his Judo World Champion ring or whatever it was, I almost suffocated right in the theater from laughing. That was the best "record scratch" fight scene cue I think I've ever seen in a western film.
I remember watching the trailer and thought it looked stupid. I was really surprised how good it was.
Royaltons speech about money and racing is one of the greatest monologues ever.
That actor is a master of the dramatic monologue, his "good guys win bad guys lose England prevails" monologue in V for Vendetta is top notch.
he had barely more than a few scenes in that one but he killed it. I had just started reading Artemis Fowl after seeing VfV and my younger self pictured him as Root
He was also great in The Thick of It: "Yes and ho!"
No matter how well you drive, you won't win, you won't place. I guarantee you right now that you won't even finish the race!
THEN SIGN THAT CONTRACT!
honestly, when i watch the movie i queue it up to that speech. everything before it is a bit slow and word building and now i just dont care about that part. but from THAT speech on the movie just kicks
So I guess it's better than the original TV show?
It's so much fun!!!! What i REALLY WANT A IS A 4K VERSION!!!!
I liked it too. Visually, it felt very Speed Racer (I only vaguely remember the cartoon though). It's not some dark and gritty modernist interpretation, or retrospective clever subversion. It is what it is, and I walked away satisfied and not bored. (One reviewer I found did say that structurally the movie was too complex for kids, who were tonally the target audience, which makes sense, and that the middle-end dragged, which I'll also always agree with.)
The visuals might have been made in such a way that a 4k release, done properly, would be very expensive, and the market for people wanting to see such an upscale is likely relatively small. (A larger market would probably prefer a new release of the original series, which would probably be cheaper too, but I dunno.)
I want a 4k more for HDR than resolution.
I also want a 4k with uncompressed audio. I still can't believe they pushed out a Blu-ray with compressed audio.
Hoping with all my might for a 20th anniversary steelbook
I need this movie in 4K on a big OLED. When I first saw it, it was a Netflix DVD by mail played on a 13" MacBook way back in 2008 and it blew my mind.
Same
I'm not normally one to advocate for this sort of thing but there's a version interpolated to 4k 60fps out there and in this one specific instance it feels like the way to go
It was shot in 1080p digital and finished off at 2k. Any 4k release would be a basic upscale, which a good Blu-ray player can do just as well with the existing release.
HDR would be really nice though.
Statements like this or the similar "why is no one talking about this" always irk me. It has been talked about. Its been talked about a lot in fact. It has its own cult following of people, including here where you can easily find posts of people talking about it. But the reality is its a nearly 18 year old movie and there's only so much that can be said about it, practically nothing of which is new at this point. Do the same conversations really have to be had ad nauseam?
it's just Speed Racer's turn this month, next it will be Nice Guys or Weird Al's UHF
Oh don’t forget Moon
I feel like Moon had its peak hidden gem run of posts a good 7-8 years ago that got so run to the ground I actually dont hear about it much amymore lol. Maybe I dont spend enough time on Reddit tho
No you’re right I’m just an old head
Same homie, same lmao
Yes. Moon (2009) is an all-time great film and it needs to be talked about.
Have you heard of this unknown film called Scott Pilgrim Versus the World? It's very underrated/a hidden gem/needs to be talked about more etc.
Sorcerer is that movie now.
don't forget dredd
The indiana jones parody in UHF was so good 😂
Don't forget about Blade Runner or Bullet train's month as well.
that’ll be springtime
I feel this movie scratches a very peculiar itch for some people that happen to discover it and wonder ‘why is no one else glazing over this film all the time?’. So they make a post here, and eventually find out why lol.
There’s this term, “Eternal September”, from old, old internet days. When people generally only had access to any sort of computer or internet at all at schools.
What would happen is that people would go to school and discover these IRC chats, and kinda make an ass of themselves because they had no concept of a given space’s etiquette, culture, etc. They would gradually learn, though, and eventually become fully-functional members of these early internet communities.
And then September came again, and you got a new influx of students. And it happens again.
Computers and the internet have become so much more accessible, now. We constantly have access to the internet, and are constantly coming into new online spaces. Thus, the Eternal September.
