Speed Raceris an exhilarating family adventure about extreme automobile racing. Complete with eye-popping, CGI effects and human actors shot completely in front of a green screen, it was directed by the Wachowski brothers , the ones who brought us the mind-boggling Matrix Trilogy . Speed Racerregained popularity in the 1990s when the anime series was rehashed on MTV. Die-hard Fans of Tatsuo Yoshida’s Mach Go Go Go , a Japanese anime which Speed Racer was based on, must not miss this big-screen adaptation of the 4-decade-old anime.

The Plot

Speed Racer is played by Emile Hirsch , a talented 23 year-old Californian actor, as a racer passionate about the sport that runs in his family. His brother, Rex (Scott Porter ), a pro racer who won many competitions, met an untimely death while racing at the Casa Cristo 5000. The tragedy impacted Speed (Emile Hirsch) profoundly and he strived to be more successful than his brother to make the deceased proud and to complete his brother’s unfinished business.

Naturally, for the movie to run 135 minutes, there are obstacles standing in the way of his success. Speed soon learns that the racing business he worships is corrupted and controlled by money-hungry elites from the Royalton industries. Royalton manufactures racing cars and has been determining the outcome of every race to maximise its profits. When Royalton approaches Speed to work with them for the next mega race, Speed declines, to the rage of its sour grapes owner, who vows to sabotage his chance of winning.

Fortunately, Speed has a group of loving family and friends who he can count on for guidance and support in his quest to become the racing champion.

Speed also discovers that Racer X and Taejo Togokahn (Rain ) have been victims of Royalton’s dirty tricks and want justice served too. The 3 agree to team up and eliminate Royalton’s racers from the Casa Cristo 5000. Speed was confounded by the amazing chemistry that he and Racer X shared within the short period of time spent racing together. Beyond the aloof exterior of Racer X lies a dark secret that he is hiding from the Racer family.

The Acting

Plot aside, this movie boasts a commendable cast which includes Emile Hirsch as Speed Racer, Christina Ricci as Trixie and Korean superstar, Rain as Taejo Togokahn. Fans of Rain who watch the movie solely to ogle at the actor are in for a treat as he is one of the supporting actors who appear frequently in the film. Rain has quite a good command of English, which he speaks with an American accent. Paulie Litt who plays the role of Spritle, the younger brother of Speed, is chubby and cheeky and the audience cracks up whenever he shows up with his sidekick Chim-Chim, played by Willie and kenzie, which are real-life chimpanzees. They are the jokers in the story and are always up to some mischief. One particularly memorable scene is when not-so-innocent 10-year-old Spritle flashed the finger at the villainous Royalton’s owner to defend his brother, Speed.

The Cinematography

Like the Matrix, Speed Raceris very generous in its dose of visual effects-there’re more than 2000. Its imagery was generated by superimposing actors against green screens and merged with still 360-degree still captures of exotic Morocco, Turkey and Death Valley, Italy and Austria. These places were shot with Sony’s F-23 HD camera, which wasn’t yet available to the public when it was used by the Wachowskis brothers, who essentially incorporated “2 ½ technology” into the film to attain a “live-action anime look”. Granted that the movie as a whole is visually stimulating, much of the racing scenes painful to watch as they look like extracted images from computer games. Picture watching the TV screen of a kid playing an old school racing game when technology was not so advanced then. Unfortunately, the images appear lurid and cartoon-like and it doesn’t help that the camera kept changing perspective, never quite following the course of any rider. Hence, it is quite confusing to understand the progress of the race.

The Verdict

It doesn’t matter that the story isn’t convincing and clocks up more than 2 hours. Speed Racer is a mainstream movie that has something for everybody whether you are checking out babes and hunks or looking for wholesome amusement. Its illustrations of family-centered values like parental love for the children add depth to the storyline which belies the frothy look of the film.

UrbanWire gives Speed Racer 3 out of 5 stars

Movie Details

Opens: May 8

Running Time: 135 mins

Rating: PG

Language: English with Chinese subtitles

Cast: Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox

Director: Larry Wachowski, Andy Wachowski