Two stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for cartoon action
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.15.08
Buy DVD: Speed Racer
• Buy Blu-Ray: Speed Racer [Blu-ray]
This isn't a movie; it's a pinball machine.
Same garish colors. Same cacophonous sound effects. Same mindlessly repetitive action.
Utterly soulless.
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| The family that races also embraces: As Speed (Emile Hirsch) brings his thundering Mach 5 home after a successful test run, he's greeted by adoring girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci), his parents (Susan Sarandon and John Goodman) and loyal mechanic Sparky (Kick Gurry). |
Even at a time when Hollywood has embraced dozens of superhero movie projects, the notion of turning a 1960s cartoon series into a live-action film seems quite daft ... particularly when the show in question didn't have that much to recommend it in the first place.
Larry and Andy Wachowski certainly tackled this problem head-on, even if their efforts are misguided. Speed Racer is both a throwback and a wholly fabricated, computer-enhanced effort to make a live-action cartoon. As with Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
and 300
, only the human performers (I refuse to ennoble their efforts by calling them "actors") are real; all the backgrounds, settings, gadgets and vehicles are CGI constructs. But whereas the filmmakers behind Sky Captain and 300 put serious effort into creating worlds that we'd find similar to our actual workaday universe, this new "Speed Racer" deliberately mimics the vibrantly op art cartoon environment of Mach Go Go Go, as the TV show was known in native Japan.
Not a terribly lofty goal, when we consider how limiting that animation was, all those years ago.
The writing wasn't much better, and the Wachowski brothers' script is no improvement.
OK, fine; in theory, nothing is wrong with making a feature-length cartoon, even one populated by live human characters. But I can't figure out this film's target audience. It's too contrived, juvenile and boring for anybody over the age of, say, 8 ... but, at 135 mind-numbing minutes, it's too damn long for the small fry who'd identify most with this cast's youngest character, Spritle, who comes complete with a chimpanzee sidekick. (Yep, this is that kind of movie.)
Based on the behavior observed during last week's Sacramento preview screening, the youngest viewers were quite restless before we even hit the halfway point ... which was a good half-hour after I felt my brain cells shriveling from lack of stimulation.
