The Wachowski brothers’ film Speed Racer has received, in general, negative reviews. It has a 36% at Rotten Tomatoes, a 37/100 at Metacritic, and a 6.5/10 at IMDb. Most critics’ beef with the film is summed-up succinctly by Carina Choco for the LA Times:
The fakeness of it all overwhelms, dampening any real excitement. It’s hard to care about characters so stiff and one-dimensional they out-cartoon the cartoon originals, and it’s hard to watch them bop around like avatars in a flat, airless, digital world.
Most critics, as demonstrated above, felt that while the endless color-orgasms were neat, they either detracted from the film, or weren’t sufficient to make up for the bizarre and frenetic plot. I, however, disagree with “most critics.”
Dude I'm like tripping so hard, dude
If we approach Speed Racer not as a hideously expensive ($120,000,000) avant-garde film or an unintelligible children’s film, but rather as a film adaptation of an anime/manga series, then it takes on a new light. If you’ve ever watched an anime show, you’ll know that a 6 year-old boy and a chimpanzee stealing candy from a futuristic private jet is perfectly normal. If you’ve never watched anime, though, you’ll probably be pretty confused.
Once I started thinking about the film in this way, I realized that it’s actually excellent. Yes, the characters are shallow and one-dimensional; yes, the overabundance of brightly-colored special effects makes you think someone slipped LSD into your soda; yes, what the fuck is that monkey even in the movie for? But, I realized, these are all elements of typical anime shows. What the Wachowski brothers have managed to do is adapt what is essentially a cartoon to live-action film, while retaining the original spirit of that cartoon.
Seriously... A monkey?
I have seen other film adaptations of anime, but they were all pretty terrible (see, or rather, don’t see Death Note). Speed Racer deserves credit for being the first live-action anime movie that doesn’t make its audience vomit.
In any case, the acting is fine, and the special effects—though monstrously expensive—are absolutely stunning. Go watch Speed Racer, keep an open mind, and enjoy it like 36% of the world did.
