Movie review: Speed Racer

I may never have seen the cartoon it is based on, but I have seen the Speed Racer movie and it's a thrill ride! As a matter of fact, it does look like a cartoon for the most part, which is OK for a movie like this one. It is live action, but with a lot of CG. It holds very well on the Imax screen I saw it on. The type of races we see are way over the top and are fun to watch, with lots of action. The music is fun too, the story is interesting and the actors are good.

The movie is directed by the Wachowski brothers (Andy & Larry), of The Matrix fame. It stars Emile Hirsch as Speed, Matthew Fox as Racer X, John Goodman as Pops (Speed's father), Susan Sarandon as Mom and Christina Ricci as Trixie, Speed's girlfriend (we don't get to see her a lot, unfortunately, but it suits the story). There are actually a lot more interesting characters, but you can go to IMDB for those details...

If you are looking for a realistic car racing movie, go somewhere else. On the other hand, if you are looking for family friendly, special f/x heavy action, impossible racing moves and just plain silly fun, this is a good choice. It's over two hours (2:15), but it sure didn't feel like it.

Movie review: Iron Man

While it's not quite summer yet, the "summer movies blockbusters" season as started! Iron Man is sure to be a big hit and will be followed by not only sequels, but "spinoffs", in a way. It looks great (ILM being one of the special effects studio involved surely helped), has a great story, lots of action & humour, good acting and is fairly realistic. On that last point, I don't expect to see a real life Iron Man flying around anytime soon, but it could be possible with technology from the near future to create a suit with most of the features that Tony Stark engineered.

Of course, I expected action and I got that in this movie. There is also a good amount of humour, but it doesn't interfere with the story. No slapstick or one-liners with nothing to do with the scene. This movie will be used as a reference when judging other superheroes movies for sure.

Other movies are betting on Iron Man's success, as I saw many previews before the movie, some new, some newer versions.

If you usually don't stay until the very end of movies, I would suggest you do this time, as there is a scene after the end of the credits. I'm not going to spoil it here, so if you want to know what it's about, you will have to see it for yourself or get it from somewhere else on the net.

The movie star Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark / Iron Man), Jeff Bridges (Obadiah Stane / Iron Monger), Gwyneth Paltrow (Virginia "Pepper" Potts), Terrence Howard (Jim Rhodes), among others. It is directed by Jon Favreau, who gave himself a short role in the movie. Of course, there is a short cameo from Stan Lee...