"Hot Wheels Highway 35 World Race" The Ultimate Race (2006)

Director:

Andrew Duncan

Writers:

Andrew Duncan (story)
Mark Edward Edens (writer)

TV Series:

"Hot Wheels Highway 35 World Race" (2003)

Original Air Date:

2006

Genre:

Animation | Action | Sci-Fi | Sport

Tagline:

Drive to Survive

Plot:

In a bid to rescue fellow racer Markie Wylde from the evil Racing Drones, the AcceleRacers enter a portal that leads right into Drones headquarters...

Plot Keywords:

Car Racing | Car | Racing | Automobile Racing | Based On Toy

Cast

Kathleen Barr	...	Gelorum
Lisa Ann Beley	...	Karma Eiss
Dexter Bell	...	Nolo Pasaro
Michael Donovan	...	Dr. Peter Tezla
Brian Drummond	...	Kurt Wylde
Andrew Duncan	...	Mitch "Monkey" McClurg
Andrew Francis	...	Vert Wheeler
Adrian Holmes	...	Tork Maddox
David Kaye	...	Deezel "Porkchop" Riggs
Kasper Michaels	...	GIG
Kirby Morrow	...	Shirako Takamoto
Kevan Ohtsji	...	Taro Kitano
Mark Oliver	...	RDL3 / RDL4
Will Sanderson	...	Markie "Wylde" Wylde
Venus Terzo	...	Lani Tam

Doron Bell		(as Doron Bell Jr.)
Michael Benyaer		(as Michael Benyear)
Kaj Eriksen
Cusse Mankuma
Scott McNeil
John Payne	...	(voice)

Runtime:

USA:61 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Company:

Mattel Entertainment

What a disappointment the last movie in the series and you're left hanging

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

What a disappointment! Of course, compare to Hot Wheels World Race the whole series was a disappointment, more about that later. It would seem that Mattel Entertainment ran out of money to produce a final episode that would tie together all the loose ends. If you've been following the series you know that there are two street racing teams, the Teku and the Metal Maniacs, matched up against the Drones. These teams race in an effort to win Accele-Chargers, which we find out in this last episode, have no real use out side of fooling Gelorum. As the series of movies progress, yet another team enters the fray called the silencerz, who we find out, in the very last seen of this episode, is led by Vert's father, but it is not explained how or why. In the first episode, we are reintroduced to Kadeam, the only character in my opinion, that had any real moral fiber. Kadeam gets trapped in this same first episode and later is turned into a Drone. If any one deserved to be saved it was Kadeam. But sadly, in this last episode he is made out to be a villain and dies in the end. Instead the Teku and Metal Maniacs team up and enter the Drone's lair. Once in the lair they save Mark Wylde with a minimum of resistance from the Drones. By this point, it is clear that the writers of the series had written themselves into a corner, which began with the introduction of the silencerz…a very bad plot twist. In a vain attempt to add some suspense, we find out that Gig is really a Silencerz operative, but we are also told that Tezla stole Gig from the Silencerz. WHAT? That would mean Tezla knew about the Silencerz long before the World Race. It's really sad when you see writers do things like this. The rivalry between Tork and Nolo is resolved in a four-sentence conversation between the two. The relationship between Lani and Taro is barely addressed and they should have been brought back together for some love interest. The death of Vert's mother, which seems to have created much of the animosity between Vert and his father is not addressed either. At the end, the Teku and the Metal Maniacs are left with no cars and Vert enters the Silencer'z lair alone and is captured. The very last seen shows a silencer walking up to Vert, slides away his face shield to expose Vert's father, who says, "Son we have to talk." And that's it, the movie ends. Instead of being left with a feeling that the good guys won over evil, you are left saying, "WHAT???" This reminds me a great deal of your child falling in love with some fabulous toy on television that costs a small fortune. Then when you finally scrape the money together to buy it, the toy either breaks right away or in no way functions like shown on television. That's how disappointing this movie is. Really the whole accelerator series was a let down compared to the World Race that had a great plot, writing and animation. With the movies targeted at children, glamorizing street racing, which is a criminal activity, isn't the most wholesome concept to base characters on. Next, the plot in accelerators makes no sense, for instance, why would Taro, a multi millionaire adventurer, get involved with a bunch of street punks/criminals? Also, with five million dollars in his pocket, why would Mark Wylde get involved with the same group, when he could have easily bought his way into Formula racing and continued to compete against his brother, who was clearly rich himself? Then the idea that Tezla cut off the supply of Nitrox two in order to conduct his own research, by himself, doesn't make sense either. And how were the Drones able to take the ring of power out of Hot Wheels City when it was pointed out in World Race that only a human could do so? Now, I have to ask, did a ten year old do the animation? In World Race, the characters were well proportioned and believable. In Accelerators, they look like steroid nightmares. And why do they all have elephant sized feet? This includes Lani who also seems to have packed it on around the hips. They look like a first attempt by someone who just started out in animation. It is possible, if enough people write and complain about how this movie ends, maybe Hot Wheels will produce another movie that will end the series properly. This review was written by Ray Hansen, author of the Nina Steel Adventure Series at www.nstk.com and a father of an eight year old, who is very disappointed over this movie.