Hot Wheels - Acceleracers - Ignition

The story of Vert Wheeler and his racing friends that started on the "Hot Wheels World Race" DVD continues here.

"Vert" Wheeler is now a more experienced drivers with a street racing team called the Teku. The Teku Team have an intense rivalry with another team called the Metal Maniacs.

Both teams are recruited by Dr Tezla to drive in the "Racing Realms", which are other dimensional tracks that test a driver's racing skills to their extreme limit. Whoever reaches the finish line of each realm first receives an "Accelercharger", which grants the user's vehicle a special power (frictionless driving, hyperspeed, etc). Scattered throughout the realms are "Hyperpods", which the driver's car can attach to give it special abilities as well.

Unfortunately, the evil Gelorum has obtained the Wheel Of Power (see the Hot Wheels World Race DVD) and her robots will stop at nothing to obtain all the Accelerchargers!! If they do, they will be able to take over the world, which is NOT a good thing for us humans!

I have mixed feelings about the Acceleracer Series.

First, I (and especially my children) were thrilled to hear that more adventures with the Hot Wheels drivers that started on the World Race would be continued.

Secondly, the storyline is richer with many running subplots that will develop as future Acceleracer DVDs are released

But I have to seriously question several decisions that were made for this story:

- I do NOT support the fact that these drivers are street racers. While I'm sure it adds a "coolness" factor to the characters, why encourage a dangerous activity such as street racing?

- Also, the rival racing teams strongly resemble rival gangs. Again, why make this look fun and attractive to kids?

- The CGI animation for this series is much poorer than what was used in the World Race DVD. The drivers are now completely cartoonish with ridiculously proportioned features (check out those arms!).

- The violence content was seriously amped up from the World Race. My children were literally shocked at the opening sequence of this DVD when Dr Tezla was attacked by the drones, as there was nothing like that on the World Race DVD.

That being said, my children DO enjoy this DVD, and looks forward to the Hot Wheels Acceleracers: Speed Of Silence DVD that will be released in August. I would recommend this DVD for children 7 or older.

The Cartoon Network has already broadcast the third part of the Hot Wheels Accceleracers saga, Breaking Point, and will be airing the fourth episode Hot Wheels Accceleracers - The Ultimate Race on October 1st of 2005. If you missed part 3, they usually rebroadcast them the day before the new episode, so looks for it on Friday, September 30, 2005.

This DVD comes with 4 micro-episodes, that contain racing and plot elements in realms not shown in the main movie (the Lava Realm and the Cavern Realm). Othe bonus features include a gallery of the cars and bios of the drivers.

The adventures of these characters is continued in the Hot Wheels Acceleracers: Speed Of Silence DVD. And an earlier (and more kid friendly) adventure of these characters can be found on the Hot Wheels World Race DVD. See my reviews of those titles for more details.

P.S. - Note the car that Dr Tezla is driving at the beginning of this episode. You might see something like it later....

Being a baby sitter and having two little brothers who are 9 and 11. I was thrilled that Hot Wheels was making a sequel to the World Race having seen the World Race more times then I can count. They didn't disappoint. With some of the characters from the first movie like Vert and new ones it makes so it doesn't feel like they doing the same thing over again like some sequel do. The plot is pretty good and even I was enjoying watching it with my brothers. My brothers are enjoying this one just as much if not more then the World Race. They love the racing realms and love the new and old characters that are back. Along with the great action. As for the violence there really isn't much more then what was in the first movie. Now some people are wondering with the way that they ended it is another movie coming after this one and the answer is yes. This is a 4 part mini series going on through the year and the second one has already aired on Cartoon Network (Cartoon Network shows them before they come out on DVD just like before with the World Race.) The extras are pretty cool. The only complaint with this DVD that I have is no scene selections unlike the World Race but besides that it is a great movie.

