Re: And, In Conclusion -- Speed Racer

On Sat, 10 May 2008 01:38:51 -0500, Pete Holland Jr. wrote:

[lots of stuff that is true, but...]

Now, what I took away from it is simple: anime isn't high art (or High
Art, or Art, or Whatever) and neither is Speed Racer.  The movie promises
a Technicolor blur of cheeze based on 1970s cheeze.  If a movie can be
judged "good" if it delivers what it promises then Speed Racer is a good
movie.

As for the Ninjas, well, any story is made better when Our Hero gets to
beat up Nazis or Ninjas.  Nazis are, in my estimation, the better value
for getting-beat-up but they were in Japan so they got Ninjas.  If they
were in Germany then they'd have gotten Nazis instead.

I am sensitive to bad cinematography.  Bad in the sense of the second and
third Bourne movies.  Sensitive in the sense of running to the Gents' to
puke up whatever I've recently eaten.  Interestingly, the camera work in
Speed Racer didn't do that to me.  Not a bit.  It is very swoopy but it is
a smooth, Tim Burton swoopy rather than a jerky, Cloverfield-style swoopy.

In the end, if you want to see a Dark and Meaningfull(tm) "reimagining" of
a classic cartoon then you're going to be sadly disappointed by Speed
Racer.  If you want to see Roller Derby on crack by way of the Wip3out
franchise interspersed with some bits of story to glue it all together
then Speed Racer delivers.