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In one particular flashback in Speed Racer, Rex Racer gives Speed one recommendation before running away forever: "In the future, people are going to say...things about me. But I want you to know, never believe them, Speed." This is good advice for anyone considering watching the movie. Film critics are saying...things about Speed Racer. Bad things. Terrible, hurtful things. But please, do not believe the critics. Speed Racer is incredible.
Now, there are some caveats to accompany that statement. Speed Racer is incredible, but it's not exactly "good". It has lots of flashing lights, pretty colours, pretty cars, Korean pop sensation Rain, and little else. For the most part, this is why the movie was so poorly received by critics. It is not a movie for thinking people, but rather for people who are still amazed by the concept of light pulses beaming images onto a wall to create the illusion of movement. It is very much a movie for exclamations of "Ooh, look at the colours!"
The colours. Oh, the colours were so gorgeous. Andy and Lana Larry Wachowski decided to film the entire movie on a green screen and insert the background and greebles entirely with computers. As a result, the entire movie is way more vivid than the typical movie. The sky is bluer than sky blue and the clouds the purest white. Each racetrack is perfectly laid out and given a perfect paint job. And things swirl and spin and flash and—oh, it was amazing. Anyone who enjoys bright colours can enjoy this movie. I could hear murmurs around the audience that it would be better with acid, which is entirely possible. The animation is aesthetically pleasing to an extreme degree when sober, and likely more so with hallucinogens. However, the Wachowskis' preferred scene transition is a face wipe, where a close-up on someone's face pans across the screen leading to a new shot. I can imagine this being unnerving to the drugged-out moviegoer. Plus, when on acid one wouldn't be able to fully appreciate the story. That's right, I said the story is something to enjoy.
I don't think any people reading this have borne offspring, but encourage parents to think twice before taking their kids. I don't know any eight-year-olds who can pay attention to a movie, no matter how colourful, for 135 minutes. One would assume from the PG rating that Speed Racer is a film for children, but it really pushes the envelope of the PG rating. There is a fair amount of unabashéd cussing around women and children, one or two middle-fingerings, and a barely-bleeped "Holy shit!" from a television announcer. It's very much a film aimed at children-at-heart. Interspersed with the terrific racing scenes are segments with Spritle and Chim-Chim engaging in the crazy shenanigans they were renowned for in the TV show.
Now, no live-action film can succeed without the right actors. But the only actor whose work I really follow is Jang Lee Hwang, so sorry. I'm a bad movie reviewer on that front.
I went to this film anticipating the same tacky, carefree campiness as was in the original show, and boy did it deliver. If only more reviewers could acknowledge that sometimes that's all a movie needs. Well, that and bright flashing lights.
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