I haven’t seen it yet, but put open spoilers in the title because I’ll report back on Friday after seeing the movie.
Anyone really looking forward to the movie? What are your expectations?
I’m somewhat optimistic after seeing the trailer.
I hope that it isn’t a disappointment as I’m hoping for a good start to the summer movie season this year.
Do we finally get to find out who Racer X is?
We’re going. It looks really pretty, which is all my wife needs. Plotwise, it’ll probably be lame, but, oh, the eye candy!
It’s Jaaaaaack! From LOST!
Oh, brother.
Yeah, I’ll be there. I’m a dirty old man IRT Cristina Ricci so I’ll see anything that looks like it won’t suck too bad with her in it.
But the previews looked not too bad too.
Double Post…
Chuck Cunningham. Why do you think he never came back from college? He was too busy racing around the world.
Brilliant, mobo85. Brilliant.
The reviews so far at Rotten Tomatoes are not very good (38% ‘fresh’). But that’s only based on 8 reviews, so hopefully the movie is better than that.
The trailers make it look like they filmed a migraine, so I won’t be going.
I have no particular interest other than the desire to bury myself in Christina Ricci, so maybe.
It sure looks like alot of fun to me!! I’ll be looking for references to the cartoon, like all the cool stuff the Mach 5 can do and the sound effects, etc.
Speed Racer and The Dark Knight are the 2 summer movies I’m really looking forward to. Indiana Jones I am very meh about until I read some reviews…
I’m familiar with Speed Racer, but not, if my memory serves me correctly, by a shaky old anime… was the series remade for US television in the late eighties/ early nineties?
That’s really odd, because I like Cristina Ricci too, but most of the time I think of her I realize that I would really, really like her TO suck. A lot. 
Yes, it was [shudder]
I’m in a quandary.
I’m a big fan of the Wachowskis, and see everything they do.
On the other hand, I loathe anime* and the old Speed Racer cartoon in particular.
I think the trailer looks great, but it’s a terrific realization of something that is essentially bad.
If they had taken the basic bones of the story and tossed away all the anime elements, they might have the makings of a great popcorn movie. But the Wachowskis seem to love all of the cheesy elements of this awful cartoon and have fetishistically duplicated every last craptacular bit of it down to Chim-Chim and Spritle. Ugh!
(* Yes, I’ve seen Miyazaki’s work, and one decent artist does not rescue an entire genre.)
Well I have seen it already, but I’ll save any spoilers.
I actually really liked it… but I can’t say for certain that you will. In fact, on a scale of one to ten, I don’t think there’s a person in the world who’s going to give it a five. This is serious “love it or hate it” territory.
As far as I can tell it is as close to the original series as any live-action film could possibly be. Hell, the whole film is a cartoon - just with real people and some very expensive CG.
And yes, you will find out who Racer-X is… but not from me.
Ooh. The suspense is killing me.
So, does the voice track synch up with the actors’ lip movements?
I’m torn.
I was really excited when I first heard about it, even though I haven’t seen the cartoon since I was about seven years old. But the more I see the trailers the less interested I get. I don’t remember any of the elements of the original series, except for having a pretty intense crush on the title character. I have zero interest - lets make that negative interest - in cars and racing. I can’t get my head around the concept that driving fast somehow equals heroics. The trailers look so much like candy they make my teeth hurt, and the kid and chimp give me the jibblies.
On the other hand, it’s the Wachowski’s, who I haven’t forgiven for Matrices II and III but deserve another chance as much as anyone. I’m intrigued by Racer X, who seems to be the best-realized live-action version of all the characters. In the right mind-set this could be amazing zoom-zoom-wow eye-candy. But perhaps the real deal-breaker is that I don’t find Emile Hirsch as hot as his 2-D counterpart.
But I am curious what you all think of it. If there are a lot of raves I may still go see it on the big screen, but will bring Excedrin, just in case.