To any mom or dad of a "Hot Wheels Addicted" toddler, as one reviewer termed her boy.... If this review prevents even one parent from making the mistake I did in buying this sequel. The characters have bad attitudes, there is meanness for the sake of meanness and violence for the sake of violence it seems to me. Another reviewer noted the street gang aspect of this movie...and I ask, why why why bring that into the impressionable world of someone as young as this movie is targeted to. The first one seemed to make the cars the stars....in this one, I tried as hard as I could to find redeeming character traits as my 3 year old witnessed a fiery death, a brutal beating, and instance after instance of aggressive, violent behavior, and in general, horrible attitudes. OF COURSE, he wants to see more...I've informed him the disc is broken.

I am the mom of a Hot Wheels-addicted 2 1/2 year old boy. My husband and I bought the World Race dvd for him for Christmas and he absolutely loved it. When we found out that Hot Wheels was releasing new episodes we were thrilled. I must say we were a little surprised when we saw Ignition for the first time. Most of the old characters from World Race were back, which was great because they were familiar to my son. However, Mainframe Entertainment, the computer animation company, changed the look of some of the characters. For example, Taro Kitano got a makeover, Lani Tam looks a bit different (slim body, big feet), and Mark Wylde...well, let's just say he's a completely different person now.

All that aside, after you watch Ignition a couple of times you get sucked in. True..it's not as brilliant as World Race was, but it is still very cool. The racing realms are harder than ever, the cars are even more hi-tech, and Gelorum still wants that wheel of power. Some of the reviews mentioned that Ignition is much darker than World Race and should require a PG rating. I don't necessarily agree. It does seem darker because of all the conflict, but that same conflict was there in World Race between Markie and Kurt and Kadeem's and Vert's inner conflicts. I don't want to tell you what happens because you should see it for yourself. I will tell you, if you have a young son like mine make sure you watch the movie with him and explain that the swamp realm is all pretend. Once you get through that, the rest of the movie is a piece of cake.

For those of you who think Ignition isn't that interesting...watch the Speed of Silence. These movies are like a soap opera. Things make more sense once you see the second installment of Acceleracers. I'm sure once the third and fourth installments are released all the mysteries will be revealed. To get more information on The Acceleracers and to see micro-episodes, check out: http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/promos/hotwheels/index.html

BTW, my son walks around the house saying "Yeah, yeah whateveh" all the time and I love it. But, that's just me.

The Marketing masterminds behind this campaign are quite devious.

This disk does not contain all realms as the product description leads you to believe. It only contains Storm and Swamp and NOT Cavern and Lava. This disk basically contains the 3 episodes that it has released via the individual disks with the cars.

Apparently, the other realms will come available with individual cars to be released at a later time. Then Hot Wheels will release those two episodes on a disk, and then release yet another disk that MAY contain it all.

My Kids were excited about this release expecting to get additional programming, only to be disappointed that there is no new footage on this release. There is no resolution to the story line on this DVD.

In addition, you can not skip through disk, you can only fast forward.

I just purchased this DVD for my sons, and was sorely disappointed. We enjoyed the first Hot Wheels movie, "The World Race", very much, but Acceleracers - Ignition fell very short. The level of violence is a little higher than needed, and all the characters from the first movie are now members of an illegal street racing gang (not the professional racers alluded to in the "World Race"). The story glosses over this, but it is this kind of "darker image" subplots that makes Acceleracers fall short of its predessor. Mattel needs to return to the original concept (the Fabian Nicieza version of the World Race characters), and drop the "Fast & Furious" angle for this Family movie.

I do like this movie although it was a little intense in the beginning - my son (4) did not care, but my daughter (5) left the room for a bit. I was very disappointed in how they changed the features of Taro Kitano - he looks totally different (okay, I thought he was hot in the World Race DVD), and I know they did it to differentiate between the Teku and the Metal Maniacs, but the rest of the previous characters (Vert, Kurt, Kadeem) at least look similar. There are hints but no detail as to what has happened since the world race event - where is Banjee? (Spoiler - his car is in the swamp realm but where is he?). How did Galorum get the wheel if only humans could? While the Teku drivers look normal, the Metal Maniac drivers are more like caricatures - abnormally large arms and lots of anger. I guess more info will be revealed as the saga continues, but it's a bit confusing....

