If you drop acid during this movie, you will die.
The Wachowski brothers, who are still buying expensive hookers from their Matrix earnings, have decided to tackle a more family-friendly adventure this go round with Speed Racer based off the 1960s Japanese anime series. Speed (Emile Hirsch) is a troubled youngster who has racing in his veins. After the death of his older brother, he tries to stop the evil Royalton (Roger Allam) from destroying his family’s reputation. Along with the help of the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox), and Taejo (Korean singer Rain), Speed defies all the rules when he races for his life to prove his families worth and win the Grand Prix.
Speed Racer starts out with some back story to our characters and how Speed has always loved cars and loves driving fast. While his Mom (Susan “Lion-O” Sarandon) and Pops (John Goodman) don’t always agree with their son, they still support him. And with his sweetheart Trixie (Christina Ricci, who appears to have some disease that is slowly causing her eyes to fall out of her head), he wants to stop Royalton and show the world that he’s the best driver there is. Driving his former brother’s Mach 5 racing car, he wants to prove to himself that he has what it takes to be the best. I think that’s the plot, I don’t know, I was too dizzy from the visual effects to really pay attention to anything else.
Speed Racer is a film that I was a really hesitant about. I’d heard that it was long, boring and that it wasn’t very exciting. However, I found none of this to be true. It’s a movie that captures the essence of the cartoon I grew up watching and visually it was so stunning to watch my eyes felt like they were having their own personal orgy. The story sequences of the film that were shot with sets and props look normal. Foregrounds are in focus, while backgrounds are fuzzy. But during the racing sequences, everything is in focus. It’s this sense of depth that really captures the look of how a live-action anime would appear on screen. The colors are so bright and vivid, and the sense of motion so fast that some may have a hard time keeping up with the action. It’s not that it’s hard to follow, it’s just that’s it's fast. Really, really fast. So if you see this stoned, your brain may be on a twenty-minute processing delay and you actually won’t know the end of the movie until you’re driving home. The desert race in the middle and the final race at the end was some of most innovative, exciting and engrossing film making I’ve ever seen. You seriously cannot take your eyes off the screen. This is what Nascar in the future should be and we can reach that point whenever Nascar decides to stop being so boring, dull and shitty.
The plot regarding corporate takeovers and whatever other nonsense they were spewing was pretty stupid. Some scenes dragged on and the film could have used a good 15 minutes cut from it to tighten it up a bit. A lot of scenes with Speed’s younger brother Spritle (Paulie Litt), and Chim Chim (Hal Sparks. Nope, wait. It was an actual live chimpanzee. Sorry, I get the two mixed up), could have been removed. I know they were there for humor, but they slowed the film down and weren’t necessary. Sometimes it was kid overload and the young actor portraying him was getting on my nerves. Some scenes with Trixie could have been shaved but that’s only because Christina Ricci doesn’t need to be on screen unless she’s naked. Seriously, her cranium is too large for her body since she lost all that weight and it looks like her head is being propped up by Popsicle sticks taped to the back of her neck.
The acting was well done by most. Emile was a great Speed Racer. Actually, all he had to do was grit his teeth and hold a steering wheel so it would be really hard for him to screw that up. Matthew Fox did his best impersonation of Matthew Fox by acting like he normally does which is stilted and without any sort of emotional delivery. Lucky for him, the character he’s playing requires those particular characteristics. Susan Sarandon, at least in this movie, looks like she had implants because I don’t remember her having such large boobs. Maybe the Wachowski’s added some visual effects to her torso or she finally started buying the correct bra size. I do enjoy every time she smiles because I always try and count how many teeth she has before she closes her mouth. So far my count is capped at 53. I also didn’t understand the inclusion of Rain’s character. Ok, maybe it’s just the actor called Rain I don’t like. I really don’t know why producers want him in their films because I can’t understand a goddamn thing he’s saying. He has the worst accent I’ve ever heard. The actress (Yu Nan) who played his sister was also a terrible casting choice. She’s a horrible actress and her lips are so big in the film I thought Charlie Tuna was making a special live-action cartoon cameo. Did only two Asian chicks audition for this role? Who was the other, Tila Tequila? Is Tila even classified as a woman? What the hell is she anyway? She could be stuffed and used as a marketing doll to reawaken the Monchichi toy line. Man, I’m on a roll today...
The score by Michael Giacchino was fantastic and one of the best movie scores I’ve heard in years. He’s mostly done scores for video games but has numerous awards under his belt for Ratatouille (another fantastic score) and The Incredibles. He’s also doing the score for the upcoming Star Trek and Land of the Lost features. He’s quickly becoming one of my favorite composers and I don’t think anyone else (maybe Jerry Goldsmith) could have done a better job scoring this movie. The musical tone is set perfectly and makes each scene that much more exciting to watch. I recommend buying the CD and putting it on your iPod so you can totally gay out while doing bench presses at the gym.
If you’re worried about taking your kids to see a movie that the Matrix guys did, don’t worry. It's very family friendly. Although I’m not sure why they needed to have Speed’s little brother flip off the bad guy and why the word “shit” was being uttered a couple of times. I’m no prude, believe me, but if you’re gonna give me some swear words in a movie based off a '60s cartoon, then I best see some arms getting ripped off or the nose of the Mach 5 used as a penetration device.
Despite the longer than I would have liked runtime and the wonky plot, Speed Racer was just too much of a visual treat to ever dislike. The kids at the screening I attended loved the picture and were clapping at the end of the movie. The Wachowskis once again broke new ground in conventional filmmaking to give the viewer the fastest, prettiest film they could. They did an incredible job and I hope everyone has a chance to see this movie on the big screen in a digital format. I want to shake the Wachowskis' hands and tell them how awesome of a job they did, but they kind of creep me out so I may just send them one of those Yahoo! e-mail greeting cards instead.
Seed Racer opens this Friday.
Originally featured in Latino Review.