Review: Speed Racer

Years ago, with the release of the original Sony Playstation, there was a racing game called Wipeout. This game put you in control of an ‘air sled’, and you raced against a field of competitors for gold. Each racer had different strengths and weaknesses, and while racing along the many varied tracks, you could acquire weapons to (temporarily) disable the competition. The game was fantastic, as the tracks went from the simple to the bizarre, with countless loops and insane jumps, and the speed of the races increased the deeper you went into the game. Now, while I cannot say for sure that the Wachowski’s intended to make a Wipeout movie, Speed Racer came pretty close.*

The movie centers on young Speed (yes that is his first name) and his obsession with racing. He longs to emulate his older brother Rex, and to one day race in the Grand Prix sponsored by the World Racing League. As older teens often do, brother Rex must leave the family business, seemingly to pursue dreams of his own. One day, while watching Rex participate in a televised race nicknamed The Crucible, the Racer family see Rex die, which nearly tears the heart out of the Racer family. Fast forward about 10 years and a now 18 year old Speed is a “demon on wheels”, racking up the wins and literally chasing the ghost of his brother, drawing both fan adulation and the attention of corporate sponsors.

One sponsor in particular, Royalton Industries which is led by the oily Mr. Royalton, tries to woo the Racer family with promises of money, fame and state of the art facilities. But Speed turns him down and as a result makes a powerful enemy. This leads to an eventual alliance with the mysterious Racer X, and Speed defying his father’s wishes by participating in the same race that claimed Rex's life...

Speed Racer was a good family movie. Yes, the family interaction was cheesy, but it was cheese with heart. It did what very few movies do, and made the family's relationship the center of everything that they did. They care for and supported each other, and the arguments that did take place were more out of genuine concern for one another, not wanting to let some one bear the full weight of an issue or tragedy alone. The only jerks in the movie, aside from the obvious villains, were Speed's younger brother Spritle and the monkey Chim-Chim. I hated those two as a kid, and I still hate them now. All of the supporting cast (Speed's girlfriend Trixie, Mom, Pops, Sparky and Inspector Detector) from the 60's toon made the trip to the big screen. Racer X's introduction even includes a battle against the Monster Car from the show. The ad campaign was strong, but this film had the unfortunate task of opening a week after Iron Man, which crushed the box office in it’s debut, and cast a long shadow for Speed to try and get from under. The movie was a living cartoon, and it was essentially advertised as such. But Speed's "old school" reputation may have kept a lot of the younger audience weaned on Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh and Naruto as their exposure to Japanese animation away from this movie. Speed Racer simply may have been too retro for the younger viewers and too cutting edge for those that have fond memories of Speed back in the 60's. And that’s a pity, because I feel that you only get maybe one or two summer movies that are meant for big screen viewing, and this was definitely one of them. The racing elements were spectacular, and showed once again that if you have the imagination (and money) you can pretty much bring anything to the big screen. Hopefully this movie finds a bigger audience on DVD, and those that missed it in the theater (which, judging by the box office is a lot of people) will get a glimpse of what I saw, and maybe for an hour or two, become a kid again.

*Now, please do not misunderstand me. I did compare the movie to a video game, but it is only in comparing the racing scenes. And that is no light compliment. Some of the effects were hit and miss, with the large amount of them landing on the ‘hit’ side of the fence. There have been a lot of reviews lately that compare an FX heavy movie like this to a video game, and I have always felt that this was never an accurate description of a scene or film. They are both different media, and where some of the equipment to create them may be the same, it is an unfair comparison.