The Color Rush

**** Potential Spoilers - Read with Caution! *****

I'm astounded that the brunt of the reviews i've read for SPEED RACER all pretty much complain about the over-saturated world and the nauseating camera work. What about the story? The characters perhaps? Anybody care about that?

It seems to me that what most people care about (including so called movie reviewers) are visuals. To them this tells the whole story. Never mind the swiss-cheese plots, weak dialogue and stupid characters. At the center of any movie should be a story that resonates with the audience. Call it heart or a spine, but this is what makes you believe in what you are seeing regardless of whether it is fantastic or improbable. Remember that you've already made a gigantic leap of faith by being in a darkened room with a bunch of strangers, watching pure make-believe.

I'll preface everything by saying that I really enjoyed Speed Racer. The Wachowski Brothers deserve credit for creating such a unique and memorable world and yes it is filled with color and lots of it. In one scene inside the Racer home, the color of the walls harmoniously complement the color of each characters' outfits as the camera cut to them. For those who think "how hard could that be? Just throw a bunch of colors together!" It takes a lot of planning and a lot of thought to make palettes work together and I know from experience that they spent a good amount of time making sure your eyes engaged the right part of the screen.

What I really liked about this movie is the story. I loved that despite all the fast-paced racing scenes and cartoony quips is a simple story centered around a family. You may ask what is original about this? Absolutely nothing. But the Wachowski's set out to make a movie about a family for families to enjoy. The knew they where not making The Matrix here and I applaud them for staying true to their vision. The family dynamic is a universal theme and thus, stories about them will keep re-appearing in movies forever.

And speaking of staying true, I really loved the fact that the movie doesn't stray from being what it really is: A Cartoon. At no point does it try and cross into our side of reality to get some validation. It is a self-contained world with it's own rules and it's own physics.

The plot is simple. Speed Racer must make a monumental choice. One essentially sells his soul to the devil but sets his family up for life while the other would kill his career and put a giant bullseye on his back. (like the one I recently acquired by saying Iron Man had a weak plot) At the same time, the naive Speed is eternally haunted by the death of his older brother who like him was an accomplished racer but lost his life by making seemingly bad judgements. (figuratively and literally) Could he end up like him? Speed has a good relationship with his family whose life has been spent operating their own independent racing team. But another choice he must make is whether to stick to tradition or to sell out. Yet another one of those universal conundrums that appear in films time and again.

I guess the point I am trying to make is that it is easy to watch a movie and say that "it's the same, tired story i've seen so many times. Why couldn't they have come up with something else?" Well it's all in the telling my friends. A great storyteller will take the mundane and make it a masterpiece. A weak one will take a great story and make it underwhelming.

The Wachowski's have never been known to write convincing dialogue and they certainly didn't do it here in Speed Racer. They aren't the best at being concise with their narrative either and here they could have certainly trimmed 20 minutes from the movie. Then there's the blinding and disorienting racing footage that people are complaining about. These are the same people that didn't have a problem watching the Bourne movies as well as that largely incoherent mess called Cloverfield. Oh and there's Transformers as well. There's some logic issues in the film as well but nothing so large as to disengage you from watching. (Like why they really needed a new car for the final race when they already had one that seems to work fine)

What they did do is keep things simple story-wise. Wrapped in the intricate corporate intrigue is a family trying to deal with adversity. (while having fun in the process) The Wachowski's even managed a little taste of the bittersweet in the end. Something for you to ponder while your eyes adjusted back to seeing the real world.