People Suck. This Movie Doesn't.

 

Speed Racer

2008

D: The Wachowskis

**********

Pros: Lots of Heart, Cartoonish Sense of Humor, Fun Action, Colorful visuals, Fun performances

Cons: Some needlessly crude jokes

     If there is one movie on which I disagree with the consensus, it’s this one.  The critics hated this movie, it didn’t do too well at the box office and most of the cool kids weren’t fond of it, either.  I don’t quite understand the logic behind this hatred, because Speed Racer is one of those movies that are all about fun, and everyone enjoys a genuinely fun movie, even if it isn’t exactly Citizen Kane.  Consider Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (another unapologetically fun movie I love) and compare its reception to that of Speed Racer:  

Absolutely nothing arbitrary or interchangeable about those two Rotten Tomatoes descriptions right there.

As of this article’s writing, this movie has a borderline acceptable 6.1 rating on IMDb, indicating that the movie pleased much of its audience, but has yet to achieve a respectable cult status.  I have heard that unlike some movies it did a pretty decent job of pleasing fans of the franchise, even if some thought that the CGI did not do justice to the amazing animation of the original anime.

      Listening to the critics, one would believe that this movie is some sort of nonsensical LSD-induced fever dream that overwhelms the audience with colorful visuals, and if there’s anything critics don’t like, it’s when someone cobbles together abunch of visually ambitious scenes takes at complete random and theresult is a jumbled, incoherent mess.  These people must have been watching another film, because the movie I watched actually did have a coherent, well-paced plot complete and characters that were treated with affection and heart.
      Part 1: Talented young racer is wooed by company, he rejects offer and is cheated out of Grand Prix
      Part 2: Racer partakes in independent race to qualify for Grand Prix
      Part 3: Racer uses his win to compete in Grand Prix despite company trying to undermine him.
For all of the colorful visuals, trippy acid moments and wonderfully absurd character designs (all of which do justice to the movie’s cartoonish roots), the core of the movie is Speed’s family.  They get in fights, they reconcile and they share heartwarming moments.  One of the best parts of the movie is when Pops catches Speed about to run away from home, as his brother Rex did before.  Not wanting to repeat the mistake he made of disowning Rex, he sits Speed down and tells him that if he ever wants to return home to his family, the door is open.  Until I got back on my feet, I found myself having to live at home for a short period of time, and I'm thankful my parents welcomed me back there when I need it, so don't tell me this is just an unsubstantial movie with nothing but a lot of eye candy.  The movie even manages to mix humor and heart seamlessly, such as in one scene in which a young Speed expresses a youthful admiration for his older brother by filling out a scantron test in such a way that it reads, “GO REX GO.”  With its well-done schmaltz and its romanticization of its subject matter, the movie definitely tries to manipulate us, and it actually succeeds in doing so.

     A well-cast ensemble led by Emile Hirsch as Speed brings this family to life.  Hirsch hits all the right notes as the title character and looks just like what I imagine Speed would look like in real life.  As a child, Speed is played by Nicolas Elia, and the movie effectively depicts him as a rambunctious dreamer through amusing schooltime sequences.  John Goodman gives a very fun performance as Pops Racer; he definitely fits the cartoonish role, but he has some good, serious moments as well.  Christina Ricci does well as Trixie, Speed’s girlfriend, and Susan Sarandon is Mom Racer.  As we all know, Rex Racer (Scott Porter) becomes Racer X (Matthew Fox), and Fox is surprising effective in the role  Comic relief is provided Spritle (the extremely lovable Paulie Litt) and Chim-Chim.  I must say, most of the laughs actually come from Spritle.  Aside from one funny line referring to him and one part where he hits a villain with a wrench, Chim-Chim really isn't that funny.  He's just there mugging annoyingly.  I don't really want to sound racist or anything, but Chimpanzees aren't very good at providing understated, nuanced performances.  I've seen better from dogs, in fact.  Still, he's from the cartoon, and they had to put him in there.  Perhaps they should have had a motion capture performance, like in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. 

     The most entertaining performance in the movie comes from Roger Allam, who plays the movie’s primary antagonist, E.P. Arnold Royalton, with just the right bit of villainous ham.  It also helps that Allam bears a striking resemblance to Christopher Hitchens.

