Hot Wheels Acceleracers, Vol. 2 - The Speed of Silence (2005) Review

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(More customer reviews)The story of Vert Wheeler and his racing friends that began in "Hot Wheels World Race" and "Hot Wheels Acceleracers: Ignition" continues here.
"Vert" Wheeler and the rest of the Teku racing team must work with their rivals the Metal Maniacs to drive in the "Racing Realms", other dimensional race 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!
Not only that, but a mysterious THIRD racing team, the Silencerz, have shown up! Who (and what) are they, and are they on the side of good or evil?
This episode does a great job of propelling the main storyline, as well as moving along several subplots. It's always fun to watch adventures with the Hot Wheels drivers as they take on Gelorum and her drones on fantastic race tracks.
A lot of the reservations I had about the Hot Wheels Acceleracers : Ignition release are not as strong here.
- The Teku and Metal Maniacs now appear more as rival racing teams (which they should have been anyway) as opposed to rival street racing gangs.
- The physical violence content has been reduced as well. There's nothing on this disc that resembles the opening sequence of the Ignition DVD when Dr Tezla was attacked by the drones.
My children enjoy this DVD, and look forward to future Hot Wheels Acceleracers DVDs.
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 look for it on Friday, September 30, 2005.
This DVD comes with 6 micro-episodes, that contain racing and plot elements in realms not shown in the main movie (the Cliffside Realm and the Ice Realm).
Check out my reviews of the Hot Wheels World Race and Hot Wheels Acceleracers: Ignition DVDs for more information on those titles.


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The drivers enter the Water Realm where former surfer Vert, racing in his own element, is determined to prove that he's still a champion. But after a devastating attack by the Racing Drones, he ends up being the first driver to fail. In the Metro Realm, the drivers have to find their way through an eerie deserted city choked with traffic. The racers are also introduced to a new weapon developed by the Racing Drones: a huge car-eating "Sweeper." We also get a glimpse of the mysterious fourth team, the Silencerz.DVD Features:DVD ROM exclusive web siteFeaturetteMusic VideoOther

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Hot Wheels Acceleracers, Vol. 4 - The Ultimate Race (2006) Review

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(More customer reviews)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-2 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 and a father of an eight year old, who is very disappointed over this movie.


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