Speed Racer Review - Live Action Anime Bliss
Coming at your faster than a bolt of lightning, the Wachowski Brothers Speed Racer kicks cinema into the 5th dimension and is 10,000 volts of gooey fun at breakneck racing speeds of visual excitement that the entire family can enjoy. This is an explosion of eye-popping Busby Berkeley meets Stanley Kubrick meets anime styled techno delirium that will leave your eyes and brain feeling like it has just been hit by a tornadic sugar high (view image gallery). In some respects it should have been easy to see the Wachowski Brothers were heading in this direction with very anime influenced scenes from their previous movies and importantly of note here is they pick up their original Matrix magic wand, leaving their Reloaded and Revolutions hats behind.
From retro futuristic designs and its symphonic techno color overdrive, the anime universe of Speed Racer gets translated perfectly to the big screen. Make no mistake the Wachowski Brothers have turned anime into live action visual opera that promises to be the benchmark and standard all other type of adaptations will be judged against for the foreseeable future. Live action anime cinema has been born with this visual feast that rivals anything that has ever come before it in history. I didn't like the upcoming trailers (absolutely hated them) or anything I had seen for it walking into it, so believe me I was very surprised at how well this movie turned out. Cue your inner disco monkey, it's time to have some summer movie time fun!
A good portion of my youth was spent watching Star Blazers. The endless perils and twists of it held my attention throughout its many episodes. Around the same time I began to watch Speed Racer, though I was much more fond of Star Blazers (and would love to see it adapted in live action form someday). It always seemed these two shows were on around the same time frame each day. I think for me the biggest draw of Speed Racer was Racer X and the all out nature Speed possessed at getting across the finish line. The middle parts of the episodes I would drift in and out of, much like this latest movie, but largely the beginning and ending worked in rousing fashion. I've yet to see the more complete original Japanese version and hope to someday be able to.
This new Speed Racer starts out with a young Speed Racer and quickly jettison back and forth in time as we learn about his roots and his familial upbringings. It’s quickly established his older brother Rex that he greatly admires meets tragedy on the Casa Cristo 5000. We also amusingly see the back-story to how he met Trixie. This all the while we cut back to the present time of Speed as he furiously romps his Mach 5 car through the Thunderhead racetrack. The demons that fuel Speed on to out race everyone is to catch his long lost brother whom he seems to constantly trying to somehow catch. If only he goes faster he might could catch him and thus exercise his demons.
The camera, editing and points of view wildly flow throughout in true Speed Racer fashion to kick off the movie. We are quickly told this is the story telling style that we will experience the movie in and thus realize there is going to be dull moments few and far between.
Everyone else that gets overloaded here might be singing Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy 800 times. For the rest of us keeping pace we quickly get indoctrinated into the world of Speed Racer and its vast cast of characters.
Pops Racer played by John Goodman who despite being overly tough on his kids, genuinely only wants the best for them. He is doing his best to keep his family afloat in a futuristic world where capitalism has gone awry with greedy corporations (not that this would ever happen). He has a love of racing that has spurned him on his professional life and has flowed down to his two sons.
Pops Racer keeps the racing side strictly within the family and avoids the complications of selling out to any corporations. He views racing as a pure sport that big corporations greedily prey on for profit and deluding of its essence. His sons seem to realize however that they might just have to make a deal with the corporate devils if they are to ever really make it. To them its one thing keeping the racing independent and another taking it to another level where they can make it big and thus help support the family so it doesn’t have to struggle.
Speed’s brother Rex is the first to try and break away from the family and set his own course that he hopes will be able to come back around to then support everyone. His breaking away goes against Pops Racer’s wishes and nearly instantly meets in tragedy as we learn he dies (albeit under mysterious circumstances).
This then leads us into the main story as being the transformation of Speed Racer into an amateur racecar driver into the famous and professional one we know and love. This is about his journey and the adversity his family faces as it comes together in a very cutthroat and corporate racecar driving industry. The fate of the world, the highly lucrative transponder market and control of the World Racing League (WRL) seems to all rest on the balance with each new obstacle put into Speed’s way on his quest to ultimately win the Grand Prix.
