After the whole family (siblings and their children) all took Mom out for Mother’s Day brunch HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO ALL! I decided to tag along and watch Speed Racer…. following a brief play-reading meeting. Going in, I had little expectation. I only vaguely remember seeing repeat episodes of the 60s Japanese animated import. I most remember the little brother and the chimp popping out of the trunk of the race car. And since this was another Wachowski brother production, I was expecting a visually dazzling display with little plot, or character development much like the Matrix trilogy of a few years ago.

Here we have the Racer family (Pops, Mom, Speed, his girl Trixie, little brother Spittle, mechanic Sparks, and cute chimp Chim-Chim). Speed is offered the opportunity to race for a huge racing team that is reknowned for dirty racing. In fact, those who do not take the opportunity usually end up regretting their decision. In order to reveal the racing cartel, Speed joins forces with the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox from Lost) and a Japanese racer (whose name I do not remember).

The stylized fighting with Ninjas is comical. Watching John Goodman twirl one above his head as if he were tossing pizza dough created a huge roar from the audience. The entire production design resembled a comic book come to life. The colors were all super exaggerated: the sky a bright, bright blue. The sets all appeared to be futuristic… especially the racetracks). The races were fun to watch with the gadget enhanced speedsters flipping, swerving, jumping over each other, etc. In short, it was a fun movie to LOOK at. One of the downsides of the movie is the length. It ran over 2 hours and 10 minutes which is just too long for a movie to run aimed at families and there was a lot of downtime that would probably be a distraction to younger children. But, if you are a fan of the computer generated wizardry of the Wachowski brothers then Speed Racer is fun to watch.

On a tangent, the Wachowski’s must know their Bond flicks. One of the racers is poisoned by a Ninja in a scene which is played identically to one in You Only Live Twice.

Oh wait, that was tonight.  Seriously.  We saw 10,000 B.C. (a new release, no less!) for $3 for 2 people!  It was a 5:00 movie at matinee price, plus bring a guest for free night = $3!  Add in our popcorn and pop, and we spent less than $10 for a new movie at the theater, with popcorn and a drink!  Can’t beat that!  If we didn’t live around the corner from the theater, we would have spent more on the gas to get there – more about gas prices in my next post, ugh.

We had heard that 10,000 B.C. was not a very good movie, but the other choices were Spiderwick Chronicles (which we really liked but have already seen) or Fool’s Gold, which I have no desire to see for some reason.  10,000 B.C. was exactly what the previews showed – an adventure movie set way way back into the past.  I don’t know how accurate it is, but the computer animation depicting early humans (though you forgot this fact given that many of them spoke perfect English) hunting wooly mammoths was pretty good, actually.  In the movie, they also used the mammoths as “work horses” to haul blocks to build pyramids, which I didn’t know, if this is indeed fact…  interesting theory.  Though they aren’t clear if these are the Great Pyramids of Egypt, which I think were actually started more likely around 3,000 B.C. or after…  but I’m no expert, this movie did get me thinking and wanted to research a bunch of stuff.  It was neat to see everything interacting together, the early humans and the dwellings they built, the animals, the environment – a great way to envision the past, but it did have me wondering how much is based on scientific fact, like I said.  I won’t go into the plot, mostly because I sheepishly admit that I couldn’t follow it.  I didn’t get my nap today, and I fell asleep during what were apparently a few pivotal scenes in the movie.  But, for $3, who cares?  And don’t think that the movie is boring either.  I have 3 kids and I’m pregnant, I get very tired and could probably fall asleep anywhere without that daily nap I’ve been so lucky to have most days.  And I did get to see The Dark Knight preview, which was pretty cool.  I’m not a big fan of the Batman movies – I’ve only seen 1 and 3, but this one looks really dark and creepy.  I think the whole Heath Ledger (R.I.P.) incident will sell tickets, but the previews might do a little ticket-selling themselves…  I can see why they say that role affected him in such a negative way – he looked really scary. 

So, if you like lots of fighting; epic battle movies set in the past, or are just an admirer of CGI animation, check out 10,000 B.C. – especially if you can find it for $1.50 / person!