(Pictures will be added later tonight!)
Blow Speed Racer Blooooow!
A 3,730 Word Super Sized Order of Rant-o-roni and
Cheese
"Well, this is going to
take a long time, so you may want to get some snacks."
~ The Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from The Future, Aqua Teen
Hunger Force
You have been warned.
---------------
Speed Racer
the Television Show. Ah yes. What can one say
about Speed Racer? Well, it certainly had speed, that's for sure. Or...
uh... speed lines. And it certainly had a racer. Or... umm... at least a
construction paper cutout of a racer plastered in front of a bunch of speed
lines. So, really, it should've been called Speed Line Construction Paper
Racer, or Confetti Convertible, or Static Studebaker, or
something like that. But whatever. Certainly this show had so much to offer.
Like . . . uh . . .
Okay, I gotta be honest, I
don't remember the particulars of Speed Racer all that much. But as
someone who can recite all nineteen verses of the Speed Racer theme song,
I am acknowledged in most circles as the world's foremost expert on Speed
Racer. Oh there are others to be sure, but even some of the best can only
get so far as "He's busy revvin' up a powerful Mach 5." Ask them whether
"He's off and flyin' as he guns the car around the track" or "jammin'
down the pedal like he's never comin' back" and you may as well be asking "Where
is the toilet?" in Botswani. In fact, if you ask the Average Joe or Joanna
if they know whether or not "Speed's a demon on wheels," odds are they're
going to think you're a NARC. A small group of people will simply just punch
you in the face. They've obviously seen the show and aren't fans. Don't press
the issue (cheesy 1960s anime-imports are an extremely acquired taste).
For me, Speed Racer
was that show that came on in that dry, filler hour after Bozo's Circus.
It usually didn't stay on long. Nothing personal, but with the clown gone, the
kids paraded out of the studio, and Whizzo lured into his carnie cage with the
promise of Snickerdoodles, I had already switched over to Smurfs --
curious to see if they'd sold out the Fraggles and declared holy war on the
Gummi Bears already, thus fulfilling my lifelong yearnings to see a
Smurfin'-Fraggle-Gummi Apocalypse. (Hey, I was six. I could dream, couldn't
I?) Unfortunately, early morning line-ups are fickle things. So when the news
gobbled up my Franco-Muppet-Disney trinity, Speed Racer suddenly became a lot
more interesting than that whole Iran-Contra crap the adults were babbling
about.
So yes, I watched Speed
Racer. And no I can't remember a thing about it. No one can. It's one of
life's great mysteries. Ask me to recall my Speed Racer experience and
I'll tell you about the greatest opening credits sequence that ever was. What
happened afterwards? Search me. The rest is a blank -- the kind of
Manchurian Candidate style mind-wipe that only the most hardened North
Koreans commies could dream up on their best days behind the fibrous, grassy
chutes of the Bamboo Curtain. I'll never know where I went for those 22
minutes. All I can tell you is I consistently woke up somewhere in the thralls
of the closing credits, free from any knowledge of what had transpired before,
and harboring a sudden urge to buy Hello Kitty products and bomb Pearl Harbor.
Such was the power Speed
Racer held over me.
Now, I realize that no
matter how complete, my understandings of an East Asian Scooby Dooish
knock-off jingle is a shaky foundation on which to base a review. So in a fit
of desperation I decided to sit down and actually force myself to remember the
show. Six hours and one twelve pack of Leinenkugel's Berry Weiss later,
a few things trickled back (but at least I was able to make it to the sink). So
here it is . . .
All I can remember is that
the show had a monkey, a white car, a little annoying kid, some old guy with a
mustache who looked kind of like Mario, some hot chick named Trixie, a
malnourished mechanic in a baseball cap, and -- I think -- some eyelash
fluttering dude in a racing helmet, blue polo shirt, and red neckerchief (he may
have played a minor role in the series, I'm not sure). That's it.
