ViewGuide

Created Jan 30, 2010 06:38PM PST • Edited Mar 17, 2019 07:17AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   Get in touch with your inner ten year old boy to enjoy this movie. Those of us who were boys during the heyday of the Speed Racer cartoon series find this relatively easy. Having boys or tomboys in tow should also work. Everyone else, picture a virtual No Girls or Grownups sign during the opening credits.

   The movie’s a little out there, peering through two looking glasses as it does: Live action take of an American cartoon, itself a dubbed Japanese anime homage to America targeted at pre-teen boys. Plus the Wachowski Brothers turned it into Speed Racer Matrix with continual time jumps.

   Spritle – Speed’s chubby & troublesome little brother – represents the target market. He gives fat boys in the audience a surrogate on screen, one with two super-cool thin and movie star handsome big brothers, the younger of which has the über cute Trixie as girlfriend and running buddy. Perfect life for a kid.

   So will your little boys like it? Yes, assuming you’re not worried about surviving the 2¼ hour running time. Will they be confused by the time jumping plot? Yes, but so what.

   Go Speed Racer Go!

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Emile Hirsch – fine if underwhelming as Speed.

   Christina Ricci – fabulous as ever-present but chaste girlfriend Trixie. With her huge doe eyes, she’s perfect as an anime character.

   Scott Porter brings just the right mix of sweetness and swagger to Rex Racer, Speed’s older brother. Friday Night Lights fans find no surprise in this, since we miss Porter as Jason Street. Why isn’t Scott P bigger?

   The rest of the big name cast are more than serviceable: John Goodman as Pops Racer, Susan Sarandon as Mom Racer and Matthew Fox as Racer X.

   Speed Racer fans (We know who we are.) might wonder why Scott Porter plays Rex Racer while Matthew Fox – a different actor – plays Racer X. What can that mean? A deep question for boys that the movie answers, however imperfectly.

5. Male Stars Good 3.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    The Wachowski Brothers created a technical triumph here, transposing the cartoon’s surrealism to live action while retaining its color-drenched 1960s vibe. However, the film’s frenetic time jumping is confusing to adult Speed Racer fans, let alone to kids.

    Famous as the creators of The Matrix, perhaps the Wachowskis thought they were making Speed Racer Matrix, given all the time and milieu jumps. Instead they should have harked back to Bound – their first movie – for inspiration into straight ahead story telling.

11. Direction Great 4.0

12. Play OK 2.5

13. Music Bad 1.0

    The Wachowskis barely use Go Speed Racer Go, the best theme song a kid’s cartoon ever had. Miss it? That’s why Google bought Youtube.

    Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer
    Gooooooo!

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.1

17. Sex Innocent 1.0

18. Violence Gentle 1.3

19. Rudeness Polite 1.0

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.8

    Quite Surreal: 2.8 times natural reality, given its supernatural PhysioReality, surreal CircoReality and glib BioReality. 4x liberties taken in the first, two and half in the second and merely two in the last.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.5

23. Biological Glib 2.0

24. Physical Supernatural 4.0

    The cars drift and pirouette around the race course, frequently lifting off entirely, sometimes even flipping, and otherwise making a complete mockery of the laws of dynamics. Why? Because that’s how pre-teen boys imagine racing might be.