So finally saw Speed Racer (the 2008 live-action version, not the original 60s anime) tonight. When this movie came out, I was definitely interested in seeing it, but then many reviews were middling to bad, so I didn’t. The Wachowskis are somwhat polarizing filmmakers these days, and have a lot to live up to (and live down) after the Matrix series went from excellent (1st) to good (2nd) to somewhat mediocre (3rd). But V for Vendetta was also excellent (IMHO), so whatevs – most other filmmakers would be completely jealous to have only a *couple* of those movies in their CV, after all.

Anyway, this movie takes in a lot of the original anime’s plot devices (yes, Chim-Chim is here) and I was definitely pleased to see a scene where they go through all the Mach 5’s special devices (but they never used the Ctrl-G ‘Homing Bird’? They used to use that all the time in the anime!). Racer X of course is key to the plot, and he doesn’t disappoint, either. The look of the cars varies from ‘shiny Hot Wheels surrounded by CGI’ to semi-real looking (when the humans are in them or driving them on “normal” streets).

The movie itself owes a LOT to Pixar (Monsters, Inc and The Incredibles most notably for the factory scenes and the Racer family neighboorhood/house/school/etc.). It also definitely takes from at least two PS2 videogames I own – Kinetica (robot battle-racing) and XG3: Extreme-G Racing (hyper-powered motorcycles with weapons) – both games are played on crazy tracks that soar up/down/multiple dimensions/aerial/underwater/you name it. Props must also be given to drift racing/dirt track racing in general (given the way they drive the cars almost horizontally a lot of the time) and the old standby – Initial D, which I’m sure the Wachowskis have watched at least most of. In the big rally race mid-movie, some of those crazy mountain races look a LOT like the way Initial D shows its crazy mountain racing (the latter’s animation being far more primitive, however).

Finally, there is a lot of IGPX here too (a recent anime from 2005) in the look and feel of the racetracks, especially the Fuji race – and the battling between the cars during the race.

As you’d expect, the races themselves are very well done and crazy to watch, and the movie doesn’t try to oversell the characters, either – unlike the mostly cheesy Racer family seen in the anime. I would say the Racers are as appropriate for the story as The Matrix’ characters – without the speechmaking every 15 minutes by Morpheus of course :). What was a bit sad was that actor Emile Hirsch (who plays Speed) was BORN the same year I graduated from high school – DOH! I guess you can’t win them all. The usual anime ‘challenges’ confront Speed and the rest to varying degrees – *almost* insurmountable odds, increasingly maniacal opponents, crisis-whew-bigger-crisis-whew, etc. – But it moves along fairly well and has a bit of fun even with camera asides in a few tiny scenes.

In summary, I was far more entertained by this movie than say, Avatar – even though the latter is of course way more advanced effects-wise. Even having seen some of the SR anime before as a kid (probably 30+ years ago) didn’t really spoil anything. This is a great movie, and i’d definitely see it again on the big screen (Cinerama or midnight movie at The Egyptian, anyone?) I watched it this time at home on my computer……

candybowl