2 posts tagged “matrix”
I never got into the Speed Racer cartoon. I've seen a few episodes over the years but I never liked it. I hated the animation. I hated the voice acting and I found the stories to be incomprehensible. The movie is much better.
After the second and third Matrix films I'm sure that I wasn't the only one questioning the Wachowski's abilities. Speed Racer is not only certainly a Wachowski film it is also much better than the Matrix sequels.
If you are someone who is prone to seizures, don't see this movie. It is totally unreal looking in the best way possible. At first it actually takes a bit to get used to it because it almost looks like everything is moving at a million miles and hour and covered in neon and leds. Visually the film is just stunning. It is amazing. It is as if an entire film had been made on the set of the interior of the chocolate factory from Burton's Willy Wonka movie.
The plot is pretty good as far as action films go. The acting is pretty good. Christina Ricci is pretty but is so skinny it is scary. Seeing her head on that tiny neck I couldn't help but think that someone was going to pop it off like the head of a dandelion. One of the odd things is that apparently her character, Speed Racer's girlfriend, lives with him and his parents. A live in girlfriend? Weird.
She also brings up one of the problems with the film. While she does get in a fight and drive for a while, she and all of the women are basically just visual ornamentation. There are attractive women everywhere in this film but all they do is stand there and look pretty with only a couple exceptions. Ricci fights and drives, mom consoles, a driver's sister gives Speed Racer some help but mainly they just stand there and look pretty.
three thumbs up
a visual feast
lots of great special effects
not too feminist...
Basically, Nicolas Cage can tell the future. But he can only tell his own future and only for two minutes. Government agents (led by Julianne Moore) are trying to track him down in the hopes of using his skills to protect the country but he uses his talents to evade them.
This part of the film really felt like a tv pilot. And I think it could make for an entertaining series in the vein of the Fugitive and a million other shows. Guy travels across country using his abilities to help people while staying one step ahead of the government agent who wants to arrest him.
There are all of these cute scenes where you think that Cage is caught, but no! It is just his ability to see the future and then we flash to the beginning of the scene where he goes left instead of right and escapes. There's also a pretty cool scene where Cage, who has been using his ability to gamble at a casino, is on the run from casino security and is able to always stay one step ahead even though they are being guided by people watching him on surveillance cameras. Towards the end there's also a neat scene where we see him branching off and seemingly making copies of himself as he explores all the possible futures in the attempt to find someone. When he does find the guy he goes all Matrix on him and dodges all the bullets and the punches. That part is all pretty fun.
The actual story though, not so much. It is obvious that by casting Cage as yet another guy in Vegas and Moore as a government agent, they are trying to capture some mojo from other roles that the actors have played. And they need all the help they can get because the story is lame and corny. See, although Cage can only see 2 minutes into the future, for some reason he has been getting flashes of meeting his dream woman at a restaurant at a certain time but he doesn't know what date or even if it is am or pm. So he goes there twice at day every day trying to meet her.
Simultaneously, some evil Russians (or other non-descript Easter Europeans) have stolen a bomb. Instead of, you know, trying to find them, Moore's character thinks that Cage's ability can be used to tell when the bomb will go off. If that isn't improbable enough, the Russians also want Cage because they don't know why the government wants him but if they want him then the Russians want him too. So instead of trying to set off the bomb or anything, the terrorists are also trying to find Cage.
At just that same time frame guess what? Cage's dream woman shows up (and she's Jessica Biel). Cage and Biel take off across country and hijinks ensue with Moore trying to convince Biel that Cage is crazy and Cage trying to evade the government and the Russians. So we get to see the born in 1982 Biel have sex (woot!) with the born in 64 Cage (ewww). Biel get kidnapped by the Russians, Cage work with the government to get her back and so on.
At the end there is a twist. I actually kind of liked the twist about the seeing the future stuff. However, what I didn't like was what happened after the twist which was basically the credits. This again left the TV pilot taste in my mouth because it left the job unfinished in such a way that it could be the next episode of a tv show but not very well the sequel to a film. That open and unsatisfying ending is what really hurt the film for me because even with all the improbable aspects I was willing to go with it up until then.
three thumbs up
Biel sure is pretty
Her with Cage is real creepy
He should have seen that
