Speed Racer [Blu-ray]

Product Details

• Released on: 2008-09-16
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Formats: Color, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 3
• Running time: 135 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
An over-the-top, sensory overload experience determined to replicate its frantic, television-anime origins, Speed Racer is wild enough to induce a headache or wow a viewer with one dazzling effect after another. Adapted for the big screen as a live-action feature, Speed Racer is written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, the sibling team behind the intensely satisfying The Matrix and its busier, less interesting sequels. Where the rich mythmaking of The Matrix was entirely accessible, however, Speed Racer's overwhelming and gratuitously complicated story exposition is an enormous challenge to follow, let alone embrace. After a while, one simply surrenders to the unbroken din of dialogue concerning corporate chicanery, corruption in the sport of racing, and a value conflict between racing as a family business versus multinational cash cow. At the same time, the film's hyper-real equivalent of the old Speed Racer cartoon's great whoosh of color, motion, and edgy production design--such as inventive uses of scene-changing wipes, bold framing, shifting perspectives--are more overbearing than fun.

Emile Hirsch plays Speed Racer, younger brother of a deceased racing legend, Rex, and son of car designer Pops (John Goodman). The latter invented Speed's Mach 5, and is singularly unimpressed by an offer from a giant conglomerate that would lock Speed into exclusive racing services. Speed opts instead for family loyalty, incurring the wrath of the conglomerate's unctuous head (Roger Allam). With family honor on the line and the affections of girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci) behind him, Speed hits the track in hopes of fulfilling his destiny as a master racer. The cast is largely enjoyable, including Susan Sarandon as Speed's mom, Matthew Fox as mysterious Racer X, and a pair of chimps as the irrepressible Chim-Chim. All well and good, but in a movie that lives or dies by the excitement level of races that look like computer-animated Hot Wheels action, Speed Racer is a dreary adventure. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Good, could have been better
I thought the second half of this movie was just great. Fun and loads of action. I loved John Goodman in this film. He pulls the character off perfectly. He's really the shining light in the film.

The first half of the movie bored me to tears. They WAY over complicated the story. I felt like I was in a college lecture class at times. Way too much talking that just seemed to go on and on. I don't care about the history of blah blah blah. This is Speed Racer. The main character's name is Speed. And he races. Why over complicate that?

That aside, I loved the races, I loved Racer X, and I really want a Speed Racer jacket.

Groundbreaking, eyefilling entertainment with a heart
Woefully underrated and misunderstood by many, but a film for folks of all ages who have the background to get it. Works as both an apotheosis of the original and as a story where "it's what's under the hood that counts". Chris Pandolfi's detailed featured review is spot-on. As per the movie's closing koan: "Go Speed Racer. Go Speed Racer. Go Speed Racer - Go!"

Excellent, exciting family movie
I refused to take my kids (ages 9 and 11) to this movie when it was in the theater due to the negative reviews. What a mistake! We got this movie yesterday and have watched it twice. My daughter loves it as much as my son. It is an exciting and visually enticing movie. It has a strong story line emphasizing family ties and following your dreams. I really hope they make a sequel.

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The Forbidden Kingdom (2-Disc Special Edition) [Blu-ray]

Product Description

Individually, they've starred in the most adrenaline-pumping martial-arts adventures ever. Together for the first time, Jet Li and Jackie Chan join forces to create the greates epic of them all- THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM. As ancient Chinese warriors, they must train and mentor a 21st century kung-fu fanatic who's been summoned to fight a centuries-old battle and free the imprisoned Monkey King. If you're a fighting fan, the wait is over. The team is ready. The Kingdom has arrived.

