Directors: Andy and Larry Wachowski
Cast: Emile Hirsch, Matthew Fox, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon
Distributed by Warner Bros.
You know the story. Rex Racer has an argument with his father, and after some harsh words, he leaves home. His younger brother Speed becomes a racer against his father's wishes. Only this time his father accepts his choice. Brothers meet again. Only now, Rex Racer hides his identity as Racer X.
Speed races around the world. His integrity and desire to become the best of all racers pits him against all sorts of skullduggery and dirty competitors. This frequently puts him into contact with Inspector Detector. Trixie seeks Speed's heart. Spridle, his younger brother, idolizes him. Where Spridle goes, Chim-Chim his pet chimp follows, usually in the trunk of the Mach 5. His mother only wishes him to be safe and well. When the going gets especially lethal, Racer X is always there to keep Speed steady. A turning point occurs when Speed confronts Racer X and asks "Are you my brother? Are you Rex Racer?" That earns him a punch in the gut. Racer X smiles and ends his career as a professional racer to become a full-time spy.
That's sort of the story you get in the movie Speed Racer, but the writers add some twists and turns as well as some zigs and zags that wisely steer away from the source material. This offers the audience something at once new but also familiar. The Wachowskis find their gist in the links between money and sports, fixing and the syndicate. They weigh this against the champions that simply want to be one with their cars and win the race.
I must be missing something. Critics seem to be lining up to put sugar in Speed Racer's gas tank. Did they not know that they were attending a movie based on one of the earliest color animes? Did they not know they were attending a movie that was based on a popular manga? Perhaps they didn't realize that the races on Speed Racer usually involved his zipping through jungles, deserts and alpine conditions. Some critics have invoked the name Schumacher to describe what they see as a debacle. Well, screw you critics. There ain't no nipples on the Racer X's costume. If I were a cynical man, I would suspect that the critics are spreading nails on the road just to assuage their embarrassment over actually falling in love with a movie that has at its core a guy that jets around in a science fiction suit of armor fighting bad guys.
Maybe it's simply bad luck and not mere pettiness. Speed Racer's debut comes a week after that of Iron Man. So maybe, critics are just comparing Speed Racer with Iron Man, a film that--make no mistake--should be lauded. They can't get the majesty of Iron Man out of their heads, but Iron Man and Speed Racer are two different types of movies. If you compare Speed Racer to the original material and simply let yourself enjoy what unfolds on the screen, you'll have a rollicking time like I did, not to mention everybody else in audience at the theater I attended.
Network censorship killed the drama in most cartoons like Space Ghost and even Johnny Quest. The only way you were going to actually see anybody hit another person, for either comedy or drama purposes, was to tune in to the independent stations who operated on very different standards. The cartoon series Speed Racer was better animated than most cartoons, and it was one of the rare dramatic cartoons on the air at a time when networks wouldn't even allow Wile E. Coyote to be blown up. The live action Speed Racer couldn't just be better, it had to look different. It had to be unique, and the visual effects in Speed Racer are nothing short of startling.
Any critic searching for realism in the racing was bound to be disappointed, but you see, I had the same feeling when I actually saw real racing for the first time. Why didn't any of the cars jump over each other like they did in Speed Racer? Why weren't there obstacles on the course? Why in fact were the race cars vrooming around a simple concrete track and not say underwater? Racing was boring. I'm sure that when you're behind the wheel of one of those cars, it's anything but, but I can't understand how people watch racing.
The special effects people bring the two-dimensional anime that created an illusion of three into a realm of unparalleled imagination that actually makes sense. Is this the future of racing? Why not? I can see cars becoming faster and faster and built to be gladitorial. I can see race tracks being elevated and twisted and turned. I can see racing brought into a glowing world of light and velocity. It would certainly make it more interesting, and I can see new safety developments that allow a racer to definitely walk away from a wreck. In fact, Speed Racer the movie is more forgiving than the anime. Racers died in that show. Both Racer X and Speed were wrongfully blamed for the deaths on the track; the Car Acrobatic Team personally saw Speed as the killer of their team-mate Snake. The movie's kindness doesn't take away any of the thrills. It simply adds sensibility. If you're going to forge a nightmarish track for human beings to follow, a way out alive is the only way any sane person would take part. That said, Racer X still kills the bad guys.
