I’m amazed to say this, but a film based on a television cartoon, a film with an excess of production energy and an equally-excessive layer of dipshit dialogue, a film edited with an eye toward epileptic shock, a film with a lot of jokes predicated on a hammy fat kid, a film with about fifty chimpanzee reaction shots …. it isn’t half-bad. In fact, it’s maybe three-quarters-good. I had steeled myself for teeth-gritting ennui as Max stared with empty goggle eyes through the 2+ hours of frantic Speed Racer nonsense. But this film was incessantly pleasing to the eye, a candy-store of colors, clever anime-inspired and/or loopily-inventive cinematic tricks, and uncampy affectionate recreation of mediocre-cartoon tropes. I hereby nominate Spritl and Chim as easily the most entertaining “irritating-kid-and-animal sidekicks” in the history of cinema, by which I mean the only irritating-kid-and-animal sidekicks one would even want to see. Anthony Lane in the New Yorker repeats an old Groucho Marx joke as a way of criticizing the film’s primary audience as four-year-olds — I guess I’m in touch with my inner four-year-old, ’cause this was way more fun than anyone has a right to expect.
Oh, and the central notion that corporations are evil was a pleasant ‘though (see Iron Man discussion) self-contradicting message for a big-budget technospectacle to embrace. There was surprisingly little (if any?) product-placement in the film (‘though the ramped-up pitch to kids for all things Speed began at the ticket counter, where we all got “Pit Passes” with coupons for Target and Hot Wheels).
I watched about twenty-five minutes of Speed Racer last night. Maybe it played better on the big screen at the AMC, but I thought it was a furious, day-glo mess. I’m not even sure how Max managed to follow it in any way. The first section juggles multiple narratives in multiple time periods; it’s temporally hyper-complicated for kids (not to mention adults). After the Hitchens character arrived on the scene, everything was spelled out in capital letters . . . yet I knew there was at least 110 minutes left of loud, boring and noisy action to follow. I did like the chimp and I loved the way Sarandon’s wattle was airbrushed to perfection. I could have used a bit more anime-inspired cleverness.
No, it doesn’t play better on the big screen.
i liked this all the way through. the first 30 minutes are a blast, but i thought it was pretty good all the way through, as action blockbusters go. visually, just stunning.
to mike’s point about the ironic, self-contradicting message about the evil of corporations being made by a film made by a large corporation (and to this we might add the contradiction of the glorification of hand-made objects in a film made by the machines pops racer mocks): i don’t think the film is unaware of this contradiction. in fact, i believe it is positing an argument for the possibility of pleasure and art within a realm structured and administered by corporate greed. winning the race doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter who sponsors anyone; what matters is driving and taking people’s breath away. of course, the generic requirements demand that a race be won anyway.
I can’t really understand the praise for this movie. When I saw it in the theater, I was overwhelmed with a sense of a profound disconnection between me and the empty frenetic activity onscreen–the other times I have felt this sensation most profoundly were during The Avengers with Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes and The Rocky and Bullwinkle Movie. I didn’t find its anti-corporate stance to be much more than a commonplace generic feature.
I loved Speed Racer. And I thought I had said as much here at some point, but maybe not. After being somewhat disgusted with Iron Man, and sickened/bored by Batman, this was far and away the best popcorn movie I’ve seen since maybe the first Matrix movie.
Yes, it certainly had to play better on a big screen than at home. The good guys stay good, the bad guys stay bad. Race, plot, race, plot, race, plot, race is an excellent pacing structure. And some of my favorite parts of the old tv show are lovingly rendered in the film.
Regardless, one can’t argue with the face that it flopped big-time, with the kids and critics alike. Like Grindhouse, it might have bigger ramifications for movies of this sort than solely to the filmmakers’ careers. Not that big-budget movies will go away, but that artists like the Wachowskis will be reined in by the studios again, as they were post-Heaven’s Gate.
What’s strange is that, according to boxofficemojo.com, the film tanked abroad, making approximately six million more than it did in America for a grand total of $94 million world wide (give or take a few hundred thousand dollars). This surprises me. The latest Keanu Reeves flick, Journey to the Center of the Earth, has grossed $231 million. Australia has grossed $207 million. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor made $397 million (but it has Jet Li so I get it, I guess). Speed Racer was reviled across the globe.
Jeff–I think you have mistaken Brendan Fraser for Keanu Reeves. Reeves is in that other re-make The Day the Earth Stood Still wherein the lizards and birds pool their pennies and hire a gigantic wet-dry Vac to destroy the trucking industry with a swarm of metal bees. The environmental critique there is as finely-tuned as the corporate critique of Speed Racer.
the corporate critique of speed racer is not really worth spending much time on, one way or the other; i just thought it was a very good action movie, and quite innovative in its visual language.
the fact that it flopped may also have something to do with the long running time, as well as the fact that the source material probably appeals more to aging hipsters (like mauer) than to young kids. and compared to the intellectual appeal/address of those brendan fraser movies speed racer is bergman.
You’re right, Michael. What’s funny is that I was looking at the grosses for The Day . . . even as I typed in a completely different title (that’s how memorable the damn thing was). Is there really a film titled The Day the Earth Stood Still with Fraser? Funny.
Now back to Jude the Obscure.