I’m a straight dude and I had a crush on him. He’s, by far, the coolest character in the movie.
Just have a crush on Christina Ricci. Works just fine for me (but then, I’m a dude, so YMMV). I was in love with her from the moment she punched some snotty girl in the nose for calling Speed a retard. 
He’s not in it a whole bunch but when he’s not in form-fitting leather, he’s in a tux. Scorching hot either way.
Well, there you have it… only 20m at the box office confirms that Speed racer is a flat out flop. It’s a damn shame, but I know in my heart that this movie will find a long life on DVD, and in the hearts of every kid that saw it. This generations Tron? Time will tell.
Speed Racer was definitely hurt by the 50 mil that Ironman brought in. I don’t know anyone who thought that Ironman was gonna have that big a second weekend.
Interestingly enough, Metacritic has this film at a 37 out of 100 from the critics but at an 8 out of 10 from the paying public - that’s a pretty big discrepancy that seems to have been borne out so far by the reviews in this thread.
I was offered a chance to attend a free screening of Speed Racer last week but I ended up not going, then wished I had. Today I got a voice mail from the guy who invited me, saying he was so glad I didn’t show up because it was the worst movie he had ever seen (he works in the film business) and had I shown up he would have been soooo mortified that he would have been responsible for my being subjected to it.
Not that we always agree on movies, but wow.
It might suck when (if) you see it on DVD and see how spectacular-looking it is and think, ‘damn, I could have seen that on film, on the big screen, for free’. As a movie, no, it’s not a great movie (IMO) but it’s fun (if you’re in the right mindset to accept it for what it is, a live-action cartoon), but most of all, it breaks new ground visually. It’s like Tron in a way. I’ve never heard Tron accused of being a really good movie, but visually it broke new ground and damn if I don’t wish I had seen it on the big screen. To this day I haven’t seen it because, well, what’s the point? But I do wish I’d seen it when it first came out. And from what I understand about Tron, Speed Racer is a lot more fun than Tron, so there’s that too.
As TheBoltEater points out, lots of people in this thread are contradicting your friend and the critics. Working in “the film business” is no indication that he’s any better at predicting what someone will or won’t like/appreciate/be blown away by any more than critics (especially if he’s going to say something as stupid as SP being the “worst movie” he’s ever seen. I mean really, that’s hyperbole of the worst kind unless he has ONLY ever seen high-quality art/Oscar films, which I doubt). You had a chance to make up your own mind AND witness cinematic history, and you passed. Ah well.
So how was Trixie?
I got a headache just from the trailer. My boys, ages 11 and 8, thought it looked stoopid. Doubt I’ll ever see it, although the reviews in this thread do tip me a little in the direction of catching it on the big screen.
Trixie’s very cool. I want to be Trixie in my next life. She’s smart, looks great, flies a helicopter, races cars and gets to kiss Emile Hirsch. Damn.
Unless your boys are suffering from an early case of jaded cynicism, which would be sad indeed because it’s coming about 5-8 years too early, they’ll love it no matter what they think prior to seeing it. Take them. Seriously. They’ll thank you.
Actually it didn’t even get to $20 million - the studio estimates were wrong. They’re now saying it grossed $18.6 million, and made less than “What Happens in Vegas.”
So…Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 35%, but the Community gave it a 78% (which seems more inline with my opinion) are they often that far apart?
I’m sad. I liked it and figure it should have done better than it’s doing.
I’m shocked, SHOCKED, there’s gambling going on here.
I decided to go see it just for the hell of it. I never really liked the original cartoon (it was slightly before my time), so I figured it couldn’t really be worse. It was awesome! It’s not a movie for everyone, certainly - there’s lots of candy color and ridiculously fast action, and if you’re prone to headaches from that sort of thing you should definitely stay away. But if you just want some visual junk food, Speed Racer is damn tasty.
Ha. Studio accounting is notoriously fishy, but in my limited experience, you rarely see revisions of that size to the Sunday box office estimates.
