Speed Racer Review

Posted by Bryan Kristopowitz on 05.09.2008

A spectacular family action flick. The Wachowskis are back!

"Speed Racer" Review

Emile Hirsch- Speed Racer
Christina Ricci- Trixie
Mathew Fox- Racer X
Susan Sarandon- Mom
John Goodman- Pops
Roger Allam- Royalton
Kick Gurry- Sparky
Paulie Litt- Spritle
Willy- Chim Chim
Richard Roundtree- Ben Burns
Scott Porter- Rex Racer
Directed by the Wachowski brothers
Screenplay by the Wachowski brothers, based one the cartoon Speed Racer created by Tatsuo Yoshida
Distributed by Warner Brothers
Rated PG for sequences of action, some violence and language
Runtime- 129 minutes
Website: http://www.speedracerthemovie.warnerbros.com/

"Speed Racer," the full on live action adaptation of the mega popular and iconic Japanese cartoon of the same name, is a spectacular bit of family popcorn action cinema that has more heart and social consciousness than its seizure inducing trailers let on.

Directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski, the Wachowski brothers, "Speed Racer" stars Emile Hirsch as Speed Racer, a young up and coming driver on the wild, gravity defying WRL (World Racing League) car racing circuit that is the most popular sport in the world. His winning ways attract the eye of the charismatic owner of Royalton Industries, Royalton (Roger Allam), who wants to form a partnership with Speed and his legendary father Pops Racer (John Goodman), a noted brilliant car builder, independent owner, and mechanic. Speed is reluctant to join up with Royalton, as Pops, an unabashed "racing purist" who believes that corporate sponsorships have ruined the sport, wants nothing to do with him. Speed doesn't want to upset his father, who finally got back into racing several years after Rex Racer (Scott Porter), the first Racer family racing success and Speed's big brother and mentor, died under mysterious circumstances in an outlaw cross country rally race called "The Crucible." But Speed also doesn't want to upset his father by appearing to ignore his own dreams and ambitions. Pops wants Speed to be his own man. This conflict is what informs the rest of the movie, and is what helps "elevate" (Drake, I hate using that word) the flick into something more than just a razzle dazzle action movie.

As expected, Royalton's generous offer is not exactly on the up and up. Royalton is a scheming, black hearted scumbag who admits outright that the only reason he wants Speed to drive for him is money, that the outcomes of the major WRL races are fixed to ensure that the major companies running the show continue to make major money. There is no competition, no valor, none of that hooha. It's all about money and power and making sure nothing ever really changes. Speed rebuffs Royalton's offer, which then leads Royalton to threaten Speed's family with financial and social ruin. The Speed family will have to live through the same accusations that erupted during Rex's rise to fame and fortune and eventually untimely death (corruption, cheating, dealing with gangsters, etc). But Speed doesn't want to believe any of that. He still holds his brother in high esteem, and he wants to believe that the WRL is what it claims to be.

Sadly for Speed, Royalton follows through on his threats. Suddenly, Speed isn't winning races anymore and his team is being investigated by the authorities. Everything is falling apart. They're not going to be able to compete in the biggest race of the season, the year ending Grand Prix. Speed tells his father what Royalton told him. Pops doesn't want to believe it. That is not the world he lives in.

At this point in the flick, all seems lost. How can Speed, and more specifically the Racer family, come back a second time from total ruin? In walks the mysterious Racer X (Mathew Fox), an occasional WRL rival and undercover police investigator. He wants Speed to enter the Crucible rally race to help prevent Royalton from stealing the family business of racer Taejo Togokhan (Rain). If X and Speed can get Togokhan a win in the Crucible and an automatic birth into the Grand Prix, Royalton's deal will fall apart and Togokhan will offer his Grand Prix birth to Speed. Pops, though, wants nothing to do with it. Rally racing is not "real" racing, and it's what killed Rex. How could Speed think of getting involved with that?

So, what's going to happen? Will Speed beat back the dark awfulness of Royalton and his evil big business ilk and prove that the WRL isn't a den of lies? Will Royalton gets what's coming to him?

For some reason, I thought the flick was going to be more of a straight up racing movie and that we'd spend oodles of time with all of the fantastic car technology and the officials and the background players in the WRL. That's the movie I probably would have made, but then again I'm not "The Matrix" brothers. The Wachowskis have managed to create an excellent balance between the slam bang car action stuff and the character stuff that all then leads to the uber populist sentiment of the story. I'd imagine that this anti-big business outlook is going to turn off the segment of the audience that doesn't believe that big business is running the world into the ground for a profit, but I doubt that any complaints they may make about "big Hollywood socialist propaganda" will be taken seriously. It is a movie about fantastic racing cars. Great job, Andy and Larry.

The cast here is superb. Hirsch is great as Speed. He's got a fresh faced earnestness that makes you feel all the more for him when he's told how bad and corrupt the WRL is. He has great chemistry with Christina Ricci, who plays Speed's long time girlfriend Trixie. Ricci does her usual fine job, and you can tell that she's having a blast playing around in the movie world created by the Wachowskis. Susan Sarandon is, at first, kind of dull as Speed's mom, Mom, but her performance picks up when she has a heart to heart talk with Speed about what he does in a race car. John Goodman is freaking outstanding as Pops. Goodman is always great at playing a tweaked authority figure, which is Pops in spades (check out the wrestling fight scene, where Pops starts throwing people into the air. Goodman makes it look better than it has any right to look). Kick Gurry is perfect as Sparky, Pops' assistant mechanic. His time to shine is also in the big wrestling fight scene (Gurry is obviously a gifted physical comedian). Mathew Fox is fairly decent as Racer X. He has a difficult part to pull off because he's forced to basically act under a mask. Fox has a good enough physical presence to mitigate the lack of facial expressions and whatnot.

