Saturday 18 May
 
 

The Last Stand

Early in The Last Stand, the small-town sheriff played by Arnold Schwarzenegger says, "It's my day off. Should be a quiet weekend." That's the new way of saying, "I've got one week to retirement," because it signals — with flashing neon and everything — that life is going to royally upend those plans.
05/17/2013 | Comments 0

Texas Chainsaw

One of the most inconsistent franchises in movie history is the one beget by Tobe Hooper's 1974 classic, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. How does one follow all those less-than-beloved sequels? Lionsgate's latest in the series — the seventh — has a solution: Ignore 'em.
05/17/2013 | Comments 0

Captain America: Collector’s Edition

Not long after Batman changed Hollywood in the summer of 1989, every studio wanted to have the next comics-based blockbuster. I remember visiting Penn Square Mall’s multiplex (as I did often back then) and seeing a poster for Captain America. The one-sheet was comprised of little more than a close-up of Cap’s iconic shield and a promise to arrive next summer.
05/16/2013 | Comments 0

Dark Circles

With the Broken Lizard comedy troupe becoming increasingly broken, member Paul Soter has branched off to write and direct something about as far away as one can get from the likes of Super Troopers and Beerfest: a horror film. Now that I've seen it, I'm thinking maybe he should stay on his own.
05/16/2013 | Comments 0

Die! Die! My Darling!

File 1965's Die! Die! My Darling! under that now-dead subgenre dubbed "Grande Dame Guignol." The Hammer Films production may lack the dueling duo of two twilight-era titans of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and the others, but truth be told, Tallulah Bankhead is fierce enough to provide all the fire it needs.
05/14/2013 | Comments 0
Home · Articles · Movies · Action · Speed Racer
Action

Speed Racer


Rod Lott May 12th, 2008

 

speedracer

Reviewer's grade: D+

I still remember the stretch of Interstate 44 I was driving on in 1995 when the news came over the radio waves that the animated classic "Speed Racer" was due to make the jump (cue the Mach-5 sound effect) to the movies, with Johnny Depp in the lead and Nicolas Cage as long-lost brother Racer X.

Oh, what might have been, because oh, the pileup that is the Wachowski brothers' vision. With an almost complete reliance on green-screen effects that make the film look like it took place in the Internet world of Second Life, the film stalls 10 minutes in.

I can understand why a young whippersnapper like up-and-comer Emile Hirsch signed on to a big-budget project like this, but can Susan Sarandon's electricity bill really be that high? Sure, it looks cool, but as your mother told you, looks aren't everything (even in this case). —Rod Lott   


 
  • Currently 3.5/5 Stars.
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