I’m probably one of the five people in America who thought that “Speed Racer” just got a bad rap by critics and audiences. I mean, really, what were you expecting from this flick? When all is said and done, I don’t think it’s that bad a movie at all. In fact I’m more than willing to admit its bevy of flaws but am still able to enjoy it in spite of the evident caveats. “Speed Racer” is too cool to just dismiss. I mean for a two hour and fifteen minute movie (seriously, Wachowskis?) it’s actually easy to sit through with a very unique take on Speed Racer. I hate to play apologist to the Wachowskis and their big budget effort, but I have to appreciate the pulp neo-noir take on “Speed Racer” with a vision that doesn’t talk down to kids.
Sure in the end it’s a family movie and not the best of the 2008 summer movie offerings, but at least the Wachowskis take their audience seriously and attempt to appeal to their wit and ability to grasp plot, with mature dialogue that hardly ever takes the road to idiocy to garner the target audiences affection. Aside from that, “Speed Racer” boasts an incredibly well cast plethora of respective actors, all of whom bring the one dimensional personalities from the animated series to life. Emile Hirsch takes Speed as a more humble hero destined for greatness, while John Goodman is perfect as the blustery and larger than life Pops.
There’s also Matthew Fox who is probably my favorite casting of the year as the mysterious Racer X, the masked marvel who helps out Speed but keeps his allegiances loose throughout the film. There’s also Spritle who is as annoying here as he was in the animated series. Man oh man what a useless character; he’s probably the only blatant pandering you’ll find to little kids in the movie and I’m forgiving when I see the dynamic effects and top notch performances. “Speed Racer” is long in the tooth, and unnecessarily, but at least it has some sense of originality and really keeps its bargain with colorful characters, physical comedy, and exciting races.
As for the DVD, the good news is that actor Paulie Litt is not as obnoxious as his character Spritle. The bad news is that “Spritle in the Big Leagues” is a wholly missed opportunity. Where we could have spent at least two hours on conceptual featurettes, acting featurettes, the exploration of the technology, and why this movie came about, we’re only given a fluff piece with Paulie Litt touring the set of the movie for a measly fourteen minutes. Even for this edition it’s disappointing. Especially when we don’t even get to see much of the press junkets. Instead throughout the fourteen minutes pop ups with facts about the movie and the crew appear for audiences interested. It’s sad because it seems like this little feature was wasted on what could have been a very informative bit about the movie.
Where as the movie didn’t talk down to its audiences, the Extras do everything in their power to water down what it a considerably mature kids film by looking through the eyes of Spritle instead of—oh—Speed! That’s the main character of the story, isn’t it? It’s also on the Blu-Ray edition which I saw at my local DVD shop. I was annoyed by it then and I’m pretty annoyed by it now. Just fourteen minutes is what this movie is deserving of? Don’t answer that. “Speed Racer: Supercharged!” is another fifteen minute puff piece that takes no effort in to delving in to the production of the movie but instead looks at the individual cars and drivers featured in the movie and a narrator explains the faux crises each of the racers endure in the movie and we gain an insight in to the cars.
It’s a mock documentary time wasters, let’s be honest. They watered the movie down so much in these features that I’m shocked they didn’t include a trailer to the horrible “Speed Racer” series currently on the Nick Toons Network in America. Maybe there’s another bigger edition coming, but if I had to bet, I’d say that this is about all that we’re getting. Unless you buy the three disc Blu-Ray Edition which I hear isn’t any better. So generally while I tend to work against being in the majority, “Speed Racer” is just an instance where I enjoyed the movie for what it tried to do. It’s not the best adaptation, but at least it works for originality, it’s just too bad the DVD doesn’t try for more substance.