After more searching, I
found out that the original Japanese show was called Mach Go!Go!Go!,
which I'm told translates into Super Awesome Fun Time For Kids Happy Hour Go
Racing Show For Power Lunch, Thanks! Further research reveals that Speed
Racer was one of the first cartoons to seriously examine the family dynamic
in the harsh realities of a stressful working environment (well, as much as
possible for a show with a monkey, an Italian plumber, and a dick in a
cannonball suit). And subsequent digging revealed that the V button on a
standard keyboard is way too close to the C button, thus giving me Speed RaVer
more times than I can count. This led me to a number of methamphetamines
FAQ. But enough prepping.
Now we have the movie,
directed by Andy and Larry "Please Dear God Don't Let Us Direct Another Matrix
Movie" Wachowski. Apparently destroying the techno-noir thriller and dabbling
in producing anime knock-offs wasn't enough. Now they want to napalm the anime
genre altogether from the inside, joining the ranks of George Lucas as the
leading carpet bombers of my childhood -- hoping someday to reach their goal of
destroying American cinema altogether as we know it.
Thus, Speed Racer was
tailored for the crowd that thought Matrix Revolutions was too subtle.
Its effects so old fashioned that someone might confuse it for a black and white
film. The ear crushing soundtrack so sedated that someone might accidentally
mistake it for one of those pre-Talkie silent era thingamajigs where little
Hitler-mustached men in funny bowler hats twirl their canes and kick immigration
officials in the ass before blowing the living bat-shit hell out of mechanized
flying Wasp larvae with six eyes and forty-eight tentacles. I don't know
exactly what the target audience for this film was, but if you're between the
ages of three and twelve and have actually done speed before entering the
cineplex, then my guess is this movie's for you!
The film starts off with a
little kid day dreaming while taking a standardized test, and then has the
cajones to randomly jump ahead fifteen years to the same guy preparing for a big
race. Flashback A deals with this kid's attempt to get through the
school day while Flashfoward B deals with his attempts to beat his
brother's ghost on the racetrack. Thus it's a race to the finish to see which
of these stupid plotlines will finish first!
Seriously, it's like one of
the mazes you had to do as a kid. You know the ones. Where you start off
outside the maze and have to work your way to the goal in the center? Only to
then realize that -- sonofabitch! -- you're still technically in the
maze! What the hell!? A half hour into this movie and I realized that for all
its story jumping, I was still watching the same damn race. And, what's more,
there's still 90 minutes of movie left! Hell, I take it back, this is more like
one of those mazes where the start point is right next to the exit point and you
wonder why the hell you can't just take some white-out and punch a whole through
that wall that separates the exit from the entrance. Cause, you know, it's
RIGHT THERE! Unfortunately, there's not enough white-out in all the Staples of
the world to blot out the 120 minutes of celluloid it would take to skip ahead
to the thrilling conclusion.
We learn in the flashback
that this boy has his teachers concerned. It's not very hard to see why. This
kid makes Ralph Wiggum look like an honors student. While all the rest of the
kids are at least pretending to listen, he's driving his desk through a
hallucinogenic wonderland that only a quart of Vick's 44, a trash bag worth of
Skittles, and eight billion hours of playing Paper Mario will allow. So
Mom and Pop are called in and a frank discussion is had about their son,
Speed.
Okay. Stop! First off,
there's your real problem. Who names their kid Speed Racer, anyway?
That's like naming your kid Slip Slider, Spew Spelunker, or
Fast Food. I'm told that in some European countries, you can actually get
fined or even imprisoned for giving your kid a stupid enough name. These two
would've gotten the death penalty. For Mom, though, the answer is obvious:
Speed Racer likes to Speed Race. Thank God she didn't name him Glib
Gynecologist.