The central obstacle to Speed Racers goal is basically the devil - E.P. Arnold Royalton (played by Roger Allam). Mr. Royalton is the epitome of what one would consider the head of a gasoline conglomerate to be. He wants to use Musha Motors and Togokahn Motors against each other so that they cancel each other out and that he can then get Royalton Industries to be at the top. Mr. Royalton throws every plot and evil driver and their infinite number of diabolical car contraptions to try and thwart Speed. It really does become a series of one cliffhanger after the next as the plot races forward and the cars on the screen race ahead even faster.
For the bad guys we do get a whole host of regulars in Grey Ghost played by Moritz Bleibtreu, whom some may still remember as Manni from Run Lola Run. In addition we have Cruncher Block and Snake Oiler who take turns in trying to outwit and crash Speed Racer.
For the racetracks themselves we get several main tracks in Thunderhead, Fuji Helexicon and the Casa Cristo 5000. I think everyone knows a Grand Prix of course will have to figure into the equation at some point as well. Each track features more wild ramps, turns and geographic obstacles than you could possibly even begin to imagine. The wild spectacle the Wachowski Brothers have created to realize these racing events is incredibly impressive. At certain points you almost find yourself in the seat just cheering and hoping for Speed Racer's car to do a flip in the air, just so you can hear that adrenaline pumping Master of the Flying Guillotine sounding swoosh. Man, steel, digital worlds and speed all collide with a boundless camera trajectory to bring us some of the most exciting racing ever captured. We whip forwards and backwards between cars and perilous situations without a cut. The geography itself twists and turns as we zoom from overheard of the action going on below to right up against it. The camera shoots us under, around and over cars and exploding action with 360 panoramas of characters in the foreground reacting to what is going on. When a car flips through air or when multiple cars do we also get to spin there with them through the air and then quickly righted once they come back to the ground. This boundless display of trajectory and points of view creates a series of visual whiplash that breaks your mind instead of your neck.
In certain instances of certain tracks the visual design gives nods to both Star Wars films and to Eadweard Muybridge. Each passing race ups the stakes and visual pedigree going on. By the end of it the visual gauntlet is thrown down so hard you have to wonder if we will ever see anything like this again, let alone wondering if even Blu-ray can come close to replicating this rich movie theater going of an experience.
Some movies can be watched with relative ease on a variety of mediums, but a film like Speed Racer is one in which that reminds us of the power of movie theaters and the timeless experience and joy they provide. This movie is why we go to movie theaters and get that rarely felt movie high. Its visuals and sounds just flat out won’t compare on home theater systems. Speed Racer pumps back into the film industry one hell of a reason for people to get off their ass and back into the theaters. What’s so powerful about seeing a movie on the big screen as opposed to say a laptop or home HD TV? Well, Speed Racer on the big screen! Now if there was more commercial insulation being made available at reasonable prices for people in multi-family units or homes to keep out base notes and sound down, then perhaps we might see more of a transition of home theater experience versus theatrical one. If you want to experience a movie like this where all unholy hell breaks loose you have to go to a movie theater, otherwise your entire neighborhood will be treating you as the noise bully.
The cars themselves are things of beauty. In certain instances they are seemingly a mix between some form of miniatures and CGI. In close-ups they used actual cars built to scale. Speed Racer's Mach 5 is just amazing to marvel at and especially the way the buttons on it operate and work with the car. We see the effects of a button from multiple points of view and highlighted diagrams so that we know precisely what they do and how they interact. They have taken the original Tatsunoko Company version of it and flawlessly turned it into a real breathing car. Often times with adaptations you see creative choices made that greatly alter the original with rather shoddy results (Transformers anyone). In this film when the Wachowski Brothers mess around with their own ideas they instead of altering what is already there, they create their own cars. So instead of the Wachowski Brothers altering the vision we all have of the Mach 5, they give us their own take on this car with the Mach 6. Several new bad guys and characters cars are also realized in this fashion. We see them riff off of this universe without trying to alter what already exists.
