It should come as no surprise that the Big Actioner with the Astro Boy tattoo (that would be me) was a big fan of the Speed Racer cartoons. Yes, they were goofy, poorly acted, and occasionally (due to poor editing and translation) made little sense whatsoever. Yes, Spritle and Chim Chim were annoying and—as I got older and more into the racing/action elements—kind of embarrassing. But the gist was this: Speed had a hot car, a hot girlfriend and amazing adventures around the world. His brother mysterious friend Racer X was as badass a guy as was permitted on children's TV in those days.
It would have been easy to take the Speed Racer concept and adapt it into some kind of Fast and the Furious/Michael Bay kind of adventure flick. It may have even turned out okay—watchable and entertaining as, say, Transformers. But the Wachowskis have taken the source material and elevated it without making the it more "adult" or "realistic." In fact, they took it and ran in the opposite direction.
The question when updating and adapting a comic, book, animation or tv show for a live-action feature is what to leave out and what to change. The Wachowskis leave almost nothing out. They retain almost every single aspect of the original animation (no matter how goofy), including weird interjections from Spritle and Chim Chim, a cop named Inspector Detector, humorously wooden acting, and exotic fictional locales.
The trailers provide a glimpse of what you get on the screen, but it's just that. The opening scenes of the movie reveal a CGI wonderland, where the sky is an impossible shade of blue and the whole world is saturated with colors that may not have existed before. It's hyper-real, as if someone found the proper spots in your brain and tweaked all the settings for your eyes. Even the mundane settings such as the Racer house, Speed's school and neighborhood have this visual approach, creating a convincing, comprehensive alternate universe. Michael Giacchino's score also takes this approach, starting with music from the original series (not just the well-known there song) and building on it, pushing it beyond expectation. From the outset, suspension of disbelief is not an issue. It's not just suspended, but buzzing around freely.
The story elements are pretty much in line with the animated series as well, for better or worse. Evil racing syndicate employs thugs and unscrupulous racers to satisfy greed. There are quite a few clichés along the way, but it all works together and fits in with the wacky, wild cartooniness of it all. Some of the Spritle stuff is genuinely funny, Racer X has never been more badass, and I finally get what some people have always seen in Christina Ricci. Trixie is downright sexy. The fight sequences take anime conventions and translate them into live-action, adding neon-bright visual flavor.
The racing sequences are amazing. Unlike Iron Man, during which I was repeatedly thinking, "Show me something new," Speed not only has the expected never-before-seen visuals, it contains newly-invented ways of racing cars. The tracks contain halfpipes and bowls, with cars drafting up, grinding the rails, and dropping in off the edges like skateboards. They use the famous lifters (complete with cha-cha-cha sound effect) to flip back and forth. Spinouts and mid-air collisions are common racing tactics. They totally defy (ignore, warp, destroy) physics. The camera motion should cause more nausea than Cloverfield, as up, down, over and under become somewhat relative.
Speed may not shatter Iron Man's opening weekend box office, but for me the bar for this summer's crop of blockbusters has been raised. I don't expect any to come close to it until Dark Night opens in July.
You couldn't get me in the theater with chloroform and a hand truck, but I am grateful to the "Sex and the City" movie for some hilarious reviews:
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