In a flashfoward within the
flashback we learn that Speed idolizes his older brother, Rex, who we find out
is killed in a mysterious racing accident after mysteriously leaving home --
thus giving us the reason why Speed is racing his brother's ghost in Flashfoward
B -- cause it's the payoff for Flashback-flashfoward C within Flashback A within
B within . . . I DON'T KNOW! Solve for Y! Seriously, I did not flunk two years
of algebra to have the fucking Wachowskis parade their superior mathematical
skills over me in flashback format!
So after Speed wins his
first big race we get a glimpse inside the Racer household. There's Pops (John
Goodman), who looks like Chef Boyardee in a Pringles mustache. Then there's
Mom (Susan Surandon), looking like a strung out Donna Reed auditioning for
Hair Spray. Sparky The Mechanic (Kick Gurry), no doubt, is her drug
supplier -- a mulletted ne'er-do-well who I wouldn't trust to measure kids for
the Tilt-o-Whirl, let alone mess with my car. And who can forget chunky little
Spritle (Paulie Litt), the cherubic chocoholic? Okay, seriously, who names
these kids!? Spritle isn't something you name your son! It's what you do when
you sneeze Sprite through your nose! Of course, no family tree would be
complete without a pet, so here comes Spritle's pal, Chim-Chim the Monkey
(George W. Bush, in his first uncredited bit role). And rounding out this
nuclear meltdown of a family is Speed (Emile Hirsch) and his childhood
sweetheart-turned-sweettart, Trixie (Christina Ricci).
Now I know what you're
thinking. This has the makings of high drama. Unfortunately, the Racers'
domestic dilemmas are probably only interesting to those poor unfortunate souls
stuck in retirement homes -- trapped in that lull that exists between reruns of
Wheel of Fortune and Touched by an Angel. For the rest of us it's
pretty mundane. If you're looking for these greats to really strut their acting
chops, look again. You're most likely to get pork chops. Most days kind of go
like this: Pops waddles around and gristles (probably upset that there's a
sweetened corn-puff cereal with his name on it and he's not getting any
royalties), Sparky acts greasy, the monkey does something stupid, the kid one
ups the monkey, and Speed and Trixie get all googley eyed.
As far as I can tell, Emile
Hirsch utilizes all three key emotions in his repertoire to play Speed: earnest,
more earnest, and earnestly in need of more Ex-lax. Christina Ricci, meanwhile,
plays Trixie with this smirk on her face that seems to say, "Wow, I can't
believe they actually paid me to do this." Which leaves sweet, dignified Susan
Surandan to wisely play Mom as a woman completely secure in the fact that her
family is crumbling under the weight of unchecked morbid obesity, pre-marital
sex, and rampant animal hygiene issues.
I think the creepiest thing
in all of this is that the casting director actually managed to find a little
boy who looks exactly like John Goodman. Wow. I mean, try to think about that
as you wade your way through this film. Sure, it may give you a small blackout,
but at least it will take your mind off of other, less savory things -- like
Speed Racer.
As if all of this wasn't
enough, even more thespian help arrives in the positively honey-glazed
performance of Roger "V for Vendetta" Allam. He plays Mr. Royalton, a
multibillionaire car manufacturer who ate Tim Curry in order to assume the form
of Al Gore. We know he's bad because he has a British accent, and Pops says as
much. This despite the fact that Royalton Industries would offer Speed a life
of luxury: booze, money, fast cars and faster women. Yes, everything a man
could possibly want (except a Nintendo Wii -- that would cost extra). Instead,
Speed earnestly retains his anal valve a little more and tells Royalton no
thanks, after which the gazillionaire gives Speed an emotional enema by telling
him that all racing is fixed, only a fool would turn him down and, just for good
measure, "I'll get you my pretty, and you're little chimp too!"