The production design work of Owen Paterson and his team is in bringing everything to life is a large part why Speed Racer works. I think fans of the original series will be very excited when they see this movie and realize how lovingly it has been adapted without being mistranslated.
In addition to the production design work there is equally impressive work with costume designer Kym Barrett who really gives each character their own unique look that also reflects back on their original anime origins. In addition there seems to have been a fair amount of work between Paterson and Barrett’s teams to match characters with their cars or objects they used. Racer X in particular should gain even further cult status after his depiction here.
Since this is a Wachowski Brothers movie we know they are going to push the envelope with filmmaking style, especially since they used the Sony's F-23 HD camera to lense the film. The boundless nature of the movie was created by a combination of green screen and what they dubbed bubble photography where they filmed environments with 360-degree panoramas that allowed them the freedom to have the point of view be at any precise point and easily move around. This gives coverage of a scene a whole new meaning. Since its digital they can shoot the environment and geography and then any objects that are filmed on green screen can then be place inside and the point of view can be shown from any point or move in any direction. Placement of a camera then has no walls, especially combined with their further expansions of their bullet time visual stylization. Visual effects supervisors Dan Glass and John Gaeta certainly aren’t resting solely on what they have already done and seem eager here to push the pedal to the metal in taking point of view story telling style and to new limits and energy.
To get the actors onscreen to look like they were actually driving and not just blankly going through the paces, the crew created gimbals. We need to feel that the actors onscreen are actually going through what we are seeing them go through. The believability has to exist in some form or else the stakes go down. The gimbal was the stripped down version of the car that replicated the full immersion and intensity of the experience of what was going on within a scene. Think of them like sitting down in an arcade game where your behind a steering wheel and you get thrown around and get to feel the speed and turns of what is going on. Behind the gimbals sat 200 x 40 foot green screens. Apparently James McTeigue (V for Vendetta) did a bunch of second unit directing work in this regard (despite not being listed on IMDb).
The fight scenes of the film are hands down some of the most entertaining comic or anime realized fights I’ve ever seen. Chad Stahelski serves as the supervising stunt coordinator and being a Yuen Woo-ping-less Wachowski Brothers, does manage to keep them up to par. The blending in of focal points, editing and fighting to recreate the anime style of Speed Racer is a highly entertaining brew. In the audience I saw this with the applause throughout the fight scenes was nearly constant. They have got this so right you can’t help but smile with each beat of them. Stahelski worked on the Matrix movies and as well is perhaps better known for doubling Keanu Reeves as Neo and Brandon Lee in the Crow.
The original score and its related sound cues and effects are spread throughout the film in key places. For the most part you only hear the original harmony and catchy tunes at moments where the filmmakers are trying to punch up the emotion or adrenaline in a scene. I would say I could have used more of the main theme throughout the movie, but by it being used more minimally it also has more effect when it does get introduced into any scene in the film.
The sound effects and designs as slightly alluded to earlier are put together with very much a cool factor in mind. The car flip noise has to go down as one of the coolest sound effects I've ever heard. So many of these other small sound effects throughout the film, while they don't always necessarily seem plausible, certainly throw more fun into the mix.
Story wise the film gets told in very much the anime story telling fashion with the shifting focal points and collage effect of objects that are like a more watered down montage that ebbs and flows. It does break down in certain places and really is strong enough that despite various dead ends contains enough traction so you have some emotional investment and weight into what is going on.
The color scheme will probably be one of the more talked about aspects of this film and I will leave that to the color experts to break that aspect of it down. Technically I've never seen colors punched up this much that they all feel saturated while at the same time having the luminance of a lightning bolt. Colors and the way you arrange and show them cause different reactions and emotions to be felt. In addition the way you disperse colors and objects to audiences within the viewing frame and at what rate also shapes the experience. The rapid rate of strong colors and detailed imagery is so assaulting at times you have to wonder if on the image mental download processing times for humans that the Wachowski Brothers are hitting us at warp speed. In many ways the experience is like being sucked through a black hole that has billions of colors it's eating up and chewing out.
