SUPER HAPPY FUN MOVIE TIME #10: Speed Racer

By Mr.Death (Known as Death GoGoGo in Japan)

I wasn’t a huge Speed Racer fan as a kid, but I did enjoy watching the show every now and then. So when a Speed Racer movie came out, I was pretty apathetic on the matter. Then the trailer came out. Way way way too colorful for my tastes. I know your trying to pay homage to the cartoon, but can you be a little more subtle? So Saturday night, as a went into the movie theater, my choices were Speed Racer or Made of Honor. I quickly picked Speed Racer. So is it worth seeing, or should you GoGoGo to a different movie?

The story is Speed Racer races speedily. With speed! And there is stuff about how family values are important, you can be whoever you want to be, big business is BAD, and other assorted cliche things. And there is a monkey, which worked in the cartoon but not in the movie.

But seriously, the plot is Speed Racer is a natural behind the wheel. Born to race cars, Speed is aggressive, instinctive and, most of all, fearless. His only real competition is the memory of the brother he idolized-the legendary Rex Racer - whose death in a race has left behind a legacy that Speed is driven to fulfill. Speed is loyal to the family racing business, led by his father, Pops Racer, the designer of Speed’s thundering Mach 5. When Speed turns down a lucrative and tempting offer from Royalton Industries, he not only infuriates the company’s maniacal owner but uncovers a terrible secret-some of the biggest races are being fixed by a handful of ruthless moguls who manipulate the top drivers to boost profits. If Speed won’t drive for Royalton, Royalton will see to it that the Mach 5 never crosses another finish line. The only way for Speed to save his family’s business and the sport he loves is to beat Royalton at his own game. With the support of his family and his loyal girlfriend, Trixie, Speed teams with his one-time rival-the mysterious Racer X - to win the race that had taken his brother’s life: the death-defying, cross-country rally known as The Crucible. (Stolen lovingly from IMDB)

Now I have to say right off the bat that the whole cartoony style I bitched about in the intro worked really well for the racing sequences. Besides the final race at the Grand Pre, they were exciting and really fun to watch. The Mach 5 also looks spectacular. And when they were racing The Crucible in the desert, it was probably one of the most fun sequences to watch this summer.

Unfortunately as great as the races are, there is this little thing called the plot that keeps getting in the way. All the characters are really unlikable and dumb. Incidently, I’ll be forming a lynch mob later tonight to hunt down the kid who played Sparky and the monkey who played Chim-Chim to insure they never set foot near a movie again. They had a couple of fighting sequences in it that were terrible. And the script was bad. Andy and Larry Wachowski, please go back to writing post-apocalyptic action movies, because you guys cannot write comedy.

Although it has some steller racing stuff, the whole cartoony element doesn’t work on the rest of the film. They should of renamed it Green Screen: The Movie! Half the time it looks like a gummy bear puked on the whole thing. Dr. Suess would have said “Jesus, that’s way too outlandish for me”. And the final race was a real letdown. It was the equivalent of a bad acid trip. Speed Racer isn’t as much of a movie as it is an experience, cheap hallucinetic drugs made into a movie. They should have renamed it Bad Drug Trip: The Mo…oh wait, I already used that joke.

Anyway, Speed Racer, despite some great races, isn’t worth it. If you want some Speed Racer, rent the old cartoon set. Otherwise, don’t bother.

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