We may only be two weeks into summer, but it's hard to imagine a more insipid or repelling movie than Speed Racer being released. Even The Love Guru can't be as terrible as this. It's not just that it's bad. I can handle bad. What makes this an unnaturally painful movie going experience is that it's quite clear that those involved gave this thing their all, but with the completely wrong direction in mind. Everything from the visuals to the editing to the acting is done well, but in a "I can't stand to watch this" kind of way. Only the most skilled artist can make something so completely unwatchable.Take, for example, the visuals. This film is almost wall to wall special effects. Aside from the actors, I'm not sure there is anything on screen that isn't CGI. The Wachowskis could have advanced the use of green screen with this film, they clearly have that ability, but instead they made everything as cartoony and superficial as possible. Everything looks retro, but intentionally so. Instead of trying to adapt the Speed Racer property for the film medium, they adapted the film medium to fit Speed Racer. And it doesn't work at all. Instead it is headache inducing, and it becomes impossible to tell what exactly is going on.
I suppose part of why I can't enjoy the film is that it is so clearly aimed at young children. It wasn't made for me, so maybe I shouldn't be attacking it. That's an argument that I don't subscribe to. There are plenty of good family films that I enjoy completely. Any Pixar film, for example, work as a children's film and as a simply good film in general. And to be honest, I can't see a lot of kids really enjoying this. At over two hours in length, it grow tiresome even for an adult, and the plot spends far too much time dealing with evil corporate sponsors and the business of stock trade. I'm an adult and I wasn't entirely sure I could follow the villain's evil plans. I understood that he needed to take down Speed Racer, but the why of it went largely over my head. It's a hard film to follow, and aside for the trippy visuals and a monkey, I can't see what a kid would take away from this film that he wouldn't get from Iron Man.
I have no prior knowledge of the Speed Racer franchise. Perhaps that compounded my frustration, but it seems like they could have explained some things more for non-fans. Such as: who is that Australian man-child living with the Racer family? Why did Racer X abandon his family and fake his death, essentially destroying his family for years? Why does Speed's girlfriend live with Speed's family? Why on Earth do they have a monkey and why does no one ever comment on that fact the entire movie? Is it just normal in the future for families to have monkeys? Was the youngest Racer, Spritle, so affected by ADD that the family had to buy a monkey to befriend him because the school children wouldn't? These are the sorts of things that can take a non-fan out of the film. And they are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to non-sequitors within the film.
What we have here, honestly, is not a film, but the makings of a future midnight movie cult classic. It's hard to imagine what was going through peoples' heads when they made this, because clearly nothing on screen was a good idea at all. Warner Bros could not have been happy when they saw that the film the Wachowskis turned in was not a technology pushing adrenaline rush, but instead one big LSD trip for two hours and fifteen minutes. Heads fly across the screen to signal cuts. People drive around in literally hand drawn vehicles at one point. There's an entire subplot about Spritle and the monkey stealing candy from a jet that goes nowhere at all. I could go on and on about how insane this film is, how its mere existence defies all logic, but instead I'll simply say that you've never seen a movie like this - and you probably never should.