Product Details

• Released on: 2008-09-09
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 104 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Getting martial-arts superstars Jet Li and Jackie Chan together in the same action film is like a fantasy come true, even if The Forbidden Kingdom is more of a children's movie than an instant kung-fu classic. Yes, Li and Chan square off in a lengthy, acrobatic fight scene that is a lot of fun, though it can't be what such a scene might have been even a decade ago: careful editing now compensates for the 54-year-old Chan's slower moves and reflexes. Still, Chan doesn't disappoint as Lu Yan, a drunken immortal in ancient China who mentors a modern-day American kid, Jason (Michael Angarano), the latter having slipped into the past while in possession of a magical staff that belongs to the imprisoned Monkey King (Li). In order to get back to his own time and help an old friend (also Chan) wounded by thugs, Jason accompanies Lu Yan and a lovely warrior, Golden Sparrow (Liu Yifei), on a journey to return the staff. Along the way, a (mostly) silent monk (Li, again), who has spent his life in search of the staff, joins their mission. He helps Lu Yan train Jason in fighting and adding more muscle to the party as it comes under siege from a violent witch (Li Bing Bing) and pathological warlord (Collin Chou). Screenwriter John Fusco (Hidalgo) and director Rob Minkoff (The Haunted Mansion) have made a slightly chintzy, Western version of a Chinese swords-and-sorcery tale. The gravity-defying, flying-through-the-air-while-fighting choreography looks pretty choppy and graceless compared to, say, the martial arts films of Zhang Yimou. But The Forbidden Kingdom is really aimed at kids, not aficionados of epic fight movies. On that score, the movie aims to please and does so for the right audience. -- Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Homage to Kung Fu films of yesterday
Growing up watching Shaw Brother films, cartoons and stories told of the monkey king, drunken kung fu, tiger claw, bride with white hair, and so forth. This film does a nice job of westernizing and paying homage to these type of films. The action was non-stop. Good chemistry among Jackie and Jet. Michael Angarano know to me as Elliot on Wil and Grace did a superb job. Pretty girl Sparrow (I never saw her in any films before) you know she's an upcoming actress. Did I mention Woo Ping choreographed too?

DVD wise -- colorful characters, colors are vivid. Nice special features.

WORST MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN
I COULDN'T BELIEVE SOMEONE ACTUALLY WROTE, DIRECTED, OR EVEN ACTED IN THIS MOVIE!!! THIS MOVIE SHOULD HAVE GONE STRAIGHT TO DVD AND TO WALMART'S 99 CENT RACK!!! There was one good fight scene, I'll give it that much but the dialogue completely killed. How can you have a movie with Jackie Chan and Jet Li doing all the talking? Better have the captions on. I rented this movie and suffered through the whole thing hoping till the bitter end that the movie somehow redeems itself. PAINFUL WATCH, SPARE YOURSELF!!!

What an awful movie
I was tempted to leave the theatre 1/4 into this movie, until I realized I was at home already....So then, I was tempted to turn this movie off and go to bed. I should have.

Script was just God-Awful. The plot was horrendous. Action was mediocre. This is basically what you have to sit through for 2 hours or so, and basically the plot of the movie...Chinese actors trying to be taken serious, by attempting to seriously speak English, however with a heavy Chinese accent, in China, with a white American boy trying to learn Chinese martial arts, while trying to save the Chinese Monkey King.......GREAT IDEA!

The fight scene: OK, we all know Jackie Chan and Jet Li are past their primes. Jet Li has enough pock marks on his face to fill a meteor with, and Jackie Chan plays his usual character, and usual acting...and that's being Jackie Chan. The fight scene was so so....It was sort of like watching an old, fat Mike Tyson fight a Parkinson's Ali. These guys have obviously slowed down, and no amount of wire work can save you.


a lot of special effects does not equal good movie.. quoting a bunch of Bruce Lee/Daoism quotes does not make the movie new, and fascinating. Did they even film in the same rice farm as in the movie "Fearless"?

add the bad acting, horrible (fall asleep) plot line, and horrendous script, and you have one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life.

Why did they make this movie??? I just don't understand the target audience? American boys that want to learn Kung Fu, and speak bad english??

