‘Speed Racer’ hits a wall, drops to third at the box office

Warner Bros.’ “Speed Racer” downshifted to third place after initially being placed at second at the box office this past weekend.

While initial estimates had “Speed Racer” finishing second late Sunday, final numbers on Monday revealed that the film earned $18.6 million.

Based on the animated series of the 1970s, young Speed Racer (Nicholas Elia) idolized his older brother Rex Racer (Scott Porter). Young Speed was more focused on his brother’s racing career than he was his own schoolwork.

After Rex was supposedly killed in a race called The Crucible, an older Speed (Emile Hirsch) takes his place racing within the family business, run by parents Pops (John Goodman) and Mom (Susan Sarandon).

Speed also has an awesome childhood girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci) and mechanic friend Sparky (Kick Gurry)

Pops designed Speed’s car, the Mach 5, whose trunk is the usual hiding place for Speed’s younger brother Spritle (Paulie Litt) and Chim Chim the monkey.

The Racer family receives a visit from Mr. Royalton (Roger Allam) of Royalton Industries, who makes Speed a lucrative offer to race for him. Royalton does everything he can to entice Speed and his family to sign on with him.

Once Speed rejects the offer, Royalton does what he can to ensure that Speed will not win any more races.

“Speed Racer” is a multi-colored, three-dimensional entity that is fast-paced when it comes to the racing scenes. However, when it comes acting and dialogue, this film comes to a screeching halt.

The casting of this film is dead on. They definitely made an excellent choice with Goodman playing Pops and Ricci as Trixie.

What hurts this film is the uber-bright colors that are constantly on display, zigging and zagging across the big screen to the point where I’m surprised that seizures weren’t occurring.

Goodman and Ricci do their best with what’s around them, but I wasn’t sold on Hirsch being Speed. Sarandon doesn’t have enough to do in this film as well. Having Fox revealed as Racer X was a nice surprise towards the end, but not enough to sway this film.

I so wanted this film to have a bit of a feel of the animated series, but it comes across as hokey and too technicolored for my tastes. This is why “Speed Racer” finished third while “Iron Man” remains on top.

So as it comes across the finish line, it’s Goodman and Ricci that gives “Speed Racer” its two out of four stars.

“Speed Racer” is rated PG for sequences of action, some violence, language and brief smoking. Running time is 2 hours, 15 minutes.

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Dennis J. Wright can be reached at dwright@phoenixvillenews.com.