I remember the term "summer reddit" for when kids would be off of school for the summer and had more free time to go on reddit. There was a noticeable increase in the amount of posts like the one you described
Interesting. Due to my age, I’ve heard what’s probably the next iteration, a “summer child.” A student who has just entered summer vacation and is able to use devices / the internet without limits.
I graduated high school in 2016 and saw this the most in like 2010-2014, especially on 4chan
That's because people were quoting Game of Thrones and that's when it came out. And it has nothing to do with students on the internet, it's just a way to call someone naive and innocent
I have seen this movie talked about so many times on this subreddit and never once in person.
What's also annoying is that it's a pretty mid movie imo. It's fine and the stylistic choices are cool but there's basically nothing else interesting about it. The amount of glaze it gets is bordering on Snyderbros with BvS/JL at this point
Well that’s just objectively not true lmao. Speed Racer fans don’t act like they’ve been personally wronged by the film industry like the Snyderverse freaks do.
This sub is just endless posts of "this well known film is underrated," "why aren't we all talking about this film from 20 years ago constantly" etc., with a barely-veiled undertone from the posters that they think they should be applauded on their "niche" film tastes: it's fucking endless.
This thread is the monthly Speed Racer astroturfing campaign. Its Netflix numbers must be down, and the PR is trying to save it from being dropped from the platform
You do realize you can just not comment, right?
it's quite possible that the OP is younger than the movie or did not watch it until years later. Same for other posts like this(the genuine ones at least, not the karma farmers) where people discover a movie many years later and want to talk about it.
As an example, I watched Freedom Writers yesterday. It is a 2007 movie, I didn't watch it when it was released because at the time such movies didn't interest me.
People complaining about what other people choose to discuss always irk me!
Weird how that works.
Terrible, what passes for a ninja these days
More like a non-ja.
My favorite line from it
Roger Allam absolutely kills as Royalton. He should be in the top ten villains list, up there with Oldman in Fifth Element.
The way he eats Ma Racer's pancakes and then offers to buy her recipe to sell to his racers is a fucking perfect moment
I love that movie. I started college in 2009, and student housing would play movies that were newish, and they played Speed Racer a few times a day for a few weeks. I watched it like 5 times.
Just really light hearted and fun, now i need to rewatch it!
This movie was ahead of its time and absolutely deserves to be given another watch. Patrick H Willems has a fantastic video essay on his YouTube channel that I'd highly recommend checking out.
Yes! His ability to distill many of the same ideas I've had about this movie for years is fantastic.
How exactly was it "ahead of its time?" People use that phrase in the most bizarre ways.
It’s probably one of the most of-its-time movies ever.
People talk about the colours and the pop in Speed Racer as if those Rodriguez’s Spy Kids films and other hyper saturated hyper “stylized” cg effects didn’t exist back then.
Right? It's the exact opposite of "ahead of its time," as you say!
I'll have to look into that. Honestly, anything glazing this film deserves attention. This film did not deserve the reception it got.
https://youtu.be/vwh9ETdhrf4?si=1xt3oIvflognsos2
Enjoy
Here is the older one that isn't an hour long.
There has been a resurgence around this film in recent years.
Audience's brains were not ready for the visual overload that it was back then, but now, people are more open to such things.
Also, Speed Racer was a highly stylized formalist movie in a time where cinema was hyper-focused on realism. It, quite literally, was released way ahead of its time. The same goes for Scott Pilgrim.
I think it suffered from a generation of critics that didn't grow up on video games, tbh. They all said the action was meaningless cuts of random shots. Every race battle has a story grounded in the space that for me isn't hard to follow at all. I think some "very serious" "grownups" just see the colors and the silliness and the fast cuts and take a lot of critical shortcuts so they can turn their brains off.
It did the old cartoon justice and wasn't an abuse of IP to do whatever, a proper adaptation. That's Cinema
https://youtu.be/vwh9ETdhrf4?si=1xt3oIvflognsos2
Patrick Willems did a great video on this movie. Highly recommend.
He talked about, like a LOT (in Patrick voice)
This is what I came here to post. Good job, Smokey.
I don't know know if I can go with you all the way to "all-time great film", but man am I happy to meet you halfway. It's a visually bonkers and totally undersung. The ending is just so cathartic, too.
Visually bonkers, for sure
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/brR_B7zerR8
YT short?
in r/movies?
Shame on you.
It's the second best Wachowski movie (after The Matrix of course).
