"Speed Racer" stalls

With so many people starving in the world, it's a sin that $120 million was wasted bringing Speed Racer to the big screen.

    This week, Speed Racer faces a much greater challenge than just his formidable adversary, Royalton Industries, and the death-defying cross-country rally known as The Crucible. Speed Racer also goes up against a legacy of cartoon to live-action flops. And it stalls.
      Even the Wachowski Brothers, who brought us the Matrix trilogy, couldn't break the "little theater" curse. No kid's cartoon has made a successful transition to the big screen. Fat Albert, Underdog, Dudley Do-Right, Popeye and The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle were all flops.
      To its credit, Speed Racer's graphics (especially on digital screens) are exquisite and in small doses, for instance, watching them as you pass the HD plasmas at Best Buy, you might be awestruck. But the film is basically a two hour and fifteen minute romp through Mario Kart's Rainbow Road without the seizure warning (though maybe the film ought to have one with all the flashing colors and action). That may please younger audiences, but the over-12 crowd will find it exhausting and maybe even boring after half an hour.

     Skip Speed Racer and rent Pixar's Cars instead.

1 Honk