Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) is a plucky newcomer to the racing scene. But he is greeted with hype due to his heritage - brother Rex (Scott Porter) was a casualty of race culture and his parents (John Goodman and Susan Sarandon) own an operate an independent race company. Tag along characters which include a girlfriend (Christina Ricci), a mysterious accomplice (Matthew Fox), a nuisance little brother (Paulie Litt), and a monkey also help fill out the ensemble. The need for detailed description of each character is minimal as most are portrayed as stock characters dancing in front of a sugary sweet digital world. The time and place of the story is some magical, unreal future or alternate present in which clouds really do resemble cotton candy and homes appear as digitally constructed as real estate straight out of the SIMS. The reality is nonexistent. The fantasy is cardboard cutout creative at best. This is a film that just doesn't work from the word 'go.'You have to give the Wachowskis credit for trying. Five years after the completion of their Matrix trilogy, they pick back up with this, a famous family property, against all odds. The attempt to create something decidedly younger, more family oriented is admirable. So is the attempt to recreate "Speed Racer" in all its eye-popping animated glory, despite this being a live action picture. Perhaps the flaws are in the material by nature. The stiff stories of the the campy 1960s cartoon, which enjoyed a winking and nudging resurgence later in the 1990s on MTV, don't stretch well to fit a feature length production. The visual luster of the cartoon is also distinctively more suitable for animated images. The Wachowskis spend much of their film, perhaps too much, chasing the high of seeing Speed Racer whizzing through hypnotic images of neon lights and spiraling pastel beams of color.
In the visually stimulating, plot-lite race scenes, the film does sometimes achieve a respectable amount of sustained energy. The Wachowskis are undoubtedly visual maestros but what they do with the character here is appalling. The sullen, 2-D characters walk around in half-conscious states, announcing their feelings aloud, with no subtlety, and then shrinking back into the scenery and boring us to tears. Nearly every character gives Speed a very long speech at one point explaining to him, in merciless detail, just how wonderful he is and how much they want him to succeed. It's painful to sit through. No shred of truth can be found in the clunkily written material, which should put young audiences to sleep. Worse yet, it makes the talented cast look like rank amateurs. Not even Oscar winner Sarandon can muster enough heart to pull off her wordy, unbelievable lecture. Lead actors Emile Hirsch and Christina Ricci, who came into their own last year in Into the Wild and Black Snake Moan respectively, are downright wooden and unlikable here. So much of the film's first half is bogged down in half-witted chatting and stalling that by the time the film's real story finally kicks in, the audience is in a sour, burdened mood after being spoon fed so much tasteless exposition. Thankfully, the big race finale actually turns out to be quite a pulsing, very satisfying bit of Summer blockbuster excitement. Too bad all that comes before is such a clumsy downer.
Grade: C