Which was their only good film. Of course I never saw Bound
Not to sound snobby, but this was a movie that I didn't get/appreciate until I after I had seen a lot of other movies.
I think that the general trend for this movie. It was always good, but time made it more obvious. Patrick H Williams reads a fella's review of the movie then and now about it.
I saw it last year and I was honestly kind of disappointed because of how hyped up I’ve heard it be over the years. I was expecting a fun spectacle but got something that reminded me of Spy Kids, which is fine, but not something that entertained me as an adult.
Yeah I didn’t like it either.
I was in my mid 30s when I first saw the movie and thought it was both exhilarating and deeply emotionally affecting. I cried throughout the final race. It is one of the most earnest movies I think I've ever seen and I love it for that. It's not shying away from the heaviness laying on the shoulders of all these main characters and that is a really remarkable thing for what feels like a kids movie in many ways.
Spritle and the monkey suck though. I found their antics deeply unfunny and I felt the movie would have been better without them. But I do understand they're part of the show so I can't begrudge their inclusion. I do think they're the only blatantly childish parts of the movie though. Everything else is dealing with deeply adults themes despite the candy coated nature of the world.
It's decent and ambitious for a kid's movie. Hearing adults talk about it like it's a cinematic masterpiece is mortifying.
Hey look all the critics from 2008 are here
I think maybe they just had a point
Anyone who thinks something that appeals to kids can have no deeper meaning or value isn't really worth listening to, 2008 critic or internet pedant
I dont think that was the point either parties were trying to make lol. I think they just didnt think it was very good, branded as a kid movie or not.
2008 was the same year Wall-E came out and that was very critically acclaimed and won an academy award. We were decades and decades past "kids movie dont have value beyond their target demographic" by then, and honestly in the critical space, thats kind of always been a take that most people have disregarded
That's not a claim anyone was making. I love a lot of stuff that's "made for kids." Speed Racer is a muddled, Technicolor barfbag, it is not Miyazaki.
Then why is it particularly mortifying for adults to claim a "decent kids movie" is a cinematic masterpiece? You framed that as more distressing to you than disagreeing about adult-oriented material, not me.
I disagree wildly but respect your very interesting opinion.
Yes, I feel there’s a spacetime bend/coexisting quantum realities in which there are two versions of this film currently existing, one is brilliant and the other an almost unwatchable mess and I sadly happen to exist in the side of the bend in which it’s… shit.
This sub has been singing its praises for so long but when I watched it I couldn’t finish the movie. I didn’t go in with lofty expectations, I just wanted to enjoy it the way a lot of redditors seem to
At about the same day each month, always with big upvote numbers and an unnaturally high number of favorable comments
If it had been rated highly by critics, reddit wouldn't like it. But because critics didn't like it, Redditor's think it's unfair.
Some other similar examples are ones like Van Helsing, Alita: Battle Angel and Tron: Legacy
Okayish popcorn flicks that get touted as masterpieces because they did a few things well while not doing well financially or critically.
😐
This movie operates on a very specific wavelength.
You were unable to get yourself on that wavelength.
So now we have a broken radio shouting about how SiriusXM is a myth of scientific impossibility.
Just get it.
Can't you just get it?
I'd say a good chunk of it comes down to the atypical design. It's doing a lot, and that's impressive, but it's also CGI heavy and, as stated, is doing 'a lot', so that can be exhausting. I like the film but it's not a 'oh yeah pop it on anytime' type for me. Needs a certain mood unlike some others I quite like.
History will exonerate me but also I get why people bounced off of it
I don't think so, tbh. It's got like a small but notable cult following, but its just such a hideous looking film for the average movie goers palette that I really really doubt it'll be broadly reclaimed as an all time great.
It's cool if you think it's one of your favorite
Baby I’m with ya on speed racer.
Praying it comes to 4k Blu-ray because this was a top movie-going experience in IMAX for me
Speed Racer is a visual masterpiece that I have never forgotten. It’s up there with Tron Legacy, the two most underrated movies of all time.
Side note: if you like Speed Racer you will love “Redline”
Redline is brilliant. Takeshi Koike* is such a stylish director and Redline is a film that needs to be played loud, because that combination of animation and soundtrack is just so good.
