N'Movies: Speed Racer Review

The first true example of Japanese amine seen in this country, Speed Racer was a favorite on the television screens of baby boomers during the late 1960’s to mid 70’s, and told of the exciting adventures of Speed and his racing car family.

Therefore, it should be no surprise that a live action version of the now has finally come to the screen, just in time for the summer film season, thanks to Andy and Larry Wachowski, the Chicago-born and bred filmmakers of the Matrix film trilogy. Their result is a Day-Glo, candy-colored, insanely frantic, high velocity, live action film that continues an evil quest that they started with the Matrix films. It’s total, mind bending, sensory overload. Not content to tell just a simple story, the Wachowskis want to overwhelm and beat viewers into submission. The bad news, however, is that Speed Racer is a wildly uneven film with lumpy narrative that eventually flows, kind of, but starts with an uncertain tone. The good news is that the movie is entertaining, to say the least, and thankfully, way better than the last two universally despised and disappointing Matrix sequels.

The film’s thinly developed plotline revolves around Speed (Hirsch) and his devoted family including loving mom Sarandon, racecar designer pop (Goodman), tubby and obnoxious kid brother Spiritle (Litt) with his mugging pet chimp and Speed’s pixishly, cute girlfriend Trixie (Ricci).

Still haunted by the death of his older brother, Rex, in a fiery car crash years earlier when he was a kid, Speed continues the racing legend. Naturally, obstacles soon appear. Racecar tycoon Royalton (Allam) doesn’t take too kindly to Speeds’ rejection of his offer to join the Royalton team—a gang of clownish goons out to fix races. Along the way some secondary characters such get involved as the mysterious Racer X (Fox) and rival race driver Taejo (Rain, a Korean pop music sensation obviously cast to enhance the box office appeal of the film in Asian markets). In the meantime, Speed, on regular intervals, participates in crazy, high octane, gravity-defying races and makes his way around the world in fictional countries.

As with the last three Star Wars prequels and last year’s simplistic and blatantly racist film 300, Speed Racer, with the exception of some real sets, was shot primarily with the actors in front of a blank green screen cyclorama in a studio while the backgrounds, major props and even extras were added in later by highly detailed and complex computer animation and CGI effects. The end result literally gives the film a highly artificial, cartoonish, hyper stylized, mind-blowing comic book visual style.

That’s not all. The film suffers from other major and minor problems. Not the least of them is the lead actor, Emile Hirsch’s, absolute lack of charisma and presence. He is a complete zero on the screen. The stiffly animated TV cartoon version of Speed has more personality and screen presence than the Hirsch has in the film. Other characters fare somewhat better including Allam (Roundtree), a ex-racer from the glory days and John Goodman, who has a few standout moments including an amusing fight scene knocking off a couple of ninja assassins.

Because of the only occasional well-acted scene, the Warchowskis have a hard time maintaining a consistent tone for the film. At times, it’s hard to take the film seriously. However, the film’s numerous car race sequence, though all computer-created are fast-paced, breathless and exhilarating, as we see cars fly, leap, slide somersault and even climb mountains with abandon. The effect is intentionally similar to video games, though the reckless causal attitude to speeding and dangers are somewhat disturbing, considering some drivers getting killed in spectacular crashes explosions while others seemingly seem to escape unharmed.

Though Speed has its share of problems, it’s far from the worse film made this year and has more than its fair share of enjoyable moments. It doesn’t add too much to your life but at least you can let your mind wander and enjoy the pretty images to your heart’s content.