Left: Christopher Hitchens, Right: Bad Guy from Speed Racer

As the head of an extremely powerful conglomerate, Royalton plans to collect the best racers he can to work for him, and if they dare refuse, he does everything in his power to destroy them.  Usually this involves hiring genuine criminals, such as the remarkably cockneyish Cruncher Block (John Benfield) to threaten or hurt them.  The movie’s sympathy for the little man, as well as its suspicion of big business' abuse of power seems more relevant in retrospect, even if its a tad hypocritical coming from a big budget action movie.   In reality, Speed Racer probably just follows the simplistic philosophy of storytelling, where the underdog is usually automatically the good guy, even if it isn’t always that way in real life.  Royalton’s Mammon-worshipping belief system is perfectly depicted in the scene which almost seems to channel Ned Beatty’s excellent speech in Network.  When Speed comes before him alone to reject his offer of employment, Royalton responds with a  sesquipedalian rant about the might of money and the irrelevance of everything else. His tirade is not only memorable, it contrasts comically with Speed’s simple sentimentality.  Still, nothing he said in the speech was genuinely evil.  He only becomes the villain by fixing races after Speed's refusal. 
      I’ve said before that movies, like any other art form, are meant to manipulate the emotions.  Not only does Speed Racer do a good job of this throughout its running time, in this scene it seems to successfully mock those who do not realize this.  Royaltan even comes off as cruel in the scene, since he discredits a past race which Speed has explained means a lot to him and his father.  However, on top of his brutality and snark, Royalton knows how to come off nice when he has to.  Another antagonist is the racer Snake Oiler (Christian Oliver), who might be considered out of character, but his flamboyance is enjoyable and reminds one of the anime.

     The primary drive of the story is Speed’s desire to do what he loves (racing) while not selling out and becoming one of Royalton’s servants.  He does this trying to win an unofficial race that would help him qualify for the Grand Prix, which he has been cheated out of competing in by Royalton.  Obviously, this involves a lot of action-race scenes.  The Wachowskis are undoubtedly among the best action directors in the industry, and these sequences are incredibly fun to watch.  The cars are equipped with a special suspension that allows them to make impossible turns at high speeds and they possess devices that allow them to jump.  The action is incredible and shot with vivid color.  The CGI is actually pretty good, even if the visuals are intentionally cartoonish.  Unlike typical CGI glut, which generally just throws a bunch of expensive imagery at us without having anything fun actually happen on the screen, this movie actually realizes that choreography and editing are the most important parts of action, not epic spectacle.  I find it refreshing that a movie actually uses special effects to be fun and stylish, rather than just photorealistic.  The final racing scene intersperses action with emotional flashbacks and sets it to a beautifully adapted version of the show’s theme executed by Michael Giacchino.  Better yet, these races aren’t just tacked on or overtly long, they are all well integrated into the movie’s plot and they all have a purpose.  The film’s story is well-paced and it balances its action and well with quieter scenes.  As a result, its 2:15 runtime is substantial without ever being tedious.

     Speed Racer is not without its flaws, however.  With a few crude jokes, some unnecessary cursing and an obligatory PG-Rating-stretching S-Bomb, it does have some of the trappings of a hackish 90’s family film.  Hell, there’s even an awful rap version of theme song at the end.  Undoubtedly, the most painful and needlessly crude moment is when Chim-Chim expresses his disdain toward an antagonist in the same way that many chimpanzees do in real life. 

I wish I could say that's chocolate.

I must stress at this point that if you’re going to make a family film, you should make it clean.  Speed Racer succeeds at being wholesome movie for its target audience for the most part (which is part of why I like it); the few offensive scenes are pretty tacked on.  Still, sneaking swear words into a children’s movie is nothing to be proud of.  Then again, I may be slightly hypocritical since I was amused by a scene in which Spritle flicks Royalton off, and there’s no excuse.  There’s also a bit of fridge logic thrown in a couple times.  For example, Speed’s family shows contempt for “dirty racing,” but cheers on when Speed goes out of his way to rough up a few rivals in the final lap of the Grand Prix.  In one very questionable scene Speed threatens to grind Snake Oiler into a pulp with the Mach 5's wheel after the latter (unknowingly) harasses Trixie on the track.  This hypocrisy forces me to dock a star from the movie's rating. 

     Despite these trifles, I love Speed Racer because it is what it is and goes for it without caring what people might say.  It’s an adaptation of a cartoon that’s not afraid to be cartoony itself.  It’s certainly not a PG-13 blockbuster that’s dependent on standard CGI glut with a few snarky or ironic lines thrown in.  It sets out to amuse and tug heartstrings like a genre movie should.  I was actually surprised that the Wachowskis were even capable of making a (mostly) family friendly movie with heart after what I’ve seen from them, but they certainly succeeded here.  Now I have heard that Alfonso Cuaron was considered to adapt this franchise, and I would’ve liked that too, although I’m not sure how he would have handled Spritle and Chim-Chim.  Still, I’m glad this movie was what it was.  Having watched the trailers, I was expecting something that was just a guilty pleasure, but instead I got a truly great movie that was different.  