Also see The Running Man by Yoshiaki Kawajira from the anthology film Labyrinth Tales/Neo Tokyo, which was also shown on Liquid TV, for a gritty Cyberpunk version.
*He also directed one of the Animatrix shorts, World Record, the one about the sprinter.
Can confirm. It’s like Speed Racer’s final race, but the entire time.
Is tron legacy really underrated? It got a sequel (eventually) and is generally praised by fans for visuals and soundtrack
It kind of bombed at the box office, and is debated whether it is a good movie or not. It has pretty low rating on RT by both the critics and the fans.
A 64% popcorn meter seems fair. I think it's rated. Not under, not over. I think critics were harsh on it, but the story was extremely lacking so I understand that to a degree
And there lies the controversy…
The "controversy" in question being. . .the wild claim which you yourself made up?
I haven’t seen it since I was little but I fucking love Tron Legacy so I’m going to rewatch SR now
Don’t forget Redline ;)
And Redline!
Your side note is accurate. I love all these films.
I remember a friend passionately spreading the gospel of this Speed Racer movie when it came out on video. I was skeptical but then I watched it. Turns out that all of the enthusiasm for Speed Racer was 100% earned.
It's one of my Top 5 movies, full stop. When I met my wife a decade ago, I got drunk and broke out my DVD copy during a date night. She watched the entire thing in almost complete silence, and I was convinced I had fucked up. The credits rolled, and she said: "Well, that was amazing. I loved it."
Listen. I understand why it struggled at the box office. It was a reboot ostensibly aimed atkids, but what late-2000s kid was familiar with fucking Speed Racer in the era of Naruto? It's also 2 hours and 15 minutes long, and had a budget of $120 million.
Those are all INCREDIBLY challenging hurdles for any movie to surpass. Puss In Boots: The Last Wish cost around that much, 15 years later, and it had the benefit of being a surprise follow up to a nostalgic franchise and arrived on a gigantic wave of critical acclaim and positive word of mouth.
And I think that's what did it for Speed Racer. Critics at the time did NOT see or respect the vision: It got a 42% on RT, which I think is genuinely absurd. But you can't come back from all those factors at once.
Speed Racer, to me, feels like Batman Forever, or maybe Batman and Robin. It's a situation where a filmmaker took the assignment quite literally: They translated the logic and tone of a comic book or a cartoon directly to live-action, with no concerns about filtering it through our idea of "realism."
But unlike B&R, Speed Racer has heart, vision, and a very clear message. It wanted to embrace the camp and colour at the heart of its source material, refusing to constrain its characters (or its cinematography, or its editing choices) to the standard cinema language that we use to convey our world.
And then it hit theatres a week after Iron Man, another movie that wanted to change how comic book and cartoon stories were told in live-action. We all know which approach was more popular.
But it's been years and years. And each year, new groups of people push back the scathing reviews and years of online jokes to WATCH THE THING, and each year, it wins new fans.
It looks just as brilliant and unique today as it did back then. Its big, obvious messages about corporate consolidation and the death of art are somehow more relevant by the hour. And as a movie that was made to simply exist and not kick off a cinematic universe, it's rewatchable and easy to recommend.
Top 5 movie. Thank you for hearing me out.
It really is. I regret not watching it in theaters.
It’s absolute shit and only one of two movies I ever walked out of, the other being Highlander 2.
lol you didnt get it
Gonna get crucified but I think its very overrated. It drags on and on and the green screen and obnoxious CGI just doesnt work very well at all. I get what what they were going for but I just found it buttugly and boring. I think it has a lot of aspects people like in a vacuum like the scenes with Tim Curry and John Goodman and the wacky stuff, but as a start to finish movie I found it very underwhelming relative to how the internet loves to gush about it
You forgot to say that it's "criminally underrated"
Well you came to the right place. It’s talked about a lot here
Eh
No it doesn't. We talked about it already.
When I watched it in the theater in 2008 (opening weekend, just me and a couple in that small theater), I remember thinking: “this has a pretty decent focus on ‘family.’ I did not expect that.”
Though it does know it’s a cartoon, in how Royalton basically goes: “Oh, too good for me? Well Speed, let me just tell you how racing is rigged!”
Is this beauty on 4k yet?
It's a neat film, but it's not a very good film other than the visual gimmicks.
