oh my god, was that a ninja?
Ok, I'm going to opine about Speed Racer.
There's a quality that I like in a movie, such that if the movie has a few shortcomings (awkward dialogue, a weak plot, etc.), I'll happily overlook them. That quality is enthusiasm, or a sense that the director is making a movie he's wanted to make since he was a teenager. There's an attention to detail, a lovingness, in a movie like that, that you don't see as much in other movies because the director hasn't had decades to mine those ideas for potential. The Fifth Element is the example I always point to when I talk about this. Speed Racer is like that, too. The sheer "wouldn't-it-be-awesome-if" factor makes it worth seeing, and the basics of plot and character development and all that aren't shabby, on top of it.
Moreover, it's technically and stylistically unique. It's extremely frenetic and colorful and whimsical and cartoony, it has plenty of genuine moments, and there's a part at the end of a big race where everything crescendos and cadences and it's like resolving a big chord on a pipe organ. Bonus points. Also it's well cast. The characters are likable and any stiff dialogue is smoothed over by competent delivery (more Empire Strikes Back, less Phantom Menace). In a movie that was almost G-rated and that's obviously targeted towards kids, there was potential for the comic elements to be grating to older audiences, but there wasn't too much of that. So, it's worth seeing.
It's certainly worth more than a measly 30-something percent on Rotten Tomatoes. I can only assume that the Wachowskis have become critical anti-darlings, in a vein similar (in my view, anyway) to M. Night Shyamalan: They make interesting and slightly experimental movies and get called to the carpet if their work is anything less than a Matrix or a Sixth Sense.
There's a quality that I like in a movie, such that if the movie has a few shortcomings (awkward dialogue, a weak plot, etc.), I'll happily overlook them. That quality is enthusiasm, or a sense that the director is making a movie he's wanted to make since he was a teenager. There's an attention to detail, a lovingness, in a movie like that, that you don't see as much in other movies because the director hasn't had decades to mine those ideas for potential. The Fifth Element is the example I always point to when I talk about this. Speed Racer is like that, too. The sheer "wouldn't-it-be-awesome-if" factor makes it worth seeing, and the basics of plot and character development and all that aren't shabby, on top of it.
Moreover, it's technically and stylistically unique. It's extremely frenetic and colorful and whimsical and cartoony, it has plenty of genuine moments, and there's a part at the end of a big race where everything crescendos and cadences and it's like resolving a big chord on a pipe organ. Bonus points. Also it's well cast. The characters are likable and any stiff dialogue is smoothed over by competent delivery (more Empire Strikes Back, less Phantom Menace). In a movie that was almost G-rated and that's obviously targeted towards kids, there was potential for the comic elements to be grating to older audiences, but there wasn't too much of that. So, it's worth seeing.
It's certainly worth more than a measly 30-something percent on Rotten Tomatoes. I can only assume that the Wachowskis have become critical anti-darlings, in a vein similar (in my view, anyway) to M. Night Shyamalan: They make interesting and slightly experimental movies and get called to the carpet if their work is anything less than a Matrix or a Sixth Sense.