Emile Hirsch shines in a break out role as Speed Racer. He projects the right amount of naiveness, dare devil gusto, familial loyalty and fury that makes his character tick. He hits the right notes in a role that easily could have been cardboard with the wrong actor.
Christina Ricci survives monkey breast scares to put on a quirky performance as Speed’s main romantic interest and copter aerial support (though only shown fleetingly). She has the right look for her part and mixture of pop cyber punk charm you would expect for anyone playing Trixie.
Susan Sarandon gets the sappy Mom role, which luckily she never tries to go overboard with despite having some rather soapy lines to perform.
John Goodman at a glance might seem miscast as Pops Racer, yet when you see him get mad or emote, then you know instantly why he was picked.
Matthew Fox outside of Paulie Litt, is perhaps the biggest surprise here. He gets the stoic ruggedness of Racer X down and never tries to overplay his characters coolness. He doesn’t swing his hips around like Fonzie or a T-Bird member, he just moves about like the badass he is. This is after all the Ronin role of the Speed Racer universe and a Ronin to me by default is as badass as it gets.
The team of Paulie Litt as Spritle and Chim Chim (played by Willy and Kenzie) nearly steals the entire movie on its own. For younger viewers these characters are the stars of the show. When they are onscreen or flying through to ka-pow someone you can just feel every younger member of the audience sit up in their seat and really get into the movie. Comic sidekicks or relief is a tricky business and with these characters we get plenty of wonderful moments to laugh and further get lost in the movie. Who knew a boy and a monkey flying through the air could be this much fun?
I do realize a lot of people will ask about how Rain is in the movie as this marks his US film debut. I think the performance is largely a rough around the edges one and it never really has any moments where it feels completely off. There isn’t enough screen time for him to really get enough traction to fully show off his acting range and for the most part his role takes a back seat to the visual firepower going on. His first really big starring role and what should prove to be a bigger break out one is in his next film, Ninja Assassin, that the Wachowski Brothers are producing and James McTeigue at the helm. I thought his performance in Park Chan-wook’s I’m a Cyborg, But That’s Ok, was widely underrated.
Lastly of the performances it would be hard not to mention cinema badass Richard Roundtree who plays Ben Burns. Now I don’t want to give anything at all away, but there is one sequence where they let Mr. Roundtree shine. So nice to see him paired with some fun dialogue and moments after all these years!
All in all, pioneering filmmakers the Wachowski Brothers translate anime into live action visual opera without many missteps. There is roughly around 15 minutes in the film that feels like it could just be cut entirely out without it missing a beat. The easter eggs seem a plenty throughout for the trained eye that watches not only the characters but things going on all around them. Matrix score cues also seem woven in at various points. The overloading of strong visual imagery will probably leave many with a cinematic brain freeze while at the same time the overall spirit and energy of the film never lets go with its exciting Speed Racer fun. There is some edgy moments involving kids fighting and middle fingers, though overall this is a very family friend film that somehow maintains a good balance of mainstream sensibilities and cutting edge rebellious art.
If the future of live action anime will be anything like this, then anime perhaps has turned a new corner and I could easily see it becoming a dominant art form in cinema for quite some time to come. Now that they have spent a good chunk of change and homework in figuring out how to make it happen, one can only hope this can be taken down for other movie productions to emulate and further trailbraze the art of anime into new and exciting ways!
***
I should also note that the visual look of the film is also impressive when you consider so much of the CGI was farmed out to multiple companies from ILM, Digital Domain, Evil Pictures and more. Often times when you see this type of thing happen the continuity of the look and feel can appear largely inconsistent.
The film was largely shot at Babelsberg Studios, where films like The Counterfeiters, Never Ending Story III, The Pianist, Black Book, V for Vendetta and more were also shot at.
The Alamo Drafthouse is holding a Speed Racer Scavenger Hunt Road Rally this upcoming Saturday (more info).
I saw Speed Racer at a Fantastic Fest special screening that was mostly composed of an audience of kids that went absolutely wild for the film and clapped and cheered throughout.
