by Missy Thompson
STAFF WRITER
From the opening credit sequence of the new movie "Speed Racer," I knew it wasn't an ordinary movie for kids. The bright, trippy and vivid colors are bound to give someone with epilepsy a seizure and others a migraine. What's sad is the visuals of "Speed Racer" are the only decent aspect of the movie.
"Speed Racer" is based on the animated Japanese television series from the 1960s which eventually came to the United States as a TV series. Directors of the film, Andy and Larry Wachowski, should have left the TV series alone. Their live-action adaptation is boring and dull despite all the car racing and high-speed chases. The Wachowskis previously wrote and directed "The Matrix" trilogy, which were at least remotely interesting and unique. "Speed Racer" on the other hand is a dud that drags on way too long for a kids movie.
The cacophony of bright lights the Wachowskis use makes it difficult for one's eyes to keep up with on-screen action. If you are not prepared for it, you're bound to get a headache within the first five minutes. What really hurts "Speed Racer" is that there is too much of this at once. If it was more subtle and spread out it would be easier to handle visually.
Despite the all-star cast, the acting is so stilted one might think this was an animated movie. Even Emile Hirsch, who was so good in "Into the Wild," seems bored with the movie. But his interaction with Christina Ricci's character, Trixie, is tolerable. The scenes where they're together are some of the best acting. However, the scenes that will get the most laughs are those with Speed's younger brother Spritle (Paulie Litt) and his chimpanzee Chim-Chim. It's all low-brow, silly, sight-gag humor that will get people to laugh -- or scoff.
In "Speed Racer," Young Speed (Nicholas Elia) is obsessed with racing. His older brother Rex (Scott Porter) is one of the best racers in the world until he is accused of cheating and dies in a car crash. Speed (Hirsch) uses this as motivation to be the best race car driver out there. Speed's family of Mom (Susan Sarandon), Pops (John Goodman) and Spritle run their own racing company with the help of Sparky (Kick Gurry) and Trixie.
But a huge corporate conglomeration called Royalton wants to hire Speed as one of their racers. The owner, non-coincidentally named Royalton (Roger Allam), is actually trying to sabotage Speed and make it seem like his entire family is a bunch of cheaters. Eventually Speed turns them down. Before they can leave the confines of Royalton, they are attacked by a ninja. Apparently all of the Racers are also ninja stars because they were able to fight their way out safely.
Speed does join up with Racer X (Matthew Fox), a mysterious driver who ironically has a similar racing style to Rex, and Taejo Togokhan (a Korean actor/singer by the name of Rain) whose sole goal is to drive up stock prices for his family and Royalton. All Speed wants to do is race in the Crucible, a multi-day hard-core race that takes a lot of guts to complete. With the help of his family and friends, Speed is determined to bring honor back to his family.
Another aspect of this film that's severely disappointing is that most of the dialogue is garbled. The actors weren't pronouncing their words and the action was distracting from the dialogue. Either one of these scenarios is not good for a movie. You never want to leave people scratching their heads wondering what was said through most of the film. That's exactly what "Speed Racer" does.
It's a good thing "Speed Racer" is being released this weekend. The success of "Iron Man" at the box office will overpower this so-called family-friendly film and leave it to become buried among the rest of the movies opening this month.
"Speed Racer" is like a live-action, less-entertaining version of the video game Mario Kart -- only it doesn't last five minutes, it lasts forever.
missy@tooeletranscript.com