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Speed Racer
Speed Racer is a young and brilliant racing driver. When corruption in the racing leagues costs his brother his life, Speed must team up with the police and the mysterious Racer X to bring an end to the corruption and criminal activities.
2008 · Directed by Lana Wachowski · 135 min · Family · Action · Adventure · Comedy · Screenplay in the scene database · 20 frames
Tagline
Go!
Plot
Speed Racer is a young man passionate about automobile racing. His parents, Pops and Mom, run Racer Motors, which involves his brother Spritle, their pet chimpanzee Chim Chim, mechanic Sparky, and his girlfriend Trixie. He also idolizes his late older brother Rex, who was killed racing in the Casa Cristo 5000, a deadly cross-country rally. Now starting his own career, Speed is rapidly gaining fame with his brother's Mach 5 and his own T-180 car, the Mach 6, while focusing on racing and family. One day, E.P. Arnold Royalton, CEO of Royalton Industries, offers Speed a luxurious lifestyle in exchange for racing with him; Speed declines due to his father's distrust of corporations.
Angered, Royalton reveals that key races have been fixed by corporate interests, including himself. As a show of power, Royalton has one of his drivers crash Speed's Mach 6 during a race, and also has Racer Motors sued for intellectual property infringement. Speed can retaliate through Inspector Detector, head of a corporate crimes division, since fellow racer Taejo Togokahn has evidence to indict Royalton but will only share it if Speed and the masked Racer X race for his team in the forthcoming Casa Cristo 5000, which could raise his family's racing business stock and block a Royalton buyout. Speed accepts but keeps it secret from his family, and Detector's team makes defensive modifications to the Mach 5 for the race.
After driving together and working as a team, Speed begins to suspect that Racer X is Rex in disguise. His family discovers that he has entered the race and agrees to support him. With Trixie and his family aiding him, Speed defeats many brutal racers bribed by fixer Cruncher Block and overcomes obstacles to win the race, while Detector's team arrests Block. However, Taejo's plan is revealed to be a sham, as his true intention was to boost his family's company to secure a higher price for Royalton's buyout.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: Lilly Wachowski, Lana Wachowski
- Cinematography: David Tattersall
- Edited by: Roger Barton, Zach Staenberg
- Music: Michael Giacchino
- Production design: Owen Paterson
- Produced by: Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski, Grant Hill, Joel Silver
Cast
- Emile Hirsch as Speed
- Christina Ricci as Trixie
- John Goodman as Pops
- Susan Sarandon as Mom
- Matthew Fox as Racer X
- Roger Allam as Royalton
- Paulie Litt as Spritle
- Benno Fürmann as Inspector Detector
- Hiroyuki Sanada as Mr. Musha
- Rain as Taejo Togokahn
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English, Japanese
- Studios: Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, Silver Pictures, Anarchos Productions
- Budget: $120,000,000
- Box office: $93,900,000
- Themes: car race, loss of loved one, chimpanzee, family, duringcreditsstinger, woman director, live action remake, based on tv series, absurd, whimsical
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