Speed Racer's Box Office Flop Explained

This movie is pure crap.

Too many bright colors??? Yeah.

Wrong marketing??? Yup!

A kids movie???? More or less, or for the kid at heart . . . .

The movie sux???? ahmmm, not really. . . . .

When you say that the cartoon that the movie was based on was crappy you probably were referring to the 70's version fortunately I had the privilaged to watch the 90's version and was hooked to the
television every afternoon to watch it. So with this fond memory I looked forward to watching the movie version. At first I didn't know what to expect from the movie, how can they take the speed racer concept and bring it to real life or better yet bring it to life? Of course the end result was not realistic but it worked, they kept the movie as closed to the original cartoon and then some. Some of my fondest memoriest of the cartoon version was that in every race their would be a battle. An enemy vehicle will usually sport a weapon or two, while speed racer only had defensive gadgets installed in his car. Of course the thrill came from not knowing how would speed defeat an opponent whose car is launching homing missiles and laser beams. But of course speed always prevails with his driving skills. The races in the movie were too fast, yes, but now after playing countless racing games like the Need for Speed series, it really is not that fast, and the car combat, and I mean CAR COMBAT, not that they will be launching projectiles left and right to each other but making their vehicle jump, spin, drift, and sommersault to bash each others car in hopes of launching them out of the track was just a real pleasure to watch.

the color was too bright,it hurts my eyes!! talk about crappy movie,i even saw people leaving the cinema after watching 15 minutes of this horrendous garbage called "speed racer"!!

ps: my frens & I left after the 1st race.we decided it was way too much for us!This movie sux big time!!

I think there are a lot of people who wanted the movie to be good, but were so disenchanted by it they didn't bother to see it. That feeling seems to happen more than not lately.

My daughter had a birthday recently and we had a party for her at a movie theater. We could have chosen Speed Racer, but instead we opted to bring in a DVD of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Cat in the Hat was even on the short list while Speed Racer was never even in consideration simply because the ads for it made it look like some hyper, violent, extra loud movie. Maybe it was good, but I agree, the marketing for the movie was what killed it even before it had a chance.

I agree that marketing was not well played. And yes, it didn't seem to be advertised as a children's film too much. However, I really don't see how anyone could watch any of the trailers and see it as anything but. Citing the older cartoon series should only cement that impression.

That would be like analyzing Tim Burton's Willy Wonka remake and stating that nobody really knew whether it was supposed to be a children's movie, especially given Burton's history of dark films. Except people had a clue.

I also think stating the AICN website as some kind of 'test center' cornerstone is presumptuous, and also very much 'out of date'. I don't know that many people who see the site as anything more than a load of noisy sheep who are only interested in voicing hipshot opinions. I don't think you did your analysis any facors by including that comment, Josh.

I think using the term 'crappy' to describe the film is abit shallow and condemning, especially if you're going to rate it as a kid's film, in accordance to what kids like. As for the older series, I don't recall many franchises from that era of the 60s that aren't going to look incredibly dated and tacky. So, again, a poor reference, really.

On the other hand, the Transformers movie was somewhat 'crappy', too, so maybe there's truth in the theory. The lesson being, don't appeal to an audience that's older than their 30's, for an aged children's show. All of Speed's audience would be in their 40's or 50's.

My only problem with "Speed Racer" was that if it was for kids, it was too long.

Critics are part of the reason "Speed Racer" failed because people don't want to spend money on a movie that isn't good. The biggest problem was that the critics love to write long reviews and negative reviews can use all of their nasty vocabulary than their stunted knowledge of a good vocabulary. Also they are like sheep...one noted critic leads all the other critics' reviews as they are afraid not to follow along, and sound like they don't know what they are talking about.

Also we are so used to seeing so much filthy material on TV and in films that when we see something that is old fashioned just good fun filming we don't know how to just "kick-back" and enjoy it without analyzing it to death, and trying to find out why it should be seen, or why oh why it has failed to be a success.

A lot of people I know have quit going to movies because of the material that is shown. The movie industry is not doing so well in the US and why they don't wise-up that people don't like the material that is shown is a mystery.

Absolutely correct regarding the wacky marketing...being 'all things' rarely works in any walk of life.

But that's certainly not to say that this movie is bad. In fact, any adult fan of film as an "art form" (or any of us with a living, breathing kid still inside) will find this movie vivid and exhilerating beyond belief.

I knew what I was getting into 45 seconds into 'Speed Racer', and the smile on my face didn't leave for 2 hours and 15 minutes.

I agree that the marketing screwed up. However, the entire concept of the movies was screwed up and the execution was even worse. To start with, either make it a cartoon or make it real life. The integration of the two was horrendous. The car racing scenes were terrible from the standpoint of too much faked action that moved way too fast, too hard to track what was really going on. It was well over the top in glitzy cartoon graphics. I was hoping for a real life version of speed racer more than a cartoon. All in all, a stupid movie that had nothing for adults or kids. It needed much more clever writing, less glitz, less cartoon, and more realistic type of action. Matrix 3 was the downfall and this was the result. Oh well, maybe they will get the Hulk right the second time also.

Josh,
You hit the nail on the head. Making a movie about a crappy cartoon will only yield a crappy movie. I remember the cartoon and even as a kid I thought this was nonsensical garbage I think what possessed the Wachowskis to undertake such a project was nothing but pure ego. Opinions aside they cleaned up on the matrix franchise (Star Wars of the modern day) and I suspect they decided that they could take the Speed Racer cartoon and turn it from a proverbial lump of coal into a diamond…