The Worst Movie Villains

A good villain is often essential to a good movie, but what makes a good villain.  Not all truly threatening villains are good, and some weak, stupid villains are classics (Toht, for example).  It varies from villain to villain, but I think the most important things are charisma (does the villain say anything memorable) and style (does he look, sound cool).  Often, the key is simply good writing combined with a well-cast actor.  Simple as that.  Here are some types of bad villain:

Bland: Possibly the worst offense.  The villain is utterly uninteresting and forgettable.  Often, wooden acting is a contributing factor.

 Annoying: The villain is actively irritating.  Could be his voice, his mannerisms or his expressions. 

  DESIGNATED VILLAIN: The villain presented as someone to root against even if he really isn’t that bad.  Whatever evidence of his badness is forced and tacked on.  Sometimes, he’s a villain in a story that doesn’t even need one.  Other times, he's out of place in the movie's universe.  At worst, he is a political strawman.

CHARACTER DERAILMENT: Character is a gross misrepresentation of a fictional character.

 MISCAST: Not necessarily a bad actor, just the wrong guy for the role.

 WASTED ACTOR: Not a bad actor, and might have even been great for the role, but the character was terrible or the actor was taken advantage of.

 COMES OFF LIKE A PUNK: Villain is completely smug, douchy or unintimidating, and not in a good way.

 LOOKS SILLY: Villain simply has a bad character design.

 CAN'T CUSS WORTH A DARN: Villains are generally more formal in the way they speak.   There are some exceptions, but not many.  Most villains should avoid dropping F-bombs if they don’t want to look like punks.

 BAD ACTING: A good performance is always key to a good villain.  Hammy acting can be amusing, but wooden acting is never good.

 STUPID: Unintelligent villains aren’t necessarily bad ones, but when combined with other bad villain traits, it’s just another criticism worth mentioning.

Now here's a list of villains who don't quite cut the butter.

23.. Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce, Tomorrow Never Dies)

I probably would include this among the good Bond movies if not for this bad guy.  It’s not that he’s inherently lame, it’s just that he is such a painfully obvious parody of Ted Turner (with a little bit of Bill Gates thrown in).  That makes it a bit hard for me to suspend my disbelief.  Now, I would like to see Ted Turner being shoved into a digging mole by a man saying “Give the people what they want!”, but that wouldn’t be too appropriate for a Bond movie.  I would like to see a cartoon in which an evil Ted Turner surrogate tried to brainwash innocent toons into being tools for his ideological agenda, and the heroes had to fight him for freedom.  That would be pretty cool.

22. The Lemons (Eddie Izzard, Thomas Kretschmann & Co., Cars 2)   

Probably the most baffling choice of villains Pixar has ever made.  Disabled people who want some respect for once.  Also, some of theses lemons aren't really lemons.  Morally ambiguous villains can work in a well-developed world, but this the case.  

 21. Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith)

It's sad because Darth Vader from the Holy Trilogy is my favorite villain of all time.  It's also sad because Hayden Christensen gets blamed for this even though he isn't even a bad actor (even Mr. Plinkett said so).  He's just a terribly written character.  It's hard to believe that Darth Vader would kill underlings for paltry mistakes when he got where he was only through his own bottomless stupidity.

20. Dean Pritchard (Jeremy Piven, Old School)

 Comedies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Animal House have a disturbing way of wanting us to root for the bad guys and against a guy who seems to be fighting the good fight.  Sure, Old School is a funny movie, and Jeremy Piven is good at playing passive aggressive characters like this, but this is a bit too much.  The only really bad thing he does is extort that one student, but even that comes out of nowhere.  The protagonists start an illegitimate frathouse where the engage in all sorts of debauchery and female objectification (some of it involving underage girls), and we're supposed to dislike this guy for trying to shut them down?  The revelation that the “heroes” of the story bullied him in school only makes him more sympathetic: a dean trying to restore order and morality and defeat the people who wronged him once before.  Oh yeah, also they made him a deer hunter because….that makes us want to root against him, I guess?  

19. Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover, Shooter)

Danny Glover is okay playing well-balanced, mild characters, as well as characters who are too old for this shit, but I cannot buy him as a villain.  Simple as that.  I know, they’re trying to go for a calm, cool villain with a monotone, but even then it doesn’t work.  You can't make Danny Glover evil, that's all there is to it.  Also, his character is a typical corrupt government official.

