Speed Racer is Beautiful

The Wachowski siblings are my favorite filmmakers of all time. They're best known for The Matrix series, which would have been what this article is about if they didn't also make Speed Racer. The oldest memory I have of their movies are me going through the family's DVD collection and seeing The Matrix in that classic paper case with the plastic closure system(my research has turned up 'snapper/snap case' as it's designation). I take it out and ask my father what it is, to which he replies "You haven't seen The Matrix?!" I blinked, being ten at the time and my father being one of the two people controlling what media I get to see. I said no and suddenly, when The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions come out I go out to see them in the theater, which is likely inadvisable since I was 12 when Reloaded came out. I barely remember seeing a rave scene with Neo and Trinity having sex, but it's in my memory regardless.

The Wachowskis made Speed Racer in 2008, a movie I didn't see in the theaters despite having watched the television show on Cartoon Network on weekend mornings. I was a teenager at the time, and as we all know being a teenager makes you a weird person who's driving force is to not be embarrassed. Hence my abstinence from this film alongside me not really knowing about directors at the time. The next film of theirs I watched on a plane, Cloud Atlas, which might be the worst setting for that movie since detail is needed. Jupiter Ascending follows that, which is an incredible movie that is also maligned, leading to their last project as a team, Sense8. During this time The Wachowski brothers became the Wachowski siblings, and finally the Wachowski sisters with both Lana and Lilly transitioning in the 2010's. This change in identity really makes viewing their pre-transition movies interesting, especially their first movie Bound: a lesbian crime thriller. Lilly took a break from the limelight and directing, and Lana has since directed Sense8 season 2 and The Matrix: Resurrections.

Now that the Wachowski directorial history has been given credence, I can now wax poetic on the joy of Speed Racer. Normally, I dislike films that feel like IP cash grabs, the most recent version of this being Ghostbusters or Barbie. Movies that are created to flex the intellectual property contracts or to get butts in seats to make money hand over fist. This is another reason why I didn't see Speed Racer until about 2017, thinking it a weird mid 2000's sheer marketing film as critics called it at the time. Around that time I also watched Redline, an incredible animated features starring an underdog who tries to win an intergalactic drag race in a grand am. I am not much of a fan of cars or racing, but these two movies were a one two dopamine punch to my brain. Both films are expressions of pure joy and love, and I'll leave my 2000+ word essay on Redline for another time and focus in on Speed Racer.

Lilly and Lana are old school anime fans, and Speed Racer was the king of old school anime. This was a show that was animated with about 6 frames a second, or about 1/4 the speed of normal animation, which was much cheaper but looked choppy (as seen above). Animation is usually done at 24 frames a second, and either every frame changes (On the ones) or every other frame is used (On the twos), and classic Japanese animation was usually low frame rate to get an episode out every week, since you'd need to physically draw fewer images. In the show, Speed would usually press a single button on his steering wheel because then they didn't need to redraw those frames for different buttons. Despite this, Speed Racer was beloved by many, a show focused on Speed and his family racing cars because it is literally in their name. The original manga started in 1966, and the original show started the following year.

So, the Wachowski siblings were tasked with bringing this 40 year old IP to modern cinemas across the world. These are the folks who took anime style and put it in a 1999 action film, so they should be able to adapt an actual anime to real people. To start, the actors are all wonderfully cast. From John Goodman as Pops to Susan Sarandon as Mom (Yes those are their actual names in the credits), to Cristina Ricci as Trixie and Emile Hirsch as Speed Racer himself. This cast is gorgeous and some truly heavy hitters in the acting world. Seriously, go look up the cast and gasp as you see the protagonist from Lost(Matthew Fox) or Hiroyuki Sanada as side roles and absolutely killing it. These people are all doing their best to treat the material with the energy it deserves, which is bursting with emotion and heart.

Now, before I continue singing the praises of a movie with 6/10 or lower on most sites, I should address the monkey in the room. Yes, there is a lot of insane stuff in this movie intended for children. Spritle and ChimChim really clang if you don't understand that this is a movie for children and is allowed to be silly. I think most critics are dismissive or turn their brains off when they see a child rocking an air guitar to Free Bird on a golf cart being driven by a monkey in front of a green screen. Additionally, this movie is known to cause motion sickness due to the insane race car stuff, and that is totally accurate and fair. There is plenty of gross advertising and product placement, but that usually happens in multi-million dollar productions in the US. Lastly, the plot is very simple because it's a movie about a boy who loves driving his race car and there are bad men stopping him from driving his race car. It's based on a 1960's comic, it's got a lot of stuff in it that is very simple because narratives from comics then were pretty simple. But simple doesn't mean bad, or even boring, simple is vanilla, and vanilla is very popular for a reason.

So Ian Kane, why is Speed Racer beautiful? Why did you read 1000 words of setup for me to recommend this silly kid's movie? This film makes me cry every time I watch it, and the reason is very simple: It's got heart, it's got love, and it's got joy. "That's it? That's not good enough!" I hear you winge, and yet here I am, telling you that this film is what reignited the Wachowski's love for film and damned them for the film's failure. It's a movie about a person being forced into a system, and that person breaking the system to do what they love. It's a movie that demonizes rampant greed and glorifies the joy of living. Let me go point by point to break this down.