I've heard some critics complain about ha-ha-ha-ha-ha the speed of the races. That it's a movie that epileptics shouldn't watch. Get real. The CGI racing is breathtaking, and the actors covey the drama of the drivers behind the wheels. I do find some movies too fast and too jumpy. Frankly NYPD Blue's camera shifts were nauseating to me. Even the promise of nudity wasn't enough to get me to suffer through the constant swoops and sweeps, but Speed Racer is neither too fast to follow nor too slow to replicate racing to the nth power. It's just right. Two hours fly by in an eye-blink, and I have a suspicion that because of this distinctive look and this awesome representation of racing, that Speed Racer will easily slot into the genre of cult favorite as years go by.
The visuals impress. So how's the acting? I went to Speed Racer for one reason: Racer X. He's the same reason I watched the show in the first place. I really wasn't interested in Speed. He was nice enough, but when I heard that jazzy theme music and saw the yellow car in the distance on the screen, my heart pounded. Racer X was the Batman of the raceways. He was easily the coolest cartoon character on television at the time. He really didn't have a gimmick, unless you count the mask, but that was more of his persona. Racer X was so cool that he could literally use a machine gun to shoot off the ropes of captives while leaving the bound unharmed. Even as a kid I knew that it was preposterous, but I believed that if it were possible, the one person who could perform the feat was, damn right, Racer X.
Matthew Fox from Lost is more Batman than Christian Bale, more Bond than Daniel Craig. He embodies Racer X. He gets the voice of the character right. He brings a cold efficiency to the part as well as the emotion of the man behind the mask. Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man, and Matthew Fox is Racer X. The Wachowskis were wise not to tamper with perfection. As Racer X, Fox drives the sleek yellow and black number nine. It looks vaguely like an angry insect with an engine just as it always did. There's even a nice little nod to the Racer X/Batman connection in the film when X saves a racer that's being coerced by the crime syndicate. Matthew Fox rocks.
Surprisingly, I came away liking Speed even more than the original anime character. Emile Hirsch is brilliant as Speed. He conveys the goodness of Speed and does so with rare conviction. On the show, Speed's so wholesome that he's really kind of dull, especially when compared to Racer X. Hirsch though is positively mesmerizing in some scenes, especially those that require him to be the only optimist in a world filled with corruption and greed. Speed Racer could have been a thankless role that paled into comparison to Fox's electric Racer X, but Hirch brings a performance to the screen that makes you root for him. Particularly in the climactic finale, you really want to shout "Go, Speed Racer! Go, Speed Racer! Go, Speed Racer! Go!"
Trixie was a pretty hip and forward thinking gal in the cartoon, and I can't really remember any strong chauvanism against her in the series. Sparky had a sort of girls suck kind of attitude, and Trixie would get jealous often, but makers of the series had her piloting a helicopter and even taking part in one of the races for an episode. Christina Ricci is just marvelous as Trixie. Her look is dead on as well as her personality. Her devotion to Speed is just the kind of warmth needed in a film that could have been cold, and she's no slouch in a fight, unlike Sparky, who is useless. The actor's not useless. The character, however, is one lousy fighter and serves as excellent comedy relief. Furthermore, the Wachowskis finally do away the chasteness of Speed and Trixie's relationship. They do--"gasp!"--kiss, and the light romance adds depth as well as verisilimatude. It would be impossible to believe that Speed didn't have thoughts to cuddle up to Ricci's Trixie, most notably when she's in the low cut dress.
Pops Racer was one of the few fathers on television that didn't have a dead wife. John Goodman and Susan Sarandon bring Speed's parents to life on the screen. The creative force behind the movie doesn't change that much in their characterization. Mrs. Racer actually did take part in the episodes. Because Sarandon is your Oscar Winning actress, she naturally gives her role a lot more substance. The writers, in addition, broaden her status from mere homemaker to greasemonkey member of the team. John Goodman's Pops Racer is a delight. He gives his character authority and toughness intrinsic to the original.
I'd also like to address Inspector Detector. You have to give the Wachowskis props for keeping that name. The actor behind the glasses and moustache gives the criminologist dignity. Spridle and Chim-Chim are not as annoying as they are in the show, and I'm shocked to say that some of their antics are actually funny. The supporting cast, such as Yu Nan and Rain, is stellar, and I found myself instantly taking a liking to the film, enjoying it more and more to the very end. There's little in the film I would have cut and very few missteps, certainly none that are fatal.
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