 

18. Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff, Blade)

Nothing about Stephen Dorff is evil, stylish or menacing.  You just can’t take this pretty boy seriously as a bad guy, and the fact that he constantly drops F-bombs in a vain effort to sound intimidating just makes him look like a punk.  He’s only amusing when he gets in funny conversations with Quinn.

17. Eli Damaskinos (Thomas Kretschmann, Blade II)

You know, this guy turns up three times on this list.  I don’t know what his career is like in Germany, but he doesn’t make very good movies for the States, that’s for sure.  He’s a bland character, and his main physical features are looking really old in a generic vampire kind of way and wearing a bathrobe open so we can see his bony old man chest.  That doesn’t remind me of my nightmares; that reminds me of visiting Grandpa for the weekend.  His human lawyer is more sinister than he is.  The only cool thing about him is that crazy blood cake he eats at one point.

16. Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro, 300)

Bad implications aside, subtly effeminate villains are a time-tested staple; key word being "subtly."  This guy takes it so far you can’t possibly take him seriously.

15. Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang, Avatar)

It’s understandable why many people, even those who hate this movie, think this guy is cool.  He’s the villain in a preachy piece of junk, which automatically garners some sympathy.  He does have his moments of badassness, but he’s still a bland character who mostly talks in points lifted from George W. Bush’s wartime speeches.  He seems like too much of a good-ole-boy, and I’m afraid I’m a bit too old-school for a villain like that.

14. Oren Goodchild (Jonny Lee Miller, AeonFLUX)

That’s the villain?  He’s too adorable to be the villain!  He looks like a thinner version of Chris-Chan with better clot-wait, considering that he actually does look a little creepy.  Also, he and his brother are clones that were  told by their previous clones to “be me.”  The movie treats this like immortality, and that’s just stupid.

13. Kraven (Shane Brolly, Underworld)

I just don’t buy this guy as a centuries-old vampire in an agelessly young body.  Some people can sell that (Kate Beckinsale, bland as she is in that movie, does make me believe it), but this guy doesn’t.  Also, I know the guy’s supposed to be a pussy, but they can’t at least be somewhat subtle with it?  I mean, how do the other vampires even believe that he killed Lucien in the first place when he has “pussy” written all over him?  I was tempted to include Viktor on this list, but it turned out that I actually find Bill Nighy's hamminess amusing.

12. Warden Hennessey (Joan Allen, Death Race)

I’ve heard Joan Allen is a good actress, but she certainly wasn’t trying very hard in this movie.  This character is very bland, but when she suddenly blurts out, “Okay, c***sucker.  F*** with me, and we’ll see who s***s on the sidewalk,” the whole world did a facepalm.

 

11. Nerva (Sebastien Andrieu, Ultraviolet)

This guy is one of the most wooden actors I have ever seen in any movie, and it’s a good thing he’s not the main bad guy (that role is filled by the very charismatic Nick Chinlund).  He’s supposed to be sinister, but he just acts like he’s stoned the whole time.  Turns out, that’s not so surprising.  If you take a look at this guy's filmography, it’s kinda…underwhelming.

10. Albert Laurent (Djimon Hounsou, The Island)

I'm going to do another list of foolish movie villains, but Captain Stupid and his band of dumbasses here get the honor of being on this list as well because, in addition to being stupid, they're also just lame.  They're supposed to be a group of elite private military contractors made up of "ex-Navy SEALS and ex-Delta Force" but they can't seem to catch two naive clones without causing ridiculous amounts of public destruction.  In one particularly ridiculous scene Ewan McGregor and his clone are side by side trying to convince Laurent who's the real person.  Clone McGregor gets a bright idea and switches his ID bracelet with real Ewan McGregor right in damn front of him AND HE STILL FALLS FOR IT.  He eventually decides to stop hunting the clones because he realizes he's no different from the people who persecuted him in the past.  How does he come to this seemingly obvious realization?  He sees that they tattooed the clones like he was tattooed by his former enemies...because he's apparently so freaking dumb that he needs to see a TATTOO to make the connection.

9. The Riddler (Jim Carrey, Batman Forever)

Dear Gosh, was he annoying.  Do I even have to explain why?  The funny thing is, Jim Carrey would have made a good Riddler in serious or semi-serious mode.

