This is the 21st movie I’ve seen in 2008. Here are the others.
When I was 11 years old, in the summer of 1972, I had a newspaper route. Every week day afternoon (it was an afternoon paper) I’d walk my route, usually taking my time to finish it. That summer though, a local UHF channel (UHF! Yeow, talk about ancient history), channel 53, began showing two cartoon shows every day at 3PM that prompted me to “haul ass” so I could finish my route and get home before they began. Oh, those days of yore, long before the VCR or Tivo.
At 3:00 ran the Marvel Superheroes Show. This was the collection of the late 1960’s limited animated series featuring The Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Sub Mariner and Iron Man. Say what you will about the animation, but these stories were GREAT! Now they were basically the same stories from Marvels comics in the late 60’s but since I hadn’t read those yet, these cartoons were my first introduction to them.
Following that, ran one of my first exposures to a Japanese animated show. Unlike today when you can’t flip the remote without coming across one of the zillions of Japanese animated cartoons, or Anime as they insist on being called, back in the day they were few and far between. Prior to this show I’d only seen Astro Boy, Kimba The White Lion and Marine Boy. While I ldid like all of those, hands down my favorite was channel 53’s 3:30 offering…. Speed Racer!
Which is my extremely long winded way of setting up my reaction/review for the movie I just saw, the big screen live action Speed Racer film. (and to let you know that I had certain expectations going into this).
The Racer family, Pops (John Goodman), along with Mom (Susan Sarandon), and boys Rex and Speed (Emile Hirsch) are a racing family. Unlike most racers on the circuit, who are backed by large corporate sponsors, Rex and later Speed have only the family on their side. Thanks to his recent racing success, Speed is offered a lucrative deal by multimillionaire Royalton of Royalton Industries.
While deciding to accept his offer, Speed learns of Royalton’s dirty secrets of fixing races and cheating to gain profit and by rejecting his offer Royalton ensures that Speed will not win any further races.
The Racer family are then approached by Inspector Detector of the C.B.I. and his top agent, the mysterious Racer X, to race in a dangerous cross country race called the Crucible. This is the same race that took the life of Speed’s older brother Rex, several years ago.
Now I’ve seen many, many movies over the years that are adaptations from TV shows, comic books and cartoons and in my opinion, this film, Speed Racer is one of the best adaptations of all time!
Now I’m no fan of the directors/writers Andy & Larry Wachowski. I found the film The Matrix to be amazingly boring, so much so that I avoided the sequels. But, boy, they got this one right.
From the cast (who are just about dead on perfect) to the feel, look and focus of the story, they took me back to those summers in front of the TV in 1972. They took the core of the original material, the small Racer family battling against the big, evil corporations and kept the over dramatic dialogue, actions and of course, the races. All of which made the Speed Racer cartoon what it is.
Their use of incorporating flashbacks I feel were quite effective too. By sliding in these flashbacks, they never stopped or got in the way of the ongoing story and told just what you needed to know of what went before. And while they overdid the fancy “frozen pose” shots in The Matrix, it works great here, emulating those frozen action shots (with the action lines in the background) from the original cartoon.
You know, that’s what really works here. Unlike film producers of the past few decades who would adapt comic or cartoon work and ignore EVERYTHING that made the original material work, the Wachowski’s here embrace it. They get everything right, even the music. After I sat through the end credits (and no, there is no extra scene) I wanted to buy the soundtrack.
Besides keeping the original songs that ran through the cartoons we also are treated to the same sound effects too, especially that of the catapulting Mach 5 and perhaps most importantly actor Emile Hirsch keeps those distinctive grunts, gasps an “uhhhh” that Speed would utter during the cartoons. Oh, and I nearly forgot, at the end of one of the races the Wachowski brothers give us that exact scene of Speed leaping from the Mach 5 and dramatically posing that we got after the main credits on every episode.
Along with the main characters, music and look, everything else is here. The unique, strange looking fellow racers like Snake Oiler and Cruncher Block and new Thor-like drivers are along for the ride too. (sorry about the pun) And of course, what would be a Speed Racer story without a ridiculously dangerous cross country race? Taking the drivers through the arid desert over mountainous terrain and inside an ice cave of death!
Now I’m stating what I liked about the film, because how truthful it is to the original source, but what about someone who has never seen the show. How would they like it? I thought the gist of the story was perfect for a family film, without stepping over the line of typical family film insipidness. The story here is the strength of the family, about staying truthful to yourself and your dreams. Yes, it’s very colorful (capturing the color of the cartoon) and very kinetic, but not so that it bothered me or distracted me from the story.
So, was anything wrong with it? Well, it is a bit long, over two hours, but I never felt the film sag or grow tedious.
Wow, two summer films first, the excellent Iron Man and now Speed Racer, and they’re both very good.
Something tells me the next one I see (starring a certain hat wearing adventurer) will keep that streak alive.
I give Speed Racer a “Go, Go”:
