I do, he didn't like it for the very same reason why I didn't: the effects just didn't work for me. The digital environment with the real actors superimposed completely broke the feel of the movie for me. I just couldn't take any of it seriously, and with no "weight" behind any of the scenes the movie loses all focus.
So many fans of the movie here at GAF talk on and on about how awesome the races were, how great the final scene was with Speed racing the ghost of his brother. For me (and Tom) it was hilariously stupid, it just didn't mean anything to us at all, and the reason is because the visuals simply were not believable to us. They took us out of the movie every moment of the film rather than drew us in.
I get the directors vision, I understand what they were going for, it just didn't work for me. Or for Tom. Or for a lot of other people who aren't members of GAF.
I've watched the blu ray three times now, I even bought it for $5, just trying to "get" what you all see in this. And it gets worse and worse for me every time, lol. The races in Cars have more drama and feeling to me than the races in Speed Racer. Hell, Cars is a far, far better movie IMHO.
See the problem is that you're trying to watch the movie with the idea that it's "realistic".
For me it works because it gives that feeling that they're in some bizarre anime world, which they totally do.
This definitely needs another sequel.
Jude Law or Gavin Rossdale or whoever the main character actor was had really good intense faces while in the races.
Emile Hirsch was the actor who played Speed, and for as much as I dislike the movie, one of the things I did love about it was him as Speed. He did a fantastic job, but then most of the cast was actually pretty great in the movie.
Jude Law or Gavin Rossdale or whoever the main character actor was had really good intense faces while in the races.
Yeah, David Beckham or Jared Leto or whatever did a good job for sure.
I don't understand the joke..
As much as I hate 3D, we need SPE3D RACER.
I saw this movie three times on the IMAX theater because i work in at a theater at the time. I showed it to like 5 of my friends the third time... they hated it... made me really sad cause it was just an epic movie. needless to say i'm no longer friends with them.i lied they are still my friends
They went in expecting more of a real life version of Speed Racer and got the "live action cartoon" thing that it is instead.
Here the vast majority seem to absolutely adore the movie like it's some second coming of modern film making brilliance
That's exactly what makes the film so great. Well, for a lot of people anyway.
Sounds like you're looking for things that aren't there. The film isn't brilliant, nor does it try to be. It's a 2-hour Speed Racer episode with live actors with trippy special effects. Nothingmore.
I know a number of people in real life who think the film is really good.
True story.
Everyone I've ever shown it to ended up really liking it. Some even admitted to still thinking about it days later and ended up buying it. I honestly feel sorry for people that it doesn't click with.
See, that's exactly what confused the fuck out of me. It's like posters on GAF live in a different reality than I do, because I've literally talked to dozens of people over the years about this movie, and not one of them liked it even a little bit.
Maybe it's just a Pennsylvania thing or something about the area I live in...
See, that's exactly what confuses the fuck out of me. It's like posters on GAF live in a different reality than I do, because I've literally talked to dozens of people over the years about this movie, and not one of them liked it even a little bit.
Maybe it's just a Pennsylvania thing or something about the area I live in...
Honestly, most people I've asked about it to just have never seen it and assumed it was bad because they've heard it was bad from other people who haven't seen it. Off hand I can only think of 2 people who had already seen it before I could show it to them which was my fiance (who loved it) and an ex-roomate/friend of mine (who didn't like it).See, that's exactly what confuses the fuck out of me. It's like posters on GAF live in a different reality than I do, because I've literally talked to dozens of people over the years about this movie, and not one of them liked it even a little bit.
Maybe it's just a Pennsylvania thing or something about the area I live in...
Beats me. I have a lot of friends that love it, but I have a few that hated it, too.
One guy I know who hates it is one of those types that takes everything very seriously, despite being a total nerd. Like, he got mad over the film 'The Dark Knight Rises' over some silly crap. He also hated the new 'ThunderCats' cartoon because it's not M-rated and on Adult Swim. He's the type who turns red in the face over the fridge scene in 'Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'.
Another guy I know loves that crap out of it, and enjoys other goofy shit like Godzilla and Ultraman and whatnot. He's not an idiot or anything, he's highly intelligent, he just has an appetite for tongue-in-cheek camp.
I guess it just depends on how you evaluate your entertainment or how serious you expect it to be. Anybody hoping for an edgier, down-to-Earth version of frickin' Speed Racer should have known what to expect, honestly.
So no, in my experience the problem isn't the movie isn't what people expected it to be, it's that it just seemed silly and utterly ridiculous to them.
And yet here, on NeoGAF, the exact opposite seems true. Here the vast majority seem to absolutely adore the movie like it's some second coming of modern film making brilliance. I've watched the movie probably half a dozen times, I even bought the blu ray for $5, just trying to understand what it is GAF sees in this film, and it just eludes me. I probably hate it more now than I did after seeing it in the theater, lol. I hate it more because it had such great potential, but let me down so hard and leaves me so disappointed after I watch it.
Yeah, I was going to type this. The short version of my wall of text above is that some people enjoy silly and ridiculous. I think when you get to the point of worrying about how realistic the car physics are in a movie where other racers literally throw beehives at other racers, you are probably no longer in that movie's intended audience.The movie is silly and ridiculous. Your friends are right.
Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, that's dependent on personal tastes.
So I encountered a blu ray of the movie. There's only a single version right - none of that special version and what not? Because it's on a sale and I wanna get it.
It bombed at the box office and I don't think the film warranted enough interest to have a special edition.
You should be safe.
So I encountered a blu ray of the movie. There's only a single version right - none of that special version and what not? Because it's on a sale and I wanna get it.
I think it's a great family film if not a little bloated with some FX overkill in certain sections. The Casa Whatever race is the worst section of the whole movie.
By contrast, Warner Bros. gave the Wachowski brothers final cut for its “Speed Racer” redo. The siblings brought the kid pic in at 2 hours and 15 minutes (studio execs would have preferred 90 minutes).
I have to LOL @ the 39% RT score though. Anything bellow 60, is just plain wrong. Easily a 70+ movie in my eyes.
Oh god it's being aired here.
...welp, time for me to plop it back again.
Also rather than making an RTTP I'd rather bump this thread again for reactions.
I still love the family aspects of this film. You just know there is "heart" in their stuff.