THR actually starts its story with”¡Andale! ¡Andale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!” which perhaps isn’t so
offensive because the writer’s last name is Fernandez, but lord does the idea of a Speedy Gonzalez voiced by George Lopez seem a cringeworthy idea. The only thing that might improve off this news is casting Salma Hayek, Javier Bardem and the Taco Bell dog.
Written by Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen, the guys who wrote “Garfield,” co-wrote “Toy Story,” and “Cheaper by the Dozen” to name a few, the adaptation of this Looney Tunes character will be a live action/CGI hybrid which doesn’t sound that different from the comic strip film about the cat that loves lasagna (either that was a killer screenplay or Bill Murray just wanted to make a film for kids for once).
Being shepherded by New Line and produced by Lopez, Anne Lopez and Jerry Weintraub (“Ocean’s Eleven”), at least the filmmakers are aware of the vile ethnic stereotypes that centered around the character when the cartoon came out in the 1950s (look we love “Looney Tunes” to death and its filled with racist caricatures that were of a time and place that do not preclude the enjoyment of the cartoons, but Speedy’s main crime was it was just never very funny or interesting).
“We wanted to make sure that it was not the Speedy of the 1950s — the racist Speedy,” Anne Lopez told Heat Vision. “Speedy’s going to be a misunderstood boy who comes from a family that works in a very meticulous setting, and he’s a little too fast for what they do. He makes a mess of that. So he has to go out in the world to find what he’s good at.”
Either way, this film, like “Garfield” will be for children and not for us. Consider this an fyi to the parents out there. The idea is to modernize this one and Speedy will meet up with a reluctant race car driver and surely give him his burrito mojo, back.