osprey_archer | Speed Racer

Thanks to

littlerhymes' encouragement, I did watch Speed Racer after all, and actually it was a lot of fun! Which surprised me, because I remembered the general reaction being pretty negative back when it came out, but maybe people were still expecting/hoping that the Wachowskis were going to make another Matrix and had not yet realized that the only Matrix-like quality most Wachowski movies share is that they are kind of bonkers.

Speed Racer certainly isn't going for philosophical depth. It's going for zany visual style ("Like liquid skittles being poured into your eyes," Julie commented), with interior shots that look pretty much realistic and then you go outside and it's like you've walked into a Sims game. It's computer-generated and it's obviously meant to look computer generated and... it's weird! But it does look cool and it's definitely unique and it ceases to be distracting pretty quickly, actually.

And the racing sequences, of which there are many, are lots of fun. It's like watching someone play a racing video game, except with extra emotional resonance.

It reminded me of The Adventures of Tin-Tin, actually. They've both got their own distinctive animation styles, and they're both about action & adventure & derring-do, and neither one takes itself too seriously - and neither one did that well at the box office, possibly because the source material in both cases is comparatively obscure in the US. Which is too bad! I would have liked sequels to both.