Royalton of Royalton industries starts the film by buttering up the Racer family, seeing the skills of Speed in action, and tries to acquire Speed for his company's talent. When Speed rejects the offer, Royalton uses his resources to suppress the whole Racer family. He pays other drivers to target Speed with shady racing tactics and tries to besmirch the Racer family name with trumped up legal allegations. He exerts his extensive power over this talented family to subjugate them, which pushes the family to work outside the system and gets Speed to race the track where his brother died on to try to fight back. Speed's actions apply pressure to the Racer clan, but they don't break under pressure, and Speed is given a chance to race in the Grand Prix. The Grand Prix is a symbol of cooperate control, Royalton explaining earlier in the film that the race is rigged, and that it has been rigged by the major car manufacturers for decades to make their stock prices rise. He tells Speed that that's the way the world works, and that Speed is powerless to change it. And yet, Speed shows up to the Grand Prix and wins the whole thing, exposing Royalton as a cheat and a scoundrel, and it's a happy ending all around.

The plot parallels the experience of the Wachowskis: Their first movie Bound was them showing the studio system that they have the chops to make The Matrix. They then made this one big play, that play paid off, and suddenly they're bound to the studio system, making Matrix movie after Matrix movie. They are then attached to an IP that they actually care for, and use their talents and experience to make it reflect their lived experience. Sadly they don't wind up like Speed, since the almighty box office deemed the film a loss, that made the Wochowskis no longer a safe bet. It took years for them to work up to another film, but that will have to be a story for another time.

I need to briefly mention the relationship dynamics in the film, since it is a family movie and the family is what really sells the film. John Goodman as Pops is a revelation, and his arc is about learning to trust those you love. Early on in the movie, he pushes his first son Rex away, leading to his early demise. This scene gets mirrored later on in the film, when Speed tries to leave the family instead of pushing him away he instead talks to him and lets his son do what he feels is right, leaving space and an open door for Speed to grow and mature. This moment is followed by an incredible retelling of a moment in their past, when they bonded over an old race. This story, which Speed told earlier in the film, was tainted by Royalton and Pops restores his hope in racing through his reinterpretation of that story. It's truly an aspirational father figure, which is paired with Mom to make an extremely supportive backbone of the family unit. Susan Sarandon brings a warmth to the film with her monologues and conflict resolution skills. She is constantly bringing the family together in times turmoil, even providing them with PB&J sandwiches during the final car building montage. She plays the support to this weird family by never bringing them down and making sure their needs are met.

Before I wrap this up, I want to touch on the editing. This film feels like it was both edited by Geniuses and a team of chimpanzee on cocaine. The first time you watch the film, it's likely that you'll get a headache trying to make sense of the racing parts. They are flashy, mid 2000's effect work that really feels like if someone took anime and forced it into reality. To counteract this reality, the editing takes many notes from cartoons. There are many swipe cuts where a talking head changes from one scene to another, blending the two with their dialogue. They use this primarily with the race announcers, or in the example above the scientist enhancing Speed's Mach 5. You have to be willing to buy into the reality that is being presented, suspend disbelief when a halo encircles a flight attendant's head when she pulls out an incredible candy drawer, to really vibe with the film. Things looking goofy or out of place is the point, the film is trying to make a cartoon out of reality. There are many uses of sound stage footage edited with a CGI background to make the characters pop, alongside the supersaturated colors everyone is constantly wearing. The first five minuets of the movie is a great litmus test for if you're able to watch the whole thing.

Before this article is over, I just want to do a rapid fire greatest hits of things this film does:
John Goodman spins a ninja over his head
Two tire rims get into a sword fight
Cool Beans gets said twice unironically
Jump Jacks are the greatest and the sound is directly inspired by the anime
The drivers safety system is being covered in bubbles
A man's finger is eaten by a Piranha
Chimchim flings poop at a race fixer
Viking Racers are bribed with furs
Cars do full combo strings of strikes on each other midair

The mid 2000's were a deeply cynical time in my life and the world at large. There wasn't a marvel empire of films(Iron man came out in 2008), we just survived the star wars prequel trilogy, and most films hitting theaters were IP driven. Upon release this film was critically panned, failed at the box office, and since then has aged gracefully into a cult classic. I was able to see this film in 35mm at my local cinema(and Bound the following night) with some friends and it was truly one of my favorite film experiences. Recent live action anime adaptations have failed in a much more boring fashion than Speed Racer did over 15 years ago, the only other good one being Netflix's One Piece. Speed Racer is now one of my "always films," where if I discover someone hasn't seen it I'll offer to watch it with them and act as their film Sherpa. It breaths the rarefied air of Redline and Pacific Rim, of Back to the Future and The Matrix, as a film that crept into my heart and refuses to budge.