Speed Racer

There's a Blockbuster a block away from my apartment and about once a month they do a four for $20 DVD sale. I am unable to pass this up even though the inevitable time crunch happens and I have stacks of unwatched DVD's sitting around (a good portion of which are some random titles that I picked up to fill up my four). This is one step in a continual effort to get through the monstrosity.

This film got a lot of crap when it first came out but after having watched all two hours and fifteen minutes I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I actually liked it (don't call me a hero, even though you want to). Really its is the closest thing to a live action cartoon that I've ever seen. Now I don't mean a really good and deep cartoon like a Pixar production, but more like one of the old Looney Toones numbers we used to watch on saturday mornings. Much like Bugs and the Gang, the Speed Racer's plot is simplistic, its characters are two dimensional, and somebody can get hit by an anvil and be no worse for wear. In some ways its like the third Matrix film that the Wachowski's did right before it except, you know, entertaining. The plot, such that it is, follows the titular Speed Racer as he attempts to succeed in the World Racing League in the face of corporate powers who apparently run the world, but none of that really matters. What matters is the races (I mean it is called Speed Racer) and the film really delivers. Its like watching a the hybrid child of NASCAR and Mario-Kart with a little, make that a whole lot, of LSD thrown in. That is an excellent segue into the film's look, and while I hate going back to the cartoon comparison, its apt. Every frame is exploding in color, and I can only imagine the sensory overload that would have occurred had I seen this in IMAX. If you watch this thing high I can only imagine you will come out of it clutching your knees to your chest and rocking back and forth, if you're into that sort of thing.

Really once I accepted that I was watching a souped up episode of Tiny Toones the only part of the film that really annoyed me was the youngest child and his monkey sidekick. Maybe its just because I saw what competent youth actors looked like in the fourth season of the wire, but I really have no patience for really annoying kids onscreen anymore. Every time he and the simian were on screen I wanted some tremendously bad to happen to them (like having to watch the View, hey-O!). And considering that this film isn't really written like a Mamet production that's tells you how annoying he is.

Still that's a minor quibble and to compensate the film features Shaft (Richard Roundtree) and Jack from Lost (Matthew Fox) in key roles. Really as long as you go into this with the proper frame of mind (which may or may not involve controlled substances) its an enjoyable couple of hours.