Speed Racer
Written and Directed by: The Wachowski Brothers
Starring: Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Matthew Fox, Susan Sarandon

The Wachowski Brothers may be known for their love of anime, but what they aren’t know for is making kids movies. When I first heard that they were going to be turning the 60’s animated series Speed Racer into a family-friendly live action film, I wondered if maybe this was something that would be beyond their abilities.

To be fair, their enthusiasm and passion for the project can be found on every frame of the final product. They set out to create a colourful, kinetic and highly-stylized world that would capture the imagination of their viewers, and indeed, when it’s firing on all cylinders, you can definitely see the possibility for brilliance in Speed Racer. However, aside from the unique visuals, I found that there was simply too much working against this movie for it to fully reach its potential.

I went into Speed Racer with an open mind, not very familiar with the cartoon, but hoping to be given a thrill ride of sorts. There was a lot of talk about new technology that The Wachowski Brothers were going to be using to shoot the movie, and if nothing else, they seem to be innovative and forward-thinking filmmakers. From the very first scene where we are taken into the mind of young Speed as he imagines himself behind the wheel, I was marvelling at the trippy colours and I was ready to fall in love with this movie. That’s when the numerous flaws started to bubble to the surface.

For starters, when we got to the first actual racing scenes, I didn’t find them as exciting as I thought they might be. They looked cool and all, but even the Pod Race in Star Wars: Episode 1 had more suspense.

Some people have taken issue with the video game look of the race tracks (it’s like F-Zero on crack) but I dug it. What I didn’t like was the fact that the cars spun around the track as they were racing, with no sense of real physics at all. I understand that they were going for the exact opposite of realism here, but without first giving us a sense of what a vehicle could or couldn’t do, it was just eye candy and nothing more. I couldn’t root for anyone because the cars were just flipping all over the place, seemingly at random.

Now, another problem is that for a kids movie, Speed Racer gets really bogged down in dialogue at times. The Wachowski Brothers have gotten plenty of flack in the past for being too in love with their own dialogue, and yet even here they couldn’t resist jamming the movie full of melodramatic speeches. It slows down the pace of the film and I can only imagine it would bore most kids to tears.

I also wasn’t a fan of the whole Speed Racer vs corporate greed plot. This is a movie that would have benefited from a very simple, stereotypical bad guy, but instead they had to try and make it political somehow and it made things too complex.

And, as much as I admire The Wachowski Bros, I have to admit, they are pretty damn humourless. Most of the jokes in this movie fall flat, both for adults or kids. The younger brother Spritle and the monkey Chim Chim were cute, but they were underused (props to the Wachowskis for using a real monkey instead of a CG one though). For whatever reason, the movie didn’t feel as fun as I thought it should be, and this is a big strike against it.

Now I don’t necessarily blame any of the actors, as they all did their best to energize the movie despite the artificial green screen environment they were working with. I thought John Goodman was particularly memorable as Pops, and V For Vendetta’s Roger Allam was throroughly unlikeable as Royalton. Emile Hirsch and Christia Ricci were charismatic and had great chemistry together. The one weak point in the cast was Matthew Fox, who was laughably robotic and monotone as Racer X (on the other hand, it may not be his fault… The Wachowski Brothers could very well have asked him to pay tribute to bad anime dubbing, right?).

The hand to hand fight scenes provided some of the most intense moments in the movie (even the ninja fight, which seemed a little too Matrix-esque to be perfectly honest, was more fun than the racing). I also really liked the bizarre visuals during the Royalton factory tour, which reminded me of Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I just wish there had been more of that stuff, because by the end, the visual tricks had gotten repetitive and the novelty was starting to wear off. You can only see close-ups of faces slide across the screen so many times before you get bored.

And so, it all comes down to this: I really wanted to like Speed Racer, but I’m disappointed to find myself siding with most of the critics on this one. The weird thing is, almost every negative review I’ve read criticizes the flick for providing “an epileptic seizure of colour” or “an overdose of sugar-coated Hot Wheels action”… in other words, taking issue with its emphasis on style over substance. My primary complaint was the opposite: that they tried to add more drama than it could handle, stretched the movie out too long, and didn’t deliver enough variety in that kaleidoscope of eye-popping visuals. It’s too bad, because I think there were some cool and groundbreaking ideas here. Who knows, maybe Speed Racer will still prove to be ahead of its time one day, but as it stands right now, I’m still waiting for that sugar rush to kick in. — Sean

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Recommended If You Like: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dick Tracy, Spy Kids, The Matrix