Speed Racer
[4K/Digital code]
The Wachowskis aren’t one-hit wonders, but they do have a questionable success-rate. I think their movies don’t always pass the test of time. Speed Racer is an odd one, at that. It was a bomb and probably made Hollywood happy to have revoked their blank check after The Invasion: a move I had no idea existed. Still, this movie has kind of gained cult status since its failure. That’s always cooler than being a success…because test of time and all that.
It’s still pretty gutsy to make a movie like Speed Racer. Sure, the IP is solid, but how are you going to bring it to the screen? The Wachowskis went an absolutely wild route. The first thing you’ll notice about Speed Racer is the visual style. It is an absolute bombardment of saturated colors and visual effects. Things just don’t look or move the way you expect them to. It’s like a malfunctioning video game. It’s cool, but it can also be exhausting. It’s one thing that truly stands out from the movie, because it’s simply unexplainable the visual bombardment your eyes are getting. It’s like a Katy Perry music video that’s sped up and goes on for over two hours. OVER TWO HOURS! Can you imagine watching this on the big screen? I’m not a druggie but I think this is what an acid trip would feel like. Plus, it’s matching the tone of the original show (which I watched as a kid), with its hero adventuring while still being part of a wholesome and excentric family, which is jarring.
But there’s just not much going on in all that time. That includes the plot and the characters. There are some pretty great sequences, like the Casa Cristo 5000 race which hits at the heart of what would make this concept work (cool, imaginative races!), but that’s the only truly engaging part of this movie. The casting is interesting but only Christina Ricci seems to be having fun with her lines. It’s just that the plot is so incomprehensible and convoluted and the CGI is so relentless that Speed Racer runs out of steam 45 minutes in…with an hour and a half still to go. That’s painful!
