Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Speed Racer

I took Eli to see Speed Racer last week.

I've used Rotten Tomatoes for a while as a guide before I decide to go see a movie, and since Speed Racer had a 35% rating (horrible), I thought I was heading into two hours and twenty minutes of misery.

That's now what happened, though. Not at all.

We went to a high-definition theater, thank goodness, because Speed Racer is an explosion of color. It's impossible to overstate how visually extravagant this film is, but it's a live-action cartoon, essentially, and it works. It's trippy and silly and quite wonderful, really.

Would I have liked it less if I hadn't seen it with Eli 6.9? Probably, but I still think it's far better than it's been reviewed, and if you had any interest in Speed Racer at all as a kid, it's well worth going to see.

Oh, and here's one note if you have kids. The movie is remarkably harmless throughout, except for one scene lasting about a minute where a driver was being held hostage and interrogated. They punched him a few times, and his face was swollen in a way that was very graphic and very realistic. It was jarring, because the rest of the film had a very harmless, fun feeling, but this scene made me uncomfortable (for Eli). He didn't like it either, but fortunately, it was short, and the rest of the movie was just fine for someone his age.

Overall, we had a great time, and Eli even conned Gloria into taking him as well, so he's seen it twice.

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