Go Speed Go!

Please, for the love of all that is still fun and worthwhile in this world, GO see 'Speed Racer'. The most brilliant summer blockbuster that isn't a 'summer blockbuster' at all is flailing badly at the box office, and it needs your help.

Trust me - you'll love it. You'll more than love it. It's not a kid's movie (well, it is, but that's not ALL it is in any case), it's not an epileptic seizure waiting to happen, it's a GREAT FUCKING MOVIE. It's the Wachowski Brothers' best film, bar none. Fuck the Matrix, fuck Keanu Reeves, and fuck all those ridiculous sequels. If I was ten years old (which I most certainly am, and also a girl), this movie would be my new God.

I flat-out LOVE this movie. It's hot buttered neon insanity, and it doesn't let up for a second. I'm sorry, but any movie where people throw BEEHIVES and LIVE SNAKES at their enemies is fuckin' aces. Real chimps! Ninja fights! Iodine-powered whosamawhatsas powering cars that go 800 km per hour! This thing is fun from top to bottom. It works extremely well as a family movie, but it appeals to so many other age groups as well. I usually hate children in movies like this, but some of the biggest, most authentic laughs in it came from Spritle and Chim-Chim (the boy and his pet chimp shown above). Their showdown with the half-assed ninja had me in hysterics, John Goodman's ass-whipping of said ninja got some honest-to-goodness applause in my theater ("It's amazing what passes for a ninja these days!"), and Spritle's flipping off Royalton (the main bad guy) as the elevator closes was a perfect bit of sarcastic humor that worked so well simply because it was so unexpected and out-of-place.

Christina Ricci has never looked so beautiful. I'd like to thank both her and the effervescent Cate Blanchett for bringing back the impeccably-manicured jet-black bob haircut this summer. Bravo! I could've done with a lot more scenes with her, but her shots as a dirty-faced, welding-iron-brandishing grease monkey? Yum! More, please. Mmmmmm. Dirrrrrrty...

I don't know much about Emile Hirsch (to my knowledge, this is the first movie I've seen him in), but he fit the role adequately. Not sure who he is as an actor just yet, so was he Speed Racer? Sure! He looked like him, acted the part well, almost got to make out with Trixie a few times... I bought it.

Matthew Fox! To be honest, I wanted him a bit more ridiculous and over-the-top as Racer X, but he's still a lot of fun. Matthew's the kind of guy who can nail within a few slight degrees whatever kind of role you put him in, and he's fun to watch, as well. He could've just been Jack from 'Lost' in this role all over again, but he just... wasn't. Not at all. I appreciated the energy and knowing amount of silliness he contributed to the role, and that's that.

In fact, no one in it really took anything too overly serious, and honestly, I think that's what I liked the most about it. Even at its most tense and action-packed, it was always wise enough to take a step back at the right moment and make fun of itself, or at least make a knowing reference to the cartoon. I loved that the ninja attack in the hotel room ended with the ninja getting squished between two couches with his feet wrapped up around his ears and a silly mock-painful grin on his face. STRAIGHT out of a '60s cartoon.

The other drivers were fun. Unfortunately there was no Car Acrobatics Team (the racing team from the original cartoon that could STACK THEIR CARS ON TOP OF ONE ANOTHER AS THEY RACED), but I loved Snake Oiler and the Genghis Khan guys. Like I said, throwing beehives swirling with pissed-off bees at each other mid-race? GENIUS. Again, a moment taken straight out of the cartoons that worked to utter perfection.

The effects? Insane. Just insane. I won't embarrass myself by trying to think up any cool-sounding metaphors to describe them, but I think my previous claim of 'hot buttered neon insanity' comes pretty damn close. ILM is two-for-two this summer between Speed Racer and Iron Man, and all I know is that my eyeballs LOVE those guys. 5 bucks on a Saturday morning matinee with that level of eye candy? Sounds good to me. Doesn't it sound good to you?

Far too often with these kinds of films, the people responsible for them try SO HARD to be as hard-edged and self-important as they can so that the "MAKE IT DARKER!"-spewing fanboys will be attracted and sated, so it was nice to get a break from that and just see some silliness for the sake of being silly. Bottom line - I know what makes me laugh, and a LOT of the comedic pieces in this movie made me do just that. For real. Not in an ironic way, and not in a 'laughing at you, not with you' kind of way, either. I laughed my ass off right alongside all the hipster douchebags like me, all the families with young kids, and a wide assortment of moviegoers of a lot of different ages, too. I know you're not supposed to admit such things these days, but it was fun, dammit! F-U-N. To be quite honest, it's really just a fan-fucking-tastic way to spend two hours, and I don't think that's really anything to be ashamed of.

So go see it, okay? Please? It does NOT deserve all the negative reviews it's getting, and especially not from that prissy little queen Rex Reed. I'm going to see it again this weekend, so if I see you there, gimme a holler and I'll totally smoke you out. Really!