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May 17th, 2008
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He's a rainbow

A kaleidoscopic anime adaptation
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May 14th, 2008 issue

By Rachel Shimp

COURTESY PHOTO
Go, Speed Racer, Go! Speed (Emile Hirsch)'s custom-built Mach 5 racecar leaves opponents in the dust.
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Speed Racer


Directed by Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski
With Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox and Roger Allam

For the Post
Picture this: A precocious kid and his pet chimpanzee break into a private jet to gorge themselves on a snack cart of jujubes and gumdrops. Watching the Wachowski Brothers’ Speed Racer will be just like that for lovers of anime and graphics innovations — there may never have been a more literal example of cinematic “eye candy.” From scene one, it hits your eyes like the Ka-Pow! or Shazzam! of a brightly colored comic book panel.
“Brightly colored” is actually a severe understatement to describe the palette used in this live-action version of Tatsuo Yoshida’s 1966 anime Mach GoGoGo. The original series had retro-futuristic designs galore, but its subdued colors have been amped up by 1,000 in the Wachowskis’ vibrant version. Telling the tale of the Racer family’s legacy while focusing on Speed’s rise to racing fame, it pops with hyper-saturated CGI environments that are fascinating to behold.
Speed Racer has been in development since 1992, with folks like Henry Rollins, Johnny Depp, Alfonso Cuaron and Vince Vaughan being slated for acting and production roles at one time or other. Finally taken on by the Wachowskis as writers/directors in 2006, the film was completed with appropriate haste.
It makes sense that the Wachowskis would shoot the film entirely against a greenscreen, a technique that worked so well for them with the first, fantastic The Matrix. They’ve been in a sort of comics-inspired purgatory ever since (V for Vendetta, The Invasion), but somehow got a turbo-boost and completed Speed in a mere 60 days last summer.
The film also marks their first use of high-definition video. Their layering techniques smash the foreground and background into one focus, successfully giving the look of real-life anime.
The Wachowskis pitched their take on Speed Racer as a kids’ movie to reach a wider audience, which explains the copious scenes of kid-and-chimpanzee antics. While Speed follows in his older brother Rex’s racing skid marks, the aforementioned younger brother, Spirtle, seems poised to forever watch the competition on TV. Maybe it’s because the Racer children seem to have been named in order of descending coolness. Spirtle and Chim Chim exist to pull pranks and interrupt scenes of imminent smooching between Speed and his girlfriend Trixie. Foiled again!
As Speed and Trixie, Emile Hirsch and Christina Ricci look exactly the part, and play their thin roles fine. She’s been his number-two fan since childhood — mom Susan Sarandon is number one — and she’s got his back. Soon Trixie and the Racer family are given a chance to test their integrity. After a triumphant race, a sketchy businessman named Royalton (Roger Allam) makes Speed an offer that could make or break his career.
Royalton takes Speed through the training grounds of his factory. Passing windows that peek into test rooms, you glimpse his “thoroughbreds” (drivers) undergoing strenuous physical and psychological tests. Each shot is an obsessively detailed tableaux, such as a driver being tested against icy winds, his frozen hair whipping back. These are the scenes in Speed Racer that most resemble the framing of comic book panels or anime stills.
Speed’s decision leads to a rally race, where he teams up with his rivals, Racer X (Matthew Fox, taking another vacation from filming the series Lost in Hawaii) and Taejo Togokhan (South Korean pop star Rain), to take on some dastardly drivers. X-rays over the ralliers’ cars reveal, in electric pink and green, the secret weapons they’re equipped with.
Tearing through fantastical landscapes, from a desert to a glacier, the drivers are surrounded by a cast of wildly accessorized rivals. There’s Snake Oiler, covered in orange and black stripes. Two women have blue fur on their seats and diamond studs in their tongues. Three Viking-esque drivers drive cars shaped like medieval weapons. One screams out “Broomhilde!” as his allies’ car falls away. There is so much enjoyable nonsense in Speed Racer, it’s truly a spectacle worth sneaking into after a few at the pub, although unlikely to be shown that late.
The Wachowskis have been quoted as saying that they prefer to give their movies unpredictable outcomes. That’s not the case with Speed Racer, so you’re best off appreciating the scenery. Little details dazzle, like the ’70s wallpaper in the Racers’ mid-century modern home, complete with frosted glass doors and stone pillars in the living room. Their world is a sparkling version of Bladerunner’s future, where every explosion results in a rain of multicolored glitter. Even the villains are not dressed in the expected black but in dusty purples, and yellows the color of rancid butter.
Rachel Shimp can be reached at rshimp@praguepost.com


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