Why do so many people want to make this movie being good happen?
The movie is practically perfect in every way.
I love itt
It is an underrated movie- its finale is one of the most exhilarating and cathartic climaxes in a family adventure movie. It was perhaps a bit too ahead of its time for its usage of CGI that melted critics brains when it came out but honestly despite that it holds up extremely well because of how stylistic it is.
It is never on any streamer for some reason. Really annoying
It's currently on Howdy, Roku's cheap streaming channel.
All I want is a live action Wacky Races in the style of Speed Racer. THAT IS LITERALLY ALL I WANT!!!
I watched it in theaters with my dad who also grew up with Speed Racer, and man, was it it an awesome movie, and I only have good memories of it, I was bummed to learn that it was seen as such a failure years later when I researched it again.
Like how most people in here have already commented: it is truly a one-of-a-kind film that other films have never replicated again.
This movie is so good. I love this movie. I love how it blends in some of the cartoon while adding in some of its own stuff. It’s a great example of being true to the original story and characters while adding depth and something new to offer.
I loved Speed Racer! Always hoped for a sequel, but never really expected to get one.
Speed Racer is a movie about a son who wants to do what he sees as right and his family rejecting him for it, so he has to take on another identity entirely to continue existing in peace. And then the younger brother tries to "take his turn" doing the same thing but instead gets nothing but support from a father who has learned his lesson and succeeding where the older brother failed.
Hmmmm.
My birds like watching this movie. Parrot approved.
Cinematherapy over on YouTube has a great video on this movie that you might really like.
I had a blast with this movie, and it's one of the most insanely visual films out there.
I love this movie to pieces (saw it in theaters and loved it immediately) but I do feel like the only people talking about it these days are talking about how nobody talks about it. But to be fair how often do people just bring up movies from nearly 18 years ago in casual conversation apropos of nothing?
Ever since that YouTuber put out a video on this movie a few months back I’ve been seeing more posts like this. It’s a great movie, but these posts feel more like a circlejerk at this point.
"An all-time great film" is a bit of a reach.
It was unfortunate it got released around Iron Man, it never got the audience’s attention. Iron Man’s legs just kept getting longer and longer that summer.
Roger Allam as the villain is so entertaining, I love scenery chewing
I only watched it for the first time recently, its an under appreciated master work.
I have heard all the praise heaped on this film, and I'm sure it's all valid.
But man I feel ill within the first 10 min of watching that film, each time I've tried. It cooks my brain.
So I may be able to relate. I tried to watch Speed Racer four times? I believe. Didn't make it past the opening 10 minutes or so. Like you I couldn't comprehend it. I hated the way it looked and I couldn't make sense of it. Anyhow, fast forward a bit and I'm listening to something I trust and they're talking about how electric the experience of watching the movie was, how good it is, etc. So I said fuck it I'll give it one more chance. All of a sudden the movie made sense to my brain and I was seeing it differently than I ever had. Not only did I make it through the movie but I ended up watching it like 4 times in that first week. I not only loved it but couldn't get enough of it. A very confusing experience considering I hadn't been able to stomach it for more than a few minutes before.
All that to say, I hope you're able to connect with it someday and discover what I did. It's a really great movie. Although the kid and the monkey still suck haha
This is so manic I love it
I love the fact Wachowskis the engine of corporate entertainment to make a profoundly anti-corporate gonzo film. That reason alone won me over but the fact that it was so visually complex and daring made it quite special indeed.
I think Patrick Willems did an entire episode of Speed Racer earlier this year.
Studios like Warner, Disney, etc know that people hate them but are fine with making movies with anti-corporate messages because viewers are still paying them.
The medium is the message. Whoever controls the media controls the message.
Warner hired the Wachowskis to make the Matrix which was a movie based on 60s counter-culture values with an 80s cyberpunk image. The movie was an allegory for independent media and alternative culture.
The scam is that it was made by one of the big major corporate studios that dominate the media industry and wiped out the underground media scene in the early 90s.
The reason Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino got famous is because they made their first movies independently without being backed by the major studios. Same with animators like Mike Judge, the guys from South Park, and a bunch of others who started in the indie animation scene.
The major studios took over festivals like Sundance and companies like A24 aren't exactly industry outsiders. Pretty much the entire media landscape is corporate controlled by people who rig the game.