 8. Nymphadora (Mila Kunis, Oz the Great and Powerful)

Talk about bad casting.  Mila Kunis looks comically unthreatening as the Wicked Witch.  What's more, she has terrible motivation: "That guy I don't know broke up with me even though we hardly started dating, so I'm going to blame him and not my evil sister who lied to me and turned me into a monster."  I thought she was actually faking her infatuation for the protagonist, but it turned out she was actually heartbroken when he left, so I guess it was just terrible acting.  Also, did they seriously just paint angry eyebrows smack dab in the middle of her forehead?  I can see why Tonks doesn't like to go by that name.

 7. Pinbacker (Mark Strong, Sunshine)

I don't know what's more annoying: that Pinbacker is an obvious religious strawman or the blatant waste of Mark Strong in this role.  I don't know what Strong did to piss Danny Boyle off, but all of his footage is shown at impossibly oblique angles, blurred and with shaky cam.  In other words, we don't get to see this great character actor act at all.  They literally could have put any idiot in that burn makeup and the effect would have been exactly the same. 

6. Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones, Batman Forever)

Not only does he look ridiculous, but they completely miss the point of his character.  Two-Face is supposed to be conflicted and tragic; he’s half-good, half-evil and constantly at war with himself.  This guy is pure evil, and what every light side he has is reduced to a fashion statement.  Sure, they ignored Two-Face’s dichotomy in Dark Knight, too, but at least they treated him like a tragic character in that movie.  He overacts almost as bad as Jim Carrey, and his evil side looks like the cook from Star Trek Voyager in a glam rocker’s Sunday best.  Tommy Lee Jones is a great actor and would have made a great Harvey Dent/Two-Face, but boy, oh boy, did they mess this one up.

5. Mr. Freeze (Arnold Scharzenegger, Batman and Robin)

Yeah, I don’t need to explain this one.  Bad acting on Arnold’s part, silly costume, awful one-liners.  At least he wore a cool polar bear bathrobe at one point.

4. The Penguin (Danny DeVito, Batman Returns)

I don’t want to diss on Danny DeVito, but he was badly miscast in this movie.  Seriously, the only thing this Italian Jersey native has in common with the Penguin is shortness, but then again this Penguin is so bafflingly out of character that it almost doesn't coutn as bad casting.  He gives an inspirational speech to a bunch of damn penguins.  I wish I was making that up.  The Penguin has an interesting story with potential, and instead Tim Burton turned him into one of his “outcast” characters.  He’s supposed to be a classy person, but instead he’s  a crude manimal who can’t hide his base sexual urges and runs around in his underwear all the time.  This freaking happens.  His final plan makes no sense and was apparently pulled out of the writers’ asses at the last second.  I do love his physical character design and his full suit...if he didn't spend so much time running around in his underwear.  Also, he’s telling those penguins that it's ok to be afraid because they might not come back alive...seriously, this is worse than the Bat Credit Card.  I'm not even exaggerating.

3. Major Timothy Cain (Thomas Kretschmann, Resident Evil Apocalypse)

Thomas Kretschmann pulled a hat trick.  This has got to be the blandest villain I have ever seen, even without his inexplicable German accent.  He just doesn’t do anything interesting, and his dialogue is pure cliché.  He doesn’t come off as remotely evil, unless you have a special fear of people who wear bluetooths.

2. Megatron (Hugo Weaving, Transformers)

So you’re making a movie based on a popular cartoon and you’re figuring out whom to choose for its voice cast.  Your options are:

      A.)   Cast the voice actor who not only gives the villain’s role a distinctive and sinister sound, but already defined the character for an entire generation

      B.)    Reject said voice actor because he “didn’t sound awesome enough” and cast more expensive and popular actor, only to garble his voice beyond all recognition.

If you picked A, you’re not Michael Bay.  Megatron was a classic cartoon villain, and in the movies he’s just a bland dumbass with nothing remotely resembling a personality.  Also, like every Transformer in that damn movie, he looks like a nondescript pile of shrapnel.  I suppose his look was supposed to give him a ferocious, bestial appearance, but that’s not Megatron.  Megatron is a calculating, evil mastermind, and that design does not suit him at all.

1. Hammerson (Stephen McHattie, Shoot’em Up)

“I’m the head of a gun company, so that means I’m pure evil!  I kill babies, because I don’t support gun control!  No, I don’t believe I’m right, I’m just evil, because I make guns!”  Yes, people, that is literally what passes for political commentary in that movie.  This character is nothing more than a lazily written political strawman written by someone who could not be bothered to actually be remotely intelligent or honest when it comes to politics, and that is frankly worse than any other entry on this list.  (I was tempted to include Charlton Heston from Bowling for Columbine; that’s no less a work of fiction than any of these other movies.)