Speed Racer Review

Speed Racer was one of the first tastes Americans got of the wonderful world of anime. If it wasn’t for Speed Racer  along with robotech, voltron, and battleship Yamato there never would have been a chance for mobile suite gudam, Dragon Ball, or Pokemon to come to the states many years later. The show was fast, surreal, and with races scenes never been seen before. The Wachowski Brothers from the matrix fame have stated several times they are huge anime fans and wanted to bring to life one of there favorite series and recreate the magic of the original. The Brothers managed to revolutionize films by taking fighting styles from anime and implanted in an American movie with great success with the matrix trilogies, but can they pull off a whole live action based off a mostly forgotten, but much beloved series?

Wow! Speaking from being a anime fan myself and growing watching old reruns, I couldn’t be more pleased. The Wachowski Brothers have boldy and faithfully adapted Speed Racer to the silver screen. They took the classic mock 5 and updated it enough to be cool for a new generation, but kept the old school feel. For what they did for fight scenes they did for the car races. The cars rushed and battled for position just like the anime and each turn grew faster and more exciting. There is also a great fight scene in the snow where the snow follows the motion of the punches and kicks. Luckily, this isn’t the only achievement. I have to really commend the Wachowski brothers for also trying to capture in a live action film the pacing and scene transitions anime does so well. The camera spins or characters several faces flood the screen it never looses focus or color. There is one scene when Speed is explaing why he is going to stay with his father’s racing team and what his family means to him and the background moves from moment to moment just add to the emotion and rarely seen outside of anime. They took so much care in the source material that they even gave the man who did mostly all the voices for the show Peter Fernadez a role.

Speed Racer doesn’t just rely on the action and great track locales its all about family. You really feel the impact of Speed’s brother Rex on the whole family the entire film and is the driving force for most of the characters actions. The two speeches from Speed’s parents are very heart warming,deep, mature, and would make anyone crack a smile. Emile Hirsch and John Goodman look and act like Speed and Pops. Christina Ricci gives a charming performance of Trixie and acts like a living breathing anime character. Mathew Fox in another stand out feature film role stole the show as Racer X. It could have been easy to just say the lines and call it a day, but he gave a great gravely voice and delivered the lines with uber coolness. His last scene where he remembers and reveals to the auidence the full extent and pain to hide the truth to the Racer family was put together masterfully with combination of his acting, great camera work, and a great score from Michael Giacchino. This scene still makes me emotional upon repeated viewing. I really think Mathew Fox deserves a starring role in a feature film. Since the Wachowski Brothers were faithful to the anime and wanting to make it more family friendly there are a lot of scenes with spritle and chim chim. Some of thier jokes were hit and miss, but some of them were actually being pretty funny.

For the untrained all these visual cues and speed can be a little itimating at first, but at the end I’m certain you will be caught up in the rush and emotions. I know the critics killed this movie and it bombed at the box office, but I don’t think this movie could have been made any other way. I really feel the Wachowski Brothers pulled it off and made my favorite movie last year. For people who don’t understand anime might feel this film is a sensory overload, but thats just them being Jaded. If you have a warm heart and open mind for something truly different and exicting then you will enjoy Speed Racer even if you are not a fan of anime or the original show. Speed Racer is groundbreaking and the Wachowski Brothers should be proud no matter what “critics” say. I hope they keep on making films inspired by eastern styles and animation, and show off thier imagination. The producers who made the awful Dragonball movie should have used this same approach. This is one movie where the critics and the masses are wrong. Speed Racer is a great film and I’m sad they will never make the sequels they originally planned. GO SPEED GO!

4.5 stars