Speed Racer (2008)

Speed Racer. It is one of the morning cartoons i grew up with, that despite its mixed reviews, threatened with a stink of utter failure from rottentomatoes.com and deservedly doubted to dethrone Iron Man from the top spot of U.S box office this week, i went to the theater whistling the classic tune and prepared for the worst. It turns out okay, even if the candy and flashy colors were quickly grew old, the quirky humors were most of the time goes off the mark, and uninteresting characters that kept floating around without any palpable importance, the film manages to give me - a long fan - something that kept me awake (and probably the foremost reason i came to the theater whistling the classic tune) during the overlong two hours plus of what many would've thought as a "children" film. That's right. The races itself. Unfortunately, they were too far between.

Speed Racer, as ridiculous as it sounds, is an actual name. We see this young kid, his teacher called him, "Speed Racer! Slow down!" as he races through the class where his role model, Rex Racer, waits to pick him with his Mach 5. As with all the Racer family, all the young Speed Racer interested in was car racing. And as this film titled with his name, it is appropriate that the film begins with him as a child, juxtaposed with his adult as he prepares for a race and with so, the film introduces us with the Racer family one by one. I liked the way Wachowski brothers opens up the film. The first twenty minutes or so was probably the high point of this film. It sets the tone (mundanely absurd albeit fantastic views) while giving its long time fan a visual feast. At the very least, in that part, the Wachowskis did it right.

The wait that comes after that was, however, almost to a point where it's excruciating. For a "children" film, the main plot, one that kept Speed Racer racing was a bit complicated. In a nutshell, it was about a race that transcends the true meaning of sport, fixed so that in the end, ones that reaps the benefits of the race was not the racer, or the machine, but the sponsor and the capital wealth behind it. But i believed that this plot was an utter gibberish for children. And as my suspicions were proved correctly, there are many parents who had thought that "Hey, this looks like a kind of film that my five-year-old boy would love" and so, there are plenty of children in the theater that night, and one particular child who was sitting at the row behind my back had kept asking - complaining more likely - about "Where's the car?" or "Why does this guy got beat up?" or "Who's this guy?" or the likes. If anything, that made my wait even more burdensome.

The Wachowskis whom had a passionate love with Japanese anime had a nice little history with The Matrix. Therefore, ever since the Speed Racer project was announced, many wondered about their next "bullet-time". And one thing for sure regarding the visual of this film, it delivers some feast to the eye. The fights were stylish, fun, and totally safe-for-children, and the races were visually aesthetic, something that probably came out of the next-gen console-HDTV-combo game. And since i was a long time fan of Mach 5, and i hadn't happened to see this film for a drama-quality scripts nor any Oscar-stellar performances (note that i hadn't mentioned any of the cast in this review), i was not complaining. Much.

My rating: **1/2 / **** - If it is up to me, i would strip off all the drama part and dive nose-first to what really matters in a film titled Speed Racer. More Speed, more Race(r).