This hits Speed pretty
hard. After all, if racing is rigged then what does that bode for WWE
wrestling? Santa Clause? Intelligent Design? After some stumbles, he finds
help in the form of Racer X (Mathew “Lost” Fox) and his Jimmy Smittish
Johnny Deppleganger friend, Inspector Detector (Benno Furmann). They take his
voluptuously white Mach 5 racer, which looks something like a rocket powered
sperm on wheels, and outfit it with all sorts of nifty Ben Hur ‘Get The
Fuck Away From Me’ devices. From then on it becomes Speed Racer vs. The Rest of
the Accents as the plucky youth tries to overcome all odds and restore honor to
a glorified electric Hot Wheels match.
There's also some subplot
about exposing a bunch of underworld racers and how this has something to do
with a corporate buyout in Japan, but I couldn't follow any of it. Actually,
scratch that. Had I actually cared about what was going on, I probably
could've. I didn't. And therefore did not. Same could be said for the whole
running storyline over whether Racer X is really Speed's dead brother. If you
didn't see the anime (which I remember has the answer), then track down one of
those geeks who did and beat it out of them. It's the only rational solution to
seeing this film.
The finale hinges on a Grand
Prix. And I won't tell you who wins, because if you can't figure it out
already, we can find you and relocate you to work camps. I will say that by the
time the movie gets to the finish line I was exhausted. I mean, everything is
CGI -- even Pop's mustache -- which I'm told had to have fifteen animators
alone, working thirteen hours a day. After awhile, that messes with your head.
Half the problem is the
world these guys inhabit. It looks like Tron trying to dry hump Fear
and Loathing in Las Vegas. Believe me, if you weren't high going into the
theater, you will be by the time you leave. I spent most of the movie with my
jaw on the ground, my eyes circling everywhere, looking for something, anything
sane to grab onto. But there was nothing. Nothing! I mean, Speed's
neighborhood looks like a rising subdivision for working class Teletubbies. The
cities are a dystopian Phillip K. Dick pop-up book for kids. And the world? A
Dr. Seussian morphine drip, built by a cruel and unjust god, who only had the
Crayola colored table scraps of Pixar's doped-up dropouts to go on. It's the
sort of thing that could only happen if the Disneyfication of Times Square was
left to spread throughout the world like the Matrix.
And the race tracks? Oh
Sweet Jesus. For one thing, every track is a neon, seizure inducing mess of
steel, screeching, crashing, burning, and asphalt. It's the kind of thing you'd
expect from F-Zero or American Idol. The only thing racing
through my head was, "Wow, I wish I was playing that new Super Mario Kart
for the Nintendo Wii right now. That's got to be a lot better then this. Hell,
the Speed Racer game would be a lot better than this -- at least I could
turn it off!" So there you have it, Speed Racer's one saving grace: it's
a great plug for Nintendo.
Maybe if I could see what
was happening? That would help. But the Wachowskis -- oh those clever auteurs!
-- believe that the best race is the one not seen. So every competition looks
like a tie-dyeing accident. It's like they strapped a digital hand-held cam
onto a bobble head hood ornament, screamed "Action!", and then spun the Mach 5
around for fifteen minutes like it was a dradel. That's supposed to be
thrilling? You want the Speed Racer experience? Hop in a clothes dryer
with a ball of blinking Christmas lights. It'll save you a movie ticket and
also leave you with a refreshing spring scent (depending on your fabric
softener).
I can't see how the crew on
this film would've been on board with this. My only guess is that when somebody
complained, the Wachowskis simply said, "Oh don't worry, it's okay! The random
flashes of light we'll add in post will tie the whole thing together! And if
that doesn't work, there's always montages and slo-mos and collages and faux
lensing and bling to super bling flare enhancements and candy inspired techno
color and Klingons in the plasma conduits and Ewoks in the shield generator with
the Midichlorians and the..."
My God. You know what? I
think Speed Racer is the first effects film to go infinite. That's
right. The effects in this movie are so overblown and so drawn out that I think
they've actually broken the space-time continuum. Long after I'm dead, their
CGI FX routines will still be running on a server somewhere, and they won't stop
running until the Big Crunch at the end of time, when the universe implodes and
restarts, thus freeing us from this green screened Samsara Wheel of Suffering
and allowing some other, newer, fresher form of life to take over the reigns and
create their own lousy Speed Racer movie.
