Remember when The Wachowski Brothers ruled the world? This will be the 18 months of so after first Matrix when everyone thought they were amazing and it sold loads of DVDs and everyone was happy.
Two sequels later and everyone hates them.
Shame. Because everyone seems to be lining up to give Speed Racer a kicking when it doesn't really deserve it.
The eponymous Speed Racer is race car driver in a racing obsessed world living in the shadow of his brother, Rex Racer, who died racing in a race car accident. After making a name for himself on the track the big teams want to hire Speed to race for them. But are they all they seem?
The problem we have, not just with this film but with The Wachowski's themselves, is that no one will tell them no. The Matrix made sooo much money they just do what they want and no one tells them otherwise. Sometimes this is good, sometimes this is bad.
It's good in this film because no one else would make a film that looks like this. The original anime the film is based is replicated on the screen to an amazing level. This isn't just the vehicles, which we will get to later, but the overall look of the film. Colours pop off the screen like nothing else. It looks amazing.
And then the cars start racing.
What they have done is taken the car chase sequence from The Matrix Reloaded and taken it to insane levels. The cars spin around the track, leap in the air and barrel roll. It's totally seamless and totally amazing.
What is not so good is when they start talking. Whilst the dialogue isn't as cringe worthy as some of The Matrix Revolutions, it's not great. It's supposed to be a kids film but when you get scenes digging into the intricacies of corporate sponsorship and it's place in sport, I started zoning out and I'm an adult.
And then there is Spritle.
Every now and then you get a film character that seems to have been placed into a film with the sole intention of bringing the whole thing crashing to the floor. There was Chris Tucker in The Fifth Element, Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace and now Spritle.
He's supposed to be comedy value. I understand this. He's teamed with a monkey, and I have no problem with monkeys. But whenever he crops up he just destroys the pace of the film, all of his jokes fall flat and he is very annoying. If I were to ever buy this on DVD I would rip it onto my computer, edit him out and then burn it back on to DVD. Not even the bit when he's playing Freebird could save him.
And that's the problem: if they had a producer that would stand up to them things like this wouldn't happen and the film would be a lot better for it.
I really enjoyed it. It doesn't deserve the kicking it's had. My son sat through the whole film which is a not inconsiderable 137 minutes long. Not a masterpiece but it's not as bad as the Matrix sequels. Which is always a good thing.
In a word? Zoom.
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