Little Wachowski Urban Achiever | Emile Hirsch keeps his foot on the accelerator throughout Speed Racer.
SPEED RACER
Directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski. Starring Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Matthew Fox. Opens Fri, May 9.
4 stars
Wow.
I can’t remember the last time a movie has left me this close to speechless... at least not in the good way. Speed Racer is a love letter to anyone who ever enjoyed Saturday morning cartoons, with visuals so insanely innovative, they’re almost psychedelic. I thought the day would never come, but leave it to those (mad) geniuses, the Wachowski brothers, to get it done—someone has finally made a live action movie that genuinely looks like a cartoon. Speed Racer is a work of art.
For fans of the original ’60s Japanese animé and its various late-night Cartoon Network appearances since, this plot synopsis is going to be old hat, but let’s give everyone else a chance to catch up....
When we meet Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch), he’s in the middle of his biggest race so far. In his car, the super-cool Mach-5, he accelerates down the same track as his disgraced cheater of a dead big brother Rex. See, for Speed and the rest of the Racer family, driving is in their blood. With a Mom and Pop (Susan Sarandon and John Goodman) who run a garage right out of the house, Speed’s racing career is a family operation (even his little brother Spritle and pet monkey Chim-Chim get in on the deal), so when Speed wins, the entire clan is thrilled to see him graduate to the big-time World Racing League (WRL).
But when Speed turns down a chance to join the sinister Royalton Industries race team, having discovered that WRL races are actually fixed by evil corporations in order to covertly control world economics, everything skids to a stop. Speed finds himself in the same position that drove his brother away... but instead of running, Speed races.
I lack the words to describe how amazing this movie looks. Speed Racer has the same frenetic style of the original source material, but the Wachowskis have added a layer of visual gloss that turns every frame of the film into a colour-covered canvas so vivid it almost breathes. This is not heady stuff here—it’s still a cartoon at heart, with two-dimensional characters and two-dimensional emotions—and some of the quieter moments drag, forcing the audience to wait a little too long for the next breathtaking race or action-packed fight scene. But at least the Wachowskis have found the perfect three-dimensional equivalents for their characters—the cast so perfectly resembles their original cartoons, it’s a little scary. Matthew Fox’s Racer X in particular is so bang-on, I couldn’t decide which was cooler: the original or his live-action counterpart?
Until someone invents a way for audiences to physically jump into the world of cartoons—and the Wachowskis are probably working on that technology even as we speak—Speed Racer is the next best thing.
