Speed Racer (Blu-ray)

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Most of "Speed Racer" is remarkably silly, and other parts are almost indecipherable, but forget all that. It's the graphics and lights and crashes and bells and whistles and little else that count. What's more, there's the music. Even though I can't remember ever seeing the old TV show, I instantly recognized the "Speed Racer" theme song. Amazing, and kind of fun in itself.

Video:
Warner Bros. used a single-layer BD25 to hold the 135-minute movie, a tight squeeze, no doubt, what with extras and all. A VC-1, 1080p transfer finishes the job. The Wachowskis shot the movie digitally, using various types of digital cameras and, of course, they use a good deal of CGI animation, all of which shows up in eye-popping splendor in this 2.40:1 ratio widescreen picture. The colors are particularly bright and intense, maybe too bright and intense even for a cartoon movie like this one. Black levels are equally strong, setting off everything else a bit glaringly but appropriately. And definition and detailing are superb in high definition, with no sign of blur, fuzziness, halos, or artifacts that I noticed. In fact, the video is as extraordinarily unrealistic yet as perfectly polished as it could be. What's more, since it's a digital creation, something I don't usually fancy, it's as clean and clear as anything you're likely to view on your television screen.

Audio:
Maybe because Warner Bros. used only a 25-gigabyte disc for the movie and the extras, they didn't have room left over for a lossless audio track, so we get only regular Dolby Digital 5.1. Maybe because they think the movie appeals mainly to kids that these youngsters wouldn't care about lossless audio specs. Or maybe because they figured that the movie was not exactly a blockbuster hit, they didn't want to spend any more money on the Blu-ray than necessary. However, this last point seems contradicted by the fact that they offer the movie in a rather elaborate three-disc set. I would have thought that for PR reasons alone, the studio might have gone with a dual-layer BD50 and TrueHD sound. Oh, well....

We have what we have, and that's still plenty good. The best part of the DD 5.1 audio is its surround characteristics. Cars race around the room at full throttle and fireworks explode from literally all directions. By Dolby Digital standards, this is an excellent soundtrack. By lossless HD standards, though, I thought the overall sound was just a trifle bright and hard, and I rather missed the bass being as deep as I would have liked. Nevertheless, with good dynamics and pulse-pounding clarity, the sound fulfills its function in creating as much excitement as the visuals do in the film.

Extras:
The Blu-ray package comes with three discs, something of a novelty in itself. Disc one contains the feature film, along with three featurettes in standard definition. The first featurette is "Spritle in the Big Leagues," a fourteen-minute, behind-the-scenes tour of the movie set with actor Paulie Litt, who doesn't say much but lets screen inserts speak for him. The second featurette is "Speed Racer Supercharged," about fifteen minutes on the history of the cars and racetracks of the WRL. The third featurette is "Speed Racer: Kung-Fu Cinema," a twenty-seven-minute, behind-the-scenes look at the special moviemaking process, the preliminary sketches, the CGI, the models, the racetracks, the blue screens, etc.

In addition to the featurettes, disc one includes thirty scene selections; English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese spoken languages; French, Spanish, and Portuguese subtitles; and English captions for the hearing impaired.

Disc two contains a racing game, "Speed Racer Crucible Challenge." You choose the number of players, the player representing you, and the level of difficulty. Then you begin the road rally, raced over several different kinds of terrain. I found that without a joystick or wheel, the car you're driving is difficult to control with just the arrow keys and enter button, and the car is hardly responsive at all. Also, the keep case notes that the game "may not play on certain players." I don't know which players it won't play on; I guess you have to try it and find out. A few minutes in I got bored and gave up. I'm sure if you stick with it, you can master it. Now, here's the thing: If I were making these decisions, I would have used disc two for a number of the extras and freed up some space on disc one for a lossless audio track. But who am I to make decisions.

Disc three contains a standard-definition digital copy of the film, "Windows Media-compatible only. Not compatible with Apple macintosh and iPod devices." The three-disc Blu-ray slim-line case comes housed in a colorful slipcover.

Parting Shots:
"Speed Racer" seems to me a perfect movie for use with the "Next" button on your remote. It practically begs you to watch the racing sequences and skip over the stuff in between. In this regard, it's a low-octane version of "Grand Prix," where the competition was terrific but the connecting melodrama slowed everything down. So, if you just play the opening race, the Casa Cristo 5000, and the closing Grand Prix, you'll get a heck of a lot of enjoyment out of this exceptionally colorful high-definition movie.

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