Speed Racer is a movie based on the popular 1960s Japanese anime series of the same name. The movie stars Emile Hirsch as Speed Racer whose older brother Rex (Scott Porter) died in a racing accident a decade ago.
The race cars in Speed Racer are beautiful like candies
The movie opens with flashback of Rex’s racing days mixes with Speed Racer’s attempt to beat Rex’s record at a race. After the flashback is over, it is learned that Rex is killed in an accident in The Crucible race many years ago. When Speed becomes popular despite having not won a Grand Prix just yet, Royalton (Roger Allam), the owner of Royalton Industries pays the Racer’s family a visit. Royalton makes Speed a lucrative offer. After considering, Speed pays Royalton a visit only to reject the offer, angering Royalton while he learns that Royalton has been cheating and fixing races all the while.
When he does not qualify for the Final Grand Prix after Royalton’s effort to him out of the races, Speed with his Mach 5 joins Racer X (Matthew Fox) and Taejo Togokhan (Rain) to enter The Crucible in order to expose the Royalton’s dirty business. Since his family does not support him to enter The Crucible as that’s very dangerous race where his brother is killed, Speed and his girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci) fool his dad by telling him they are going on a skiing holiday.
Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) and his supportive girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci)
As Pops Racer (John Goodman) and Mom Racer (Susan Sarandon) find out about Speed racing in The Crucible, they want him to leave the race but eventually show him their full support. When Speed wins The Crucible together with Racer X and Taejo, Taejo betrays them by not exposing Royalton’s secret.
Horuko (Yu Nan), Taejo’s sister comes to find Speed in order to give him a special access card which will allow him to gain a wild card entry into the Grand Prix race since her brother, Taejo is not interested in the race and she feels ashamed of his family’s wrongdoing.
In the end, Speed manages to win the Grand Prix with his new Mach 6 car and Royalton is exposed. Quite a happy ending and predictable plot but the movie is just awesome with the candy-like buildings, landscapes and cars. Speed Racer reminds me of colorful movie The Cat in the Hat but with a mixed of Hanna-Barbera’s popular animated series, Wacky Races with everybody trying to whack everyone’s else during the race. Maybe since Hanna-Barbera is absorbed into Warner Bros. in 2001, they incorporate Wacky Races into Speed Racer.
Overall, the movie is wonderful to watch as besides the never-seen-before stunning visual effects, it has its amusing moments especially with Paulie Litt as Spritle, Speed’s younger brother and his chimpanzee pet, Chim Chim.
Iron Man is a superhero movie based on the fictional Marvel Comics character Iron Man directed by Jon Favreau. The film stars Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man, Terrence Howard as Lt. Colonel James Rhodes, Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane a.k.a. Iron Monger and Gwyneth Paltrow as Tony Stark’s hot personal assistant, Pepper Potts.
Iron Man stars Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) as a billionaire industrialist whose core business is making weapons. While testing Stark Industries’ latest missile creation called "The Jericho" in Afghanistan, he is kidnapped by a ruthless Middle Eastern terrorist organization who called themselves "Ten Rings".
The film then goes back 36 hours earlier to show what happens before Stark’s journey in Afghanistan, which includes a one-night stand with a reporter named Christine Everhart (Leslie Bibb).
Back to the future, though critically injured and almost die, Stark is saved by Yinsen (Shaun Toub), a mysterious stranger who comes to his rescue. Miraculously, Yinsen is multilingual and knows many languages, from Arab to Urdu to Mongolian. Yinsen uses an electromagnet which keeps the shrapnel from piercing Stark’s heart.
As the terrorists of "Ten Rings" enters the cave Stark and Yinsen are hiding, they both surrender and Stark is forced to create "The Jericho" missile for them. As Yinsen persuades Stark to find a way out of there, Stark first creates a very technologically-advanced heart for himself before building the rest of Iron Man. When the leader of Ten Rings suspects Stark is not working on "The Jericho" missile, he almost kills Yinsen whose life is only spared as Stark undoubtedly tells the terrorist leader that he needs Yinsen as he is a good assistant. Stark manages to create the ultimate bulletproof suit of power armor, complete with pacemaker and flamethrowers and releases himself from his captor but Yinsen dies in the process while trying to help Stark to buy time.
However, since the Iron Man suit is the first creation, it fails after flying in midair and crashed onto a desert with the Iron Man suit fall apart into a thousand pieces only to have Lt. Colonel James Rhodes (Terrence Howard) to rescue Stark.
Now back at the States, his partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) and especially his personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is extremely happy to see him alive and kicking. When Potts insists to bring Stark to the hospital for checkup, all Stark wants is a Burger King’s Cheeseburger and to call for an immediate press conference. In the press conference, Stark requests all the reporters to sit down while he eats his cheeseburger. He immediately announces the shut down of Stark Industries weapon manufacturing to which his partner, Stane strongly disapproves.
Back at home, Stark builds a more advanced heart for himself and gets Potts to replace his "old" heart which he tells Potts to throw and burn it. Stark improves his armor and becomes the technologically advanced superhero Iron Man. After numerous testings, his advanced armor suit ends up in gold with red paint. Almost immediately, Stark puts in his latest Iron Man suit, flies to Gulmira, Afghanistan and kills the terrorists who at that point of time are kidnapping women and children and killing men.
The improved Iron Man in gold and red
Meanwhile, the Ten Rings terrorists manage to find pieces of armor left by Stark. The leader of Ten Rings, Raza (Faran Tahir) is seen meeting Stane in discussion of the remained of the armor suits found in the desert. Despite being the man who sells weapons to Ten Rings, Stane orders his men to finish off the remainders of the terrorists and left the place with the armor suit.
Back in United States, Stane gathers a group of scientists to build a more advanced Iron Man called Iron Monger. The only thing missing is the way too technological-advanced heart that Stark has built for himself. So, Stane uses a disapproved highly-advanced sound wave weapon to temporarily immobilize Stark in order to grab his heart.
Stark is lucky as his assistant, Potts has kept his "old" heart in a properly framed glass which simply says “Stark has a heart”. He struggles to reach the framed glass but his robotic assistant lends him a hand.
The fight between Iron Man and Iron Monger then pursues but not for long before the film ends with Tony Stark at a press conference revealing himself as the Iron Man.
Overall, the movie is awesome and is possibly the best-ever film adapted from a comic book. Funny, smart and properly plotted, this is probably the best movie so far for the 2008 movies.
My ratings: 8 out of 10.
P/S: Do look out for Stan Lee’s cameo appearance in the movie.
An accountant Jonathan (Ewan McGregor) is introduced to a mysterious sex club known as The List by his lawyer friend Wyatt (Hugh Jackman). But in this new world, he soon becomes the prime suspect in a woman’s disappearance and a multi-million dollar heist.
