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.