Speed Racer

Speed Racer is a movie you will either love or loathe. There is no middle ground to it simply because The Wachowski brothers prove to be craftsmanship obsessed with Speed Racer details from the original cartoon.

Painstaking degrees of being anal went in to preserve all the idiosyncrasies from the original Speed Racer cartoon. Dialog in parts of the movie was made purposely awkward and rushed (particularly when the baddie shares his diabolical plan), flashbacks come across as awkward and sudden (just like in the cartoon) and nobody bats an eyelid to the presence of Chim Chim, the monkey, hanging out.

Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) is the name of the main character, obsessed with racing and one heck of a driver who gets tangled in a dirty conspiracy gripping the racing world. With the help of his family (inclusive of said monkey), girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci) and the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox), Speed has to race the race of his life to set things right again in the racing world.

The plot is preposterous, but rightfully so considering how everything in this movie must be excessive in every possible way.

Korean heartthrob Rain is also in this playing a Japanese driver, Taejo Togokhan, who has a dark secret that leads to a major twist later on in the movie.

The Wachowski brothers have succeeded in bringing a cartoon to life like no other film has done before. Beyond preserving strange details from the original cartoon, the movie intentionally goes overboard with making everything visually over the top.

This movie makes Tim Burton’s Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory look like a low production episode of Art Attack. Race scenes in Speed Racer come across like drug-induced trips without the use of any illegal substance (say no to dadah, kids) and all the characters here are perfect two-dimensional caricatures. Speed Racer’s mom and dad carry every ounce of ‘50s-style romanticism of what parents should be like. The villains are goofy and maniacal and Speed himself is full of innocent idealism free from any cynicism.

With the actors here required to mainly just ham it up in their characters, there really isn’t any bad performances. Even Rain does well doing what he usually does anyway, look pretty. The standout performance though is definitely child star Paulie Litt, playing Speed’s younger brother Sprittle. Child actors are usually annoying, but Litt’s turn as the hyperactive kid brother was excellent. His chemistry with the monkey was good too.

Your senses will be pummelled, your reality will be warped while in the cinema, but that is exactly the point with Speed Racer. The movie is basically like getting on an amusement park ride that gives you a plot in addition to dizzying ride thrills. It is because of the movie’s over the top nature that people who have seen it either think it is brilliant or complete rubbish. We’re going with brilliant.

Speed Racer
Cast Emile Hirsch, Rain, Matthew Fox Director The Wachowski Brothers Runtime 135 minutes