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Kill Bill - Volumes 1 & 2 [Blu-ray] (Amazon.com Exclusive)

Product Details

• Released on: 2008-09-09
• Rating: NC-17
• Original language: English, French, Japanese, Spanish

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Kill Bill: Volume 1
Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, Vol. 1, is trash for connoisseurs. From his opening gambit (including a "Shaw-Scope" logo and gaudy '70s-vintage "Our Feature Presentation" title card) to his cliffhanger finale (a teasing lead-in to 2004's Vol. 2), Tarantino pays loving tribute to grindhouse cinema, specifically the Hong Kong action flicks and spaghetti Westerns that fill his fervent brain--and this frequently breathtaking movie--with enough cinematic references and cleverly pilfered soundtrack cues to send cinephiles running for their reference books. Everything old is new again in Tarantino's humor-laced vision: he steals from the best while injecting his own oft-copied, never-duplicated style into what is, quite simply, a revenge flick, beginning with the near-murder of the Bride (Uma Thurman), pregnant on her wedding day and left for dead by the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (or DiVAS)--including Lucy Liu and the unseen David Carradine (as Bill)--who become targets for the Bride's lethal vengeance. Culminating in an ultraviolent, ultra-stylized tour-de-force showdown, Tarantino's fourth film is either brilliantly (and brutally) innovative or one of the most blatant acts of plagiarism ever conceived. Either way, it's hyperkinetic eye-candy from a passionate film-lover who clearly knows what he's doing. --Jeff Shannon

Kill Bill: Volume 2
"The Bride" (Uma Thurman) gets her satisfaction--and so do we--in Quentin Tarantino's "roaring rampage of revenge," Kill Bill: Volume 2. Where Vol. 1 was a hyper-kinetic tribute to the Asian chop-socky grindhouse flicks that have been thoroughly cross-referenced in Tarantino's film-loving brain, Vol. 2--not a sequel, but Part Two of a breathtakingly cinematic epic--is Tarantino's contemporary martial-arts Western, fueled by iconic images, music, and themes lifted from any source that Tarantino holds dear, from the action-packed cheapies of William Witney (one of several filmmakers Tarantino gratefully honors in the closing credits) to the spaghetti epics of Sergio Leone. Tarantino doesn't copy so much as elevate the genres he loves, and the entirety of Kill Bill is clearly the product of a singular artistic vision, even as it careens from one influence to another. Violence erupts with dynamic impact, but unlike Vol. 1, this slower grand finale revels in Tarantino's trademark dialogue and loopy longueurs, reviving the career of David Carradine (who plays Bill for what he is: a snake charmer), and giving Thurman's Bride an outlet for maternal love and well-earned happiness. Has any actress endured so much for the sake of a unique collaboration? As the credits remind us, "The Bride" was jointly created by "Q&U," and she's become an unforgettable heroine in a pair of delirious movie-movies (Vol. 3 awaits, some 15 years hence) that Tarantino fans will study and love for decades to come. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Movie: 4.25/5 Picture Quality: 4.25~5/5 Sound Quality: 4.5/5 Extras: 1.75/5
Version: U.S.A / Miramax / Region A, B, C

Kill Bill Vol. 1
MPEG-4 AVC BD-50 / High Profile 4.1
Running time: 1:50:43 (U.S Cut)
Movie size: 31,48 GB
Disc size: 36,01 GB
Average video bit rate: 30.06 Mbps

LPCM Audio English 4608 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 16-bit / 4608kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps

Subtitles: English SDH / Chinese / Japanese / French / Korean / Spanish
Number of chapters: 20

* The Making of KILL BILL Volume 1
* THE "5, 6, 7, 8'S" Musical Performances
* Tarantino Trailers: "Reservoir Dogs," "Pulp Fiction," "Jackie Brown," "Kill Bill: Volume 1" bootleg trailer, Kill Bill" Volume 2 teaser.