And that's the creepy
thing. I felt something, to quote Darth Vader. Something I
haven't felt since... hmmm. I had been here before. It crept up on me like
a bad Chile con Carne. I remembered a movie based on a TV show. Sci-fi, crazy
colors, goofy vehicles, CGI, family squabbling, squeaky kid, unpleasantly icky
British villain... a monkey. Then it hit me all at once -- flashbacks to my
senior year in high school! I saw myself scoring free tickets to the only
cinema on Aquidneck Island! The only film they had was Lost in Space!
It was so bad I demanded my money back!! I vomited for weeks!!! That’s it!!!!
That was the connection!!!!!
Oh most egregious of sins
that this film should remind me of that most unholy of unholies. Though, to be
fair, at least Speed Racer could foot the bill for a real monkey
instead of the digital space kind. That automatically makes it a smidge better
in my book. That means that at least somehow, somewhere, a flesh and blood
monkey was probably throwing something fecal at the cast and crew. Someone
had to get the raw end of that simian sycophant, and that makes me feel all
warm and fuzzy inside. Because being raised Roman Catholic, I was taught you
need to pay for your sins.
The other thing that made
this movie bearable for about 60 seconds was a flashy nod to the TV show’s
intro. After finishing a cross-country tournament, Speed side-swipes his car
across the finish line and jumps out of the Mach 5 in bullet time, arm flung
casually towards the audience as if to say, “Yeah, try that one, bitches!” I
stood up and applauded, assuming the movie was over (unfortunately, the
concession guy told me there was still one hour of movie left). Of course, I’m
now realizing that Speed Racer the TV Show was doing Matrix style
bullet timing eons before the Wachowskis ever held a camera. So, basically, the
brothers spent millions of dollars and thousands of terabytes to do what six
underfed Japanese artists did in 1967 for a satchel of rice.
And for all these zillions
spent, does it actually represent the TV show? Eh. I think it’s safe to say
the original was about less is more. Of course, that's cause we Americans
bombed the living kabuki out of the Japanese, and they were forced to make do
for awhile with plum sauce paintbrushes and tapioca rice paper. But our
indiscriminate leveling of entire cities aside, I think it made for a much
better show. Or at least a slightly more sensical one. All this movie managed
to do was recreate some of the original show's camp FX by having Spritle and
Chim-Chim take out an assortment of baddies by flying through the air, ninja
style, and screaming "Hai-ya!" in front of a bunch of speed lines. That's
called pandering. Or, to be more precise, stupid. Everything else stolen from
the show would've been cool, had it not been thrown on the screen all at once in
a Red Bull infused haze of ecstasy and magic marker. That's not representing,
that's just disorienting.
So there it is. I'd say
it's a dodgy representation at best. Though, to be honest, I don’t know if I
have a whole lot to base that on. I mean, all I can remember about the movie is
it had a monkey, a white car, a little annoying kid, some old guy with a
mustache who looked kind of like Mario, some hot chick named Trixie, a
malnourished mechanic in a baseball cap, and -- I think -- some eyelash
fluttering dude in a racing helmet, blue polo shirt, and red neckerchief (he may
have played a minor role in the film, I'm not sure).
Oh, and a catchy theme song.
On second thought, maybe it
was a pretty good representation of the show after all.
---------------
Tired?
"YOU should have gotten a
snack."
~ The Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from The Future, Aqua Teen
Hunger Force
 |
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I am dizzy just by reading this article. Fantastic work as always my friend. 
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And yeah, I would watch this show on Cartoon Network sometimes when I was a kid. Honestly? I can't remember much about it. There was a monkey...yeah. Thats about it. Woo?
Not even interested in seeing the movie...looked like it would be crap, lol.