My 6 year old twin boys love World Race and were very excited when they found out there was another Hot Wheels movie. I was sorely disappointed in the AcceleRacers. It has much more violence and the animation is even more severe. I can only hope that the June release of the next (two?) realms will be more kid friendly and promote the team spirit that was conveyed at the end of the World Race movie.

This computer animated movie is great fun, definitely better than the World Race prequel. I was kind of surprised that it took a darker, more aggressive tone than its predecessor, but it's really not that bad. This movie should really come with a PG rating, as it would not fit the criteria to be G rated, notice how it was "Not Rated"? This is a classic Good vs. Evil story and as we all know the "bad guys" just don't go away by asking nicely. However the "violence" referred to by other reviewers, pales in comparison to the Star Wars/Indiana Jones Trilogies or the G.I. Joe/Transformers cartoon series I was forever scared by growing up in the mid 80's. This is not Dora, the Teletubbies, Dragon Tales, the Magic School Bus or Elmo's World. This is HOT WHEELS man! It's about cool looking cars, speed and competition. This movie and associated toy line is targeted to 7-13 year old boys that are already into this kind of stuff. If your 11 year old boy is still wearing out his copies Thomas the Tank Engine...well...I guess there's nothing really WRONG with that...might want to scale back the Ritalin dosage a bit though...attending a monster truck show at your local arena might be a good idea too...

Since World Race had 35 different drivers, it was hard to follow all the characters through the film. In Acceleracers, you get a handful of diverse characters but since they share and swap cars, Hot Wheels has an even larger toy line up to follow the movie. I'm just impressed how they managed to take a simple 1/64 scale car toy and create a whole world (and a multitude of alternate worlds) around it and then back it with couple of hours worth of an animated story. It's not all whiz bang crash and zoom either. Sure it's got some cheesy kiddie dialogue but there's action, suspense, drama, comedy, sci-fi all rolled in this movie. There's some subtle stuff too I didn't notice the 1st time, like Benji's car (from World Race) half submerged in the swamp realm, the "tension" between Loni and Taro (had to watch WR again to "get it"), the numbers on Nolo's and Vert's new car are reversed from the actual toys.

However, if you look a little deeper, there are some real character issues and subplots brewing. I wouldn't go as far as to call it educational but there are some lessons kids can take away from in this movie. Through the course of this movie, the characters deal with real life issues such as teamwork, loss/death, risk taking, egotism, confronting fears, sibling rivalry, helping/rendering aid, defeat/failure, revenge, meeting personal expectations, over coming obstacles, task concentration, goal accomplishment, tenacity, problem solving and in the next episode tolerance and forgiveness. Overall, I'd much rather have my boys, 8 and 4, watching this than Spongebob. They share the toys well and love jumping around as our home theater subwoofer bumps out the bass line of Shirako's car. Anything that's got me on the floor playing toy cars with my kids is quality entertainment in my book! I'm sucked in, I can't wait for the next episodes! What did Kurt do to his brother Marky that has him so pissed? Who are the Silencerz and what do they want? Are they good, bad, or just misunderstood? Motorcycles too!?!

As far as the Lava and Cave Realms, I don't believe full episodes were ever made of them, just the shorts available online. Go to the cartoon network website and do a search for hot wheels (yeah it's kinda hard to find). I would imagine they would be included as extras in the next DVD "The Speed of Silence" since they bridge the gap from "Ignition". I'm just guessing here, but that DVD will probably be out between late June and early July this year.

My son and I just got this - he was a big fan of the first how wheels dvd. He really liked that the story continued and he also liked some of the new characters as well (especially Porkchop and the music guy). He loves the racing realms. The DVD also has new races through new realms in the special features. They are short, but my son really liked the bats in the cave race. OVerall Best part - the ACTION - even I was getting into it (I'm 34!!!). The ending leaves you wanting more, but I still recommend this...