Speed-Yawn-Racer

Speed Racer is easily the most boring action film since Matrix Revolutions. The racing, with it’s cartoon backgrounds, had all the realism of racing in front of a cartoon background. All of the scenes with the cartoon backgrounds were slightly out of phase with the live action sequences so that it never looked right-but then, maybe this not quite right look is what they were going for.

I don’t know who the kid playing Speed Racer was, but he was a perfect blend of cartoon Speed Racer and Elvis Presley. It was good to see John Goodman and Susan Sarandon was fun. It was clear that they wanted Tim Curry to play the over the top villain, but Tim must have been busy with Spamalot. It was also good to see Mathew Fox off the LOST Island. Paulie Litt’s Spritle was the most annoying bit of this very annoying movie.

The story, such as it was, made even less sense than most of the real Speed Racer story lines. But clearly this was never meant to be a plot driven movie, though it is unclear what exactly it was meant to be. The racing sequences were an odd combination of James Caan’s Rollerball and an over sized Hot Wheels set. Its impossible to describe how totally and complete fake the racing looked. There are all these ‘high speed’ jumps and turns and then they show a shot of Speed sitting in a perfectly still car like an actor taking it easy on a motionless green screen.

There was also the odd fact that most of the shots of the Mark 5 had a large 6 on the side of the car-until late in the film when the ‘new’ car is rolled out-and we get a tight shot of the 6 that has been seen all through the film already. Among the countless annoyovision treats are blindly bright walls, clothes, floors, skies, and well, everything else. At home with the Racer family we often see the Mark 5 setting in the living room, without anyone giving it a second look.

Get some of the old cartoons and watch them-those are a lot more realistic and the characters are more fully developed.

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