Based on a Japanese Anime series from the 1960s, Speed Racer tells the tale of 'Speed' (Emile Hirsch), young driver of the Mach 5 super car. His charge: to protect his family's honour and livelihood while the villainous race fixers try to bring him down.
The directors of The Matrix Trilogy, the Wachowski brothers, have created Speed Racer's cartoony world entirely from green screen sets and an innovative layering process that ensures both the background and foreground remain simultaneously in focus at all times. And to think we used to be impressed by Tron.
They say:
Empire: "The film brims with ideas and invention, staying true its ambition of the living cartoon."
Channel 4: "Prepare yourself - you really haven't seen anything like Speed Racer."
Variety: "Tolerable fun for the easy to please."
We say:
There is a rumour going round that one of the Wachowski boys has recently changed sex and become a woman - Lana. This means squat regarding the merits or otherwise of their latest picture and provides nothing but pub trivia for the terminally bored. However this worthless, gender bending fact is far more interesting than anything in the film itself.
Taking a ride in Speed Racer's world requires such a suspension of disbelief that an Umpa Lumpa from Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory could come and sit on the seat in front and you wouldn't bat an eyelid.
Moreover when Speed and his family take a tour of Royalton Industries the layout curiously resembles Wonka’s own residence, with its oversized technology, impossible acrobatics and aggravating fat kid gorging on sweets.
Primary colours saturate every second - the too few races awash with jerky, eye straining polychrome. Like a pinball machine crammed full of Matchbox cars, pinged from buffer to buffer in close up slow mo, flash zooms and breakneck pans.
These track battles should be fun but (an exhilarating Crucible run aside) fail to intrigue past cogitating at how much this gaudy Scalextric set must have cost ($100 million, give or take).
It is hard to ascertain whether or not the vast clichés on offer are actually intentional, such is their regularity. Directors Wachowski might just be two guys who got lucky nine years ago with a clever sci-fi flick that is to forever define their legacy. What have they made now, a spoof?
Laughably the CGI skies pour with rain whenever someone has a little soul searching to do which, along with some copious Australian accents, leave the finished article resembling a Manga edition of Neighbours. That is not something most people would sleep through drunk, let alone pay good money to watch sober.
Christina Ricci and Susan Sarandon are superfluous beyond confirming the protagonist isn't gay and that he loves his mum. They may look beautiful in their bright prints and Day glo dresses - perhaps the only two actors to fit snugly into this lurid landscape rather than feel plonked into it - though should have been given more pivotal roles.
Attempting to understand certain facets of the plot requires fair concentration for a fluff movie. There is a passable story thread about race fixing, but it is too convoluted for children to take in. During his key pantomime rant, Royalton (Roger Allam) spills bile about market prices and bio-something or other – rapidly phasing from Brylcreem villain to NASDAQ nerd. Emile Hirsch didn’t appear to have a clue and neither did we.
This is not family time, it's boredom time. Whizz, whizz, whizz, yet another car zooms past and it's less exciting than building one from Meccano. Speed Racer is a snore.
CAST
Emile Hirsch
Christina Ricci
Susan Sarandon
John Goodman
DIRECTOR
Andy Wachowski
Larry Wachowski
TIME
129 mins
POSTED...
Tue 13 May 2008 at 10:55am
