So Bad It's Good Rating:
When I was a boy, about knee-high to a grasshopper, I used to watch the old Speed Racer cartoon whenever I could. I was never into racing cars that much as a kid, or now, but I enjoyed the cartoon for what it was: mindless entertainment. It was a burst of high octane fun. And so when I heard that Andy & Larry Wachowski, the brothers who wrote and directed the Matrix films, were making a live action film version of Speed Racer, my first thought was…hmm, ok…. The problem for me was that I was so young when I first saw the cartoons, that I only vaguely remember it today. And unlike Batman and Star Trek, both of which have remained huge within the popular consciousness, Speed Racer has sort of faded into obscurity, outside of its diehard fan base.
Still, I tried to keep an open mind. If nothing else, I figured the movie would be visually stunning--and it is, to the point of being nauseating. It’s been a common complaint the last few years that many of the big-budget popcorn films have an overdose of visual information, particularly in their special effect scenes. But the new Speed Racer pushes this to the nth degree, where normally regular conversation scenes have objects and even people swirling around, amidst bright flashing neon colors, as if in a drug-induced hallucination. I’ve never taken LSD, and have no desire to, but watching some of the crazed visuals in Speed Racer gave me a very good idea of what an LSD trip was probably like.
Aside from the wacky visuals, the whole tone of the film is just bizarre. The plot is treated deadly serious, yet still within a slap-happy, cartoon-ish vibe. The racing scenes--which are completely CGI--are so goofy and over the top that it’s hard to relate to anything. It’s as unreal as watching a video game--which can really be said for the whole film. Despite the mind-numbing flash-backs and exposition heavy conversation scenes, it’s hard to feel for any of the characters in Speed Racer because, in the end, they’re still basically cardboard cut outs. It doesn’t help that the film’s lead, Emile Hirsch, mumbles his lines so badly that he’s incoherent most of the time (thank God for the English subtitles, or else I never would have figured out what he was saying).
And I really wanted to strangle that little kid and the &^%ing monkey! The both
of them should win the Jar-Jar Binks award for being the most annoying
characters forced on movie audiences in 2008. I realize that these characters
were in the original cartoon, but damn, did the Wachowski Brothers have to be
this faithful?! But any film that manages to waste a cast as good as
Christina Ricci, Susan Sarandon, John Goodman and Matthew Fox is really a lost
cause, anyway. Speed Racer is recommended only if you find yourself babysitting
some hyperactive kids. It’s hypnotic visual effects should lull them into a nice,
quiet catatonic state. And if that doesn’t work, you can always threaten them
into being quiet by saying that the really annoying monkey and kid will visit
them later that night in their beds.
--SF
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