I watched it in IMAX Tuesday and absolutely loved it. In fact, I’m putting it in my all time Top 10 list. I loved everything about it. The races were awesome, there was kung-fu action (including John Goodman kung-fu, which is something I never thought I would see), a chimp, Christina Ricci in a low-cut dress…what more could you ask for. I’m glad I was able to see it in IMAX, because it was like being in the movie. That cross-country race where Speed, Racer X, and Taejo were all racing for the same team was my favorite part. It’s a shame this movie is bombing. I would love to see more movies like this made.
I’m seeing enough people bucking the early reviews that I hope word of mouth gives it some legs.
I liked it. A lot.
Count me in with the “loved it” camp. The “real husband to be” and I just bought tickets to see it in IMAX tomorrow. I’m already buzzed about the thought of seeing it again on the VERY BIG screen.
JOhn.
Easily the best carbon-based part of the movie. Christina Ricci seems to be the only one, besides the chimp, who gets what kind of movie she’s in. Maybe the W’s were going for a sense of humanization with the casting of Sarandon and Goodman as the parents, but that’s the movie’s greatest flaw. The should’ve been played by CGI Jayne Mansfield and, I don’t know, maybe Johnny Depp doing his best aging Ken Doll impersonation. In my memory of the movie, Sarandon and Goodman are always in shadow while everything around them is brightly lit. This is not the actual case, but my memory illustrates, I think, the effect their performances had of sucking the light and life out of whatever scene they were in. Not of course that they’re bad actors; only that they were miscast, and they misplayed the roles. Christina nails it however, and is alone worth the ticket price.
Spoilers ahead people.
This post is for people who are on the fence and are wondering if it is worth seeing. I’ll mention some of the things I liked about different aspects of the movie.
This movie was great. It was not a great movie but a great fun time. If you want to just kick back and have a fun rip-roaring good time for a couple of hours this movie will do that.
I love this movie. I just saw it with my 5 yr old nephew and I loved it more than he did and he is totally into cars like my brother, and I am not. To me cars are just tools to get me where I want to go.
First off they did a really good job with Speed as a character. When Emile had on the Speed outfit he fit perfectly. This movie really had me and the theater rooting for Speed especially towards the end in the big race. I know I wasn’t the only one whispering, “Go Speed Racer Go.”
I love the color. The bright cheerful colours were heavenly. Seriously if there is a heaven I want it to be bright and cheerily colorful like in this movie, seriously. Color weighs in big for me. Finding Nemo is in my top 5 mostly because of the color and the turtles.
I love the story. It stays true to the cartoon and I didn’t really like the cartoon. I saw it just enough to get a jist of what was going on. I didn’t find out Racer X was Speeds brother until my later teens long after the cartoon had gone off the air. They give you just enough story to figure out whats going on and then its back to the cars and racing. I am glad they did tell us at the very end that Racer X and actually is Speeds brother. That is about the only thing I wanted out of this movie and it gave me that and so much more.
I love the visuals. Damn they were so cool. Just everything was such a cool view of the future/ alternate reality. The W brothers did a fine fine job on the cities and landscapes and especially the tracks. As another poster mentioned the tracks are Hot Wheels on steriods/acid. Wow they were so cool. When we first saw the track in Fiji I actually let out an audible “cool” and this kid a row down and several seats away said, “yeah” and then several people around us giggled.
I love the humour. Most of the laughs came from the adults and most of the adults were guys who took their kids. The snake guys car that launches snakes at other drivers was brilliant. The vikings dudes were just cool. The fight between the chicks tire damager thing and Speeds tire shield thing had the theater laughing. Sprittle saying he was going to send that Royalton guy some “Chim-Chim cookies” was great.
The Ninja/Nonja scenes were so cool.
Pops, “Ninja? more like a nonja.” That line had the theater all-a-gigglin.
First you had Matty Fox fighting the nonja with lots of hot sexy Matty upper torso exposure and flexy muscles. When Sprittle and Chim-Chim go all anime style on that one nonja had the theater and I laughing. Then when Pops, John Goodman was a good Pops, grabs the nonja and we see his wrestling ring and then look on the nonja’s face was priceless and then Pops lays the smack down.
Overall I love this movie. I’d give it a solid 9 out of 10 for the fun and cool movie it was. I will be seeing it at least one more time on the big screen and I will definitely be buying the special edition when it comes out on DVD.