Speed Racer

By: Martyn Pedler
Date: 11th Jun 08
Format: Cinema
Mood: Leave brain at home

WHAT
SPEED RACER

WHEN
JUNE 12

WHERE
EVERYWHERE

WATCH THE TRAILER
HERE

Is SPEED RACER Kubrick's 2001 for kids?

To call its reception ‘lukewarm' is an understatement, and it's easy to see why. It's too child-friendly for adults - the cute-kid-and-monkey comic relief, straight from the cartoon, will set many eyes rolling - but it's also too long and convoluted for kids. It's hubris worthy of Greek myth to make a film entirely about velocity run for a leisurely, sometimes leaden, two hours or more.

These real, glaring problems? They don't matter. Behind SPEED RACER's flat dialogue and clumsy storytelling, there's more life, more joy, more hypodermic-to-the-eye full-tilt kapow than in a half-dozen other blockbusters slapped together.

The Wachowski Brothers gave us bullet-time and flappy black coats, but now they shift gears into bright colours and bizarre designs. Simple cuts are replaced by kaleidoscopic whip-pans. Kinetic energy turns falling snow into anime speed-lines. It's more than just eye-candy. In the final moments, SPEED RACER's visuals fall apart into gorgeous, candified abstractions.

See it if you're curious how far and fast the Wachowskis will go.