Movie 5/14

Rating:

I’ll say this about “Speed Racer,” the anime-adaptation blockbuster being brought to screens this week by Andy and Larry Wachowski: It sure does have some pretty colors. True, the film is a mess and a failure in nearly every other department, but you can’t deny that those colors look great.
The popular cartoon, which began as a Japanese serial in the 1960s, was brought to the U.S. shortly thereafter. It was brought back for an MTV run 30 years later, and has been pegged for a live-action adaptation pretty much all the while. Now, the Wachowskis have done exactly that, although I use the term “live action” very loosely — the film is about 90 percent green screens, with effects coming, literally, from all directions.
Emile Hirsch stars as Speed Racer (yes, his first name is “Speed” and his last name “Racer”). Speed is a naturally talented young auto racer, from a family of them, though he remains haunted by the death of his brother years earlier in a similar race.
Helped along by his family and his loyal girlfriend, Trixie (Christina Ricci), Speed goes for the gold in his racing league, while doing battle with evil billionaire Royalton (Roger Allam, who looks and sounds so much like Christopher Hitchens that the performance may be an impersonation).
The Wachowskis captured the imagination of moviegoers with the original “Matrix” movie in 1999 due to groundbreaking special effects that remained wondrous on repeated viewings, as well as a virtual-reality plot that blew the minds of most college students and amateur philosophers.
The brothers, though, lost their way with a pair of mind-boggling sequels, both released in 2003, which seemed to raise more questions than they answered and satisfied just about no one. “Speed Racer” is their first movie as directors since, although they did write and produce the underwhelming 2006 anarchist thriller “V for Vendetta.”
Special effects are at the forefront once again in “Speed Racer” with the use of a new method called “layering,” which allows images to literally be piled upon one another in a fashion resembling anime. But where “Speed Racer” and the first “Matrix” differ is that the “revolutionary” effects aren’t wondrous so much as incomprehensible.
As long as things are sitting in place, the movie is breathtakingly beautiful. The color palette is rich, with lots of reds, blues and yellows, and the production design Oscar is theirs to lose. It’s only when things start moving that the problems start and, seemingly, never end.
The list of the movie’s crippling problems is very, very long. The racing scenes, while exciting, are next to impossible to follow, due to near-constant cutting and shaking, and we never really learn the rules of the racing league in question. (At times, it appears that competitors are actually allowed to kill one another, although at one point a player is accused of cheating just so the script can make a cheap Barry Bonds joke.)
The plot is also nonsensical, and about 10 times more complex than it needs to be, complete with pointless political posturing among villains that brings to mind “The Phantom Menace.” The script also borrows a worrisome tic from the “Matrix” sequels: an over-reliance on LONG speeches full of expository dialogue. Even worse than that, we have no idea who Speed is and what motivates him, bringing about a sense that nothing at all is at stake.
Also, at least a dozen dramatic moments in the movie are ruined by the “comic relief” duo of Speed’s irritating little brother (Paulie Litt) and his even more irritating pet monkey. These scenes will only be funny to those who believe that monkeys are inherently hilarious, but to the rest of us, they all but ruin the film.
This same movie was already made in a much better way two years ago, when it was called “Cars.” Pixar’s criminally underappreciated car racing film had all the pretty colors that “Speed Racer” sports, but also made room for exciting animated action, sympathetic characters and sweetness. And, that movie was about talking, animated cars —“Speed Racer” cannot compare with that, nor with “Iron Man,” an all-time great blockbuster released just one week ago.

“Speed Racer”

Directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski
Starring: Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox and Roger Allam

Rated: PG-13

My rating: 1.5 stars (out of 5)