How the mighty have fallen! When Andy and Larry Wachowski released The Matrix in 1999, they could hardly have known that it would become a major Hollywood trendsetter, spawning its own anime spin-offs and countless imitators, as well as setting new standards for visual effects and depth and plotting in an action movie.
Sadly, with each successive film – Reloaded, Revolutions, and now Speed Racer, unless one counts their role in writing and producing V for Vendetta – the brothers’ genius has waned, their creations less inspired and impressive.
Speed Racer is an adaptation of a Japanese manga/anime series called Mach GoGoGo, which tells the story of the aptly named Racer family as 18-year-old son Speed (Emile Hirsch) follows in the footsteps of his record-setting brother, Rex, who was killed in a race during Speed’s childhood. With the Racer family rounded out by John Goodman as Pops, Susan Sarandon as Mom, and Christina Ricci as Speed’s girlfriend, Trixie –not to mention younger brother Spritle and pet chimpanzee, Chim-Chim, for comic relief –Speed Racer seems almost like a sure thing.
Unfortunately, the movie attempts to tell as many cliché stories as it can all at once – young vs. old, tradition vs. change, family vs. corporation, honesty vs. underhandedness – in such a hackneyed, emotionless manner that it ultimately amounts to something approximating Hot Wheels: the Movie.
The bad guy, Mr. Royalton (Roger Allam), is nothing but a greedy corporate overlord, a designer-suit-clad Brit channelling Tim Curry through nasty Austin Powers teeth. And aside from the question of whether Speed will sign with Royalton Industries for a hefty paycheque and a bit of family drama, there is nothing else but the races themselves to provide any tension.
The plot is a complete throwaway, highlighted by a ridiculous third-act ‘revelation’ – which throws in everything but the kitchen sink, including unnecessary plastic surgery and an overdose of flashbacks – that will have your eight-year-old rolling his eyes and saying he predicted it from the get-go.
Good cartoons work on multiple levels; this story is vacuous, a kiddie-crack CGI spectacle with nothing to engage mom and dad.
Worst of all, the visual effects – one thing even a CGI car-racing flick should be able to count on to impress – are simply not arresting. Pure CGI environments are striking when they are used inventively (think Sin City or Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow) or when they are simply nice to look at (as in last year’s 300) but at this point they have just about been done to death, and there are plenty more Frank Miller film adaptations on their way to trample the technique into the dust.
Even on an IMAX screen, the visuals are largely underwhelming, as fake and plasticky as the rest of the film, and often as two-dimensional as the characters populating it. Like a video game, Speed Racer does its best to achieve a visual adrenaline rush, but short of theatre attendants handing out XBOX controllers to the audience, there’s no way for us to feel involved. Even the pod race from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace managed a comprehensible, linear story and a bit of suspense, but the races here are a series of automotive aerobatics roughly as engrossing as anime kung fu — which is to say they are a far cry from live action, even with all the neon corkscrew loop-de-loops and the death-dealing countermeasures the cars deploy against each another for competitive advantage.
Speed Racer manages one genuinely affecting moment, when Speed decides to leave home, in which the film tries to say something about how history repeats itself: Speed finds himself echoing to his own kid brother the very words he heard from Rex. More than that, it suggests we can even right our previous wrongs. Pops, who disowned Rex as he stubbornly left for the race that would kill him, does not make the same mistake with Speed and supports his son to the end.
Goodman is great throughout, but looks like he wishes he was back chewing scenery in Death Sentence instead of playing second fiddle to a convoy of computer-generated cars. Sarandon, too, is compelling but criminally under-utilized; the two veteran actors give the film its only touch of class.
In the end, Speed Racer is a ponderous, self-indulgent spectacle that gets one star: half of it for John Goodman and half for the chimp.