Roger Allam is simply amazing as Royalton. Allam, who I thought was Tim Curry at first, is able to make you absolutely despise him, especially after his scene in the Racer family home partaking in Mom's pancakes. You just know that the sonofabitch was lying about how much he liked those flapjacks. Great stuff.

And then there's Paulie Litt as Spritle, Speed's younger brother, and Willy, the chimp credited with playing Chim Chim the family chimp. How much you like them will likely depend on how funny you think chimps are. I think they're hilarious, so I thought every scene Willy appeared in was comedy gold. Litt is quite good as Chim Chim's best buddy Spritle. Litt never overplays the character, even when he infiltrates Royalton's secret candy stash. And the bit where he imagines himself in a cartoon, along with Chim Chim, is brilliant.

And let's not forget Richard Roundtree, as racing great Ben Burns (it's always cool to see the John Shaft in a movie), the great Art LaFleur as one of the many race announcers (McNulty rules), and a special appearance by IRL Indycar driver Milka Duno as Gearbox. They're all great.

The car racing sequences are breathtaking in their audaciousness. Sky high loop-to-loops, sweeping turns, car jumping and somersaulting, and none of it ever looks ridiculous. Implausible, yes, but never stupid. They just have to be seen on the big screen (I'd imagine that they'll lose some of their power on the television screen).

The only thing that bothers me about the flick is the occasional cuss word thrown in for... I have no idea. While there's nothing wrong with throwing out a "shit" or a "damn" or an "ass" every now and then, in this flick, they don't work. It's just odd to hear Speed Racer say "shit."

Swearing aside, "Speed Racer" is a great way to spend two plus hours of your time. It's a fabulous movie going experience that, again, just needs to be seen on the big screen.

See it, see it, see it.

So what do we have here? Gratuitous red socks, taking a "fill-in-the-bubble" test, gratuitous lack of concentration, gratuitous racing flip book, gratuitous Susan Sarandon, a crude animated day dream, gratuitous being told to "feel" the car, gratuitous multi-lingual race announcers, multiple wild flips with green goo safety things, gratuitous monkey with binoculars, a little girl punch to the face, go-kart through the bushes, an exploding go-kart, gratuitous John Goodman, punching a fat kid, gratuitous racing a ghost, gratuitous kid and monkey dreaming they're in a cartoon, gratuitous pancakes, gratuitous high speed segueways, a literally vertically integrated factory, penguins, gratuitous piranhas fed by barbequed meat, a heavily armed tractor trailer, a travelling mob hideout, an "interpositive transponder", four giant contracts, candy gorging, gratuitous old racing footage, gratuitous Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird," gratuitous Art LaFleur, gratuitous Richard Roundtree, illegal racing, green slime to the face, snake charmers, chicks with tongues, hot dog eating, fur rubbing, buzz saw bulldinkey, beehive attack, lawn mowing, dart shooting, kung fu ninja stuff, fat kid monkey attack, pulling down a guy's pants, pro wrestling, monkey poop to the face, ball kicking, eye poking, gratuitous car gadgets, driving off a cliff, gratuitous builing a car in 32 hours from scratch, PB and J sandwiches, a great final race, pushing an ice sculpture off a table, gratuitous milk drinking in victory lane, and breaking the fourth wall.

Best lines: "Is your husband named Rex?," "Speed Racer, slow down!," "Are you wearing the socks?," "Jeeper, Pops! He could do it! e could really do it!," "Hey, want to see my car collection?," "Cool beans," "No one from these parts will ever forget the life of Rex Racer," "He's coming hard!," "Come on, let's go to Victory Lane!," "Is that pancakes I smell?," "We got our eye on you, mister," "I've never flown this low to the city," "That's Cannibal Taylor!," "So, Mrs. Racer, what do you think of my family? Impressed?," "Hubba hubba," "Justice? That's a commodity I don't waste my money on," "Oh, Spritle, you little sneak!," "You poor naive chump," "Pop is right. You are the devil," "Get this Racer trash out of my building," "Racer X! The Harbinger of Doom! Run for your life!," "Speed Racer, what are you thinking?," "Well, I guess we're going skiing," "Enough. I can't stand the whining," "Move it, Speed. It's getting ugly out there," "See, this race is full of cheaters," "Hey, all I was doing was saving your ass," "Ineptitude! This is what I pay you for?," "Woo hoo! Room service!," "Oh my God, was that a ninja? More like a nunja," "It's terrible what passes for ninjas these days," "You cheater!," "What is this? It's called a change of plan," "Get that monkey!," "Bye bye little turd!," "Go Speed Go!," "You can't believe a crook," "Sounds beefy, Pops," "What madness is going on here?," "Holy bleep!," "I'm looking forward to that cold milk," "This ain't a race, this is a showdown!," "Woo! That kid is wily!," "Get that weak shit off my track!," "That cheater! He's using a spearhook!," and "It's a whole new world, baby, a whole new world."

The 411: "Speed Racer" is the second great, big summer movie in as many weeks. The Wachowski brothers have done it again, this time within the confines of the family action movie. You just have to go and see it. It's a blast.

Final Score:  9.0   [  Amazing ]