Getting into Speed Racer, I like that movie and watch it every few months. Speed Racer, despite being made by Warner has strong punk rock values.
It's about a mom & pop independent car company going against the corporate establishment. Again, Warner still gets paid for it but it gives the illusion of rebellion.
I love the end race scene.
https://youtu.be/3FtBAGMSw-I?si=nA077c9FTjiBeaQ1
I say the same about The Cult. Allow the paypigs to distance themselves from the cult, as long as they get their tithe.
The story is obviously very campy and childish, but the vfx and cinematography are absolutely amazing.
Really great movie!
If anyone wants a degenerate suggestion.....
Take some molly and watch the movie. Mind-blowing with how awesome all the visuals are!
Why did this film get buried? It was such an amazing wild ride when I saw it in theaters.
They should rerelease it with some extended or deleted footage and give it another chance.
It's a pretty flawed movie, story wise, and some characters. However the visuals capture the anime style fantastically and I secretely love it. Also Christina Ricci in anything.
As an aside, it has a pretty decent video game adaptation too. It was an F-Zero style game but worked pretty well!
I think there are at least 5 video essays on YouTube with over a million views on this? This ain’t news.
“More like non-jas” is single handedly the worst line anyone has ever said in a movie and poor John Goodman had to be the poor sap to say it
This movie was almost universally panned when it came out but then I read a review in Time magazine by Richard Corliss who raved about it. A high profile critic for a high profile publication was endorsing this. I was curious. So glad I checked it out. Got off to a slow start, but man it found its footing before the halfway mark and was a kinetic thrill ride right to the end.
I was trying to decide my favorite film of all time the other day, and realized Speed Racer is definitely at least close to the top for me.
This movie is talked about a lot and it is not that hard to find people gushing to the point of what some may call glazing this movie. (Me, because it's mid imo)
I've seen plenty of people talk about this very film in this very sub
God the absolutely carnal way Royalton eats Ma Racer's pancakes and then demands the recipe is a perfect character-establishing moment.
The fact that he immediately offers to buy the recipe and franchise it is also a super interesting character moment. Like initially you might be inclined to think that he's just flattering her with an empty platitude, but I think it actually communicates something sincere about him: The highest compliment he can give is to say, in essence, "I want to own this and sell it." He might have even been completely serious in the offer.
Yeah I think that scene plays really well. He's being genuinely complimentary, but he cheapens everything with his obsession with money, but he still charms as a potentially nice guy.
The literal and the figurative consumption.
nope. horrible film lacking in originality. But I can see where it works for you.
It’s cool if you don’t like it but this is objectively ridiculous.
I agree. 😉
I recommend watching this video if you haven’t already.
Serendipity, was just thinking of this movie the other day and how good it is.
Saying a movie is "underrated" is very passé but this is the dictionary definition, should not have been panned the way it was.
I think what truly doomed this film is the fuckass haircut they gave to Hollywood great Christina Ricci.
Everyone will talk about the visual quality of the film but for me it’s the structure of the narrative and the editing that stand out.
It's the best movie to watch while on Psychedelics. I'm not even joking. The visuals are captivating, it moves like a live action cartoon more so than any other movie based on a cartoon and it has extremely little bad vibes to turn a trip sour
Best final race of anything ever.
Very true. Not in my top ten films, but yes, absolutely
Agree with every bit of your love for Speed Racer here, OP. It is absolutely a 5-star film in my book.
This is me waxing eloquent when I randomly found out another Redditor rated it so on Letterboxd as well:
I’ve been preaching the same thing for ages. It’s one of the best sports movies ever.
FWIW I watched F1 with the wife this weekend. (Very cool movie). They had a similar “flow-state” driving scene in it. (Which I didn’t think about until just now).
That’s he of my favorite sports movie tropes, when the hero is locked in, in an absolute Flow stare, and Soled Racer does one of the best jobs I’ve ever seen of representing it on screen.
You can reach this hyper-real, almost mythical state. Time and space expand and contract and almost disappear. You’re one with your body, your mind, and everything. It’s transcendental. When Speed reaches it, the Wachochiskis absolutely nail it!!!!
I love that movie.
Patrick (H) Willems agrees with you.
Agreed. It's one of those movies which is imo without flaw for what it is