WTF?!?: “Speed Racer”

My thoughts after watching Speed Racer:

 

“What the fuck? I mean, seriously, what the fuck did I just see? I think somebody just raped my cerebral cortex.”

 

Now, I’ve never actually had every billboard in Tokyo rammed into my frontal lobes. But I’m pretty sure it’s a lot like watching Speed Racer. The major difference being that Speed Racer is much, much stupider.

 

The fact that regular human beings, let alone the Wachowski Brothers, could author this thing and then, you know, want people to see it is downright befuddling to me. So, I decided to speak to the Wachowski Brothers themselves and get to the bottom of things. What were they trying to do? Why were they trying to do it? Most importantly, why didn’t they realize the movie they made sucked rhino schlong on a windy day?

 

Unfortunately, the Wachowski Brothers are notoriously reclusive and very reticent to comment on their work (they don’t do DVD commentaries), and it’s actually sort of hard to get a decent phone connection out of here. Instead I’ve simply fabricated the entire interview. This is how I imagine the interview would have gone:

 

GunMonkey: Gentlemen, thank you for granting me this interview. Obviously I’d like to talk about Speed Racer.

Andy Wachowski: Dude. Speed Racer kicks ass. We used to watch that as kids.

Larry Wachowski: Oh fuck man! Did you try these fuckin’ ‘shrooms? I’m tripping balls over here!

 

GM: Um, yeah. OK, so Speed Racer. What, ah, what exactly were you going for with that?

AW: Dude. Speed Racer kicks ass. Did you watch that? It kicks ass. It’s not even fuckin’ Speed Racer in Japan. It’s  Mach GoGoGo! Does that not kick ass? Admit that it kicks ass? It’s just like Mach…GoGoGo!

LW: GoGoGoGoGo! Fuck yeah! Fuck yeah! Just fucking go, man! Just fucking go! Go, Speed Racer! Just fucking go!

 

GM: Should he be that close to the ceiling fan? Okay. So, the look of the movie is incredibly stylized. You’ve got camera wipes every thirty seconds and vivid, arresting colors…it’s CGI surreal. And yet it’s in the service of this idiotic plotline…

AW: You don’t fuckin’ get it, man. You’re a square. You don’t understand the power of graphic novels. We’re putting that on the screen, you know?

LW: Oh fuck! The hippopotamus is here! He’s come to judge us!

 

GM: Look, putting aside the whole graphic novel element, this movie is dumber than a box of sticks. I mean, you didn’t just insult my intelligence with this movie, you assaulted it, took its money, beat it into a coma and kicked its dog.

AW: You just CAN’T HANDLE the anime, man! This is it! This is storytelling for the 21st