Kill Bill Vol. 2
MPEG-4 AVC BD-50 / High Profile 4.1
Running time: 2:16:57
Movie size: 38,50 GB
Disc size: 42,94 GB
Average video bit rate: 27.26 Mbps

LPCM Audio English 6912 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 24-bit / 6912kbps
Dolby Digital Audio English 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps
Dolby Digital Audio French 640 kbps 5.1 / 48kHz / 640kbps

Subtitles: English SDH / Chinese / Japanese / French / Korean / Spanish
Number of chapters: 20

* The Making of KILL BILL Volume 2
* Damoe Deleted Scene
* Chingon Musical Performance

No DTS? No deal...
This may seem a trivial complaint to some, but I for one won't be rushing out to buy this simply because it's lacking in what should be standard audio for this release. Granted, it will be nice to see the Kill Bill saga (such as it is until TWBA is released) in 1080P, but as an audiophile I'm disappointed to see PCM 5.1 as included with this release. The SD releases of Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2 included DTS tracks, and I would have liked to have seen some DTS-HDMA offered for the BD releases of Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2. A poor choice on Disney's part, IMO.

Regarding "The Whole Bloody Affair"
REGARDING THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR: First off, The Weinstein Company owns the rights to "The Whole Bloody Affair" when it arrives, so you can't fault Disney for releasing the one and only cut of this movie that they own. They do not, have not and will not have the ability to put out "The Whole Bloody Affair".

And if you're waiting for "The Whole Bloody Affair" I hope you have other things to occupy your time. "TWBA" was first mentioned in 2004, and it's since been four long years without literally ANY actual progress on the front of that cut surfacing. The cut is NOT yet finished. I think people are under the impression that foreign cuts of KB are "TWBA" and they are NOT. Quentin has NOT YET CUT "THE WHOLE BLOODY AFFAIR" TOGETHER AT ALL. Every year he makes a promise that he's about to get to it, to no avail. I wouldn't say I'm actually skeptical it will ever come out (I'm sure Quentin wants to do it) but I'm not exactly holding my breath anymore either.

So, in conclusion: Not only is "The Whole Bloody Affair" NOT coming out tomorrow or something, but it's not likely to come out for quite a long time (especially with Quentin starting Inglorious Bastards), and when it does, it won't be through Buena Vista.

Thanks.

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Incredible Hulk [Blu-ray]

Product Details

• Released on: 2008-10-21
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 113 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
A more accessible and less heavy-handed movie than Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk, Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk is a purely popcorn love affair with Marvel's raging, green superhero, as well as the old television series starring Bill Bixby as Dr. David Banner and Lou Ferrigno as the beast within him. Edward Norton takes up where Eric Bana left off in Lee's version, playing Bruce (that's the character's original name) Banner, a haunted scientist always on the move. Trying to eliminate the effects of a military experiment that turns him into the Hulk whenever his emotions get the better of him, Banner is hiding out in Brazil at the film's beginning. Working in a bottling plant and communicating via email with an unidentified professor who thinks he can help, Banner goes postal when General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross and a small army turn up to grab him. Intent on developing whatever causes Banner's metamorphoses into a weapon, Ross brings along a quietly d! eranged soldier named Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), who wants Ross to turn him into a supersoldier who can take on the Hulk. The adventure spreads to the U.S., where Banner hooks up with his old lover (and Ross' daughter), Betty (Liv Tyler), and where the Hulk takes on several armed assaults, including one in a pretty unusual location: a college campus. The film's action is impressive, though the computer-generated creature is disappointingly cartoonish, and a second monster turning up late in the movie looks even cheesier. Norton is largely wasted in the film--he's essentially a bridge between sequences where he disappears and the Hulk rampages around. As good an actor as he is, Norton doesn't have the charisma here to carry those scenes in which one waits impatiently for the real show to begin. --Tom Keogh

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