OG's BLOG

My family and I saw Speed Racer the other day. I have been hearing a lot of bad things about the movie in the Critical Press, but I have to wonder what people were expecting. It was very much like a children’s racing movie, and from the advertisements, that’s what I pretty much thought it would be. I mean, sure, it’s basically a 90 minute commercial for the newly re-booted TV show of the same name, which is in turn basically a commercial for Speed Racer toys, available at the usual outlets. And I’m sure there will be fast food tie ins. There almost always are these days. And I couldn’t help thinking that I was seeing layouts for a future Speed Racer video game in scene after scene. Hey, I’d play it, if only once. Some pretty exciting layouts.

But why such hatred on this film? I wonder what has the critics all hot and bothered over a kid’s film? The plot wasn’t hard to follow. I never had a doubt Speed would Race in the Big Race and Get the Girl (although… is he dating his sister? uh… nevermind. Roll with it.) I never had a doubt the little kid and the monkey would pop up in the trunk of whatever car was convenient for their comic relief goals. And as for that – this is one case where the comic relief actually was comic, and somewhat of a relief. The bits of the little kid and the monkey were the one place in the film where the pace calmed down for a bit, and it was nice. And, yeah, funny. Maybe it’s just me, but most of the time I feel that monkey=funny. *shrug* Your mileage may vary.

Now, this is the Warchowski Brothers behind this film, the same folks that brought you the Matrix Trilogy. I loved the first Matrix film but felt the other two were just too hectic and overconcerned with their own mythology to be very interesting to me. And you see telltale signs of their hand here – many scenes are just Stuff Coming At the Camera to the point that you can hardly tell what is happening. But I suppose the Warchowski Brothers were smart enough to know that you were smart enough to understand the basics – Boy Races. Boy Loses. Then Boy Races Again, Against Hopeless Odds. Is there really any chance that we can’t follow that?

I do wish Andy and Larry would calm down the visual wall of noise a bit. But on the other hand, the film is very exciting, and full of manga and anime visual touchstones complete with motion lines. I don’t think the film ever made the mistake of taking itself for more than it actually was. In fact, I believe as a story, it worked better than Cars. There were real live humans driving these cars, not just talking faces on wheels. I always thought the introduction of drivers in Cars would have improved it drastically, and you can get a real feel for what that might have been like, watching this film. It actually hit some of the same themes as Cars – throwing the race, figuring out what’s important in life, etc. And it did it pretty well, if you really want to know what I think.