Speed Racer The Movie
Despite the title, this disc is not a feature, but three episodes of the Japanese animated series that debuted in the U.S. in syndication in 1967. In "The Car Hater" (episode 26) a whip-wielding tycoon whose son was killed in an accident damns all autos as "rolling weapons"--until Speed teaches him the error of his ways. In the two-part "The Race Against the Mammoth Car" (episodes 7 and 8), Speed enters the No Limit World Race and finds himself competing with a vehicle "200 yards long." In addition to winning the race, he helps Officer Detective recapture the stolen gold hidden in the monster vehicle. The animation is extremely limited, the storytelling is rudimentary, and the dialogue sounds like it was taken from a 19th-century dime novel. ButSpeed Raceris a rare example of pre-anime Japanese animation. Speed and Trixie recall the characters from a Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning show, with rounder heads, broader chins, wider mouths, and smaller eyes than recent heroes and heroines. (Speed looks like a blue-eyed Tony Curtis.)Speed Racerretains a following among Gen Xers who grew up watching the show; for anime fans, it's little more than a curiosity. Containing cartoon violence, including numerous car crashes, this unrated video is appropriate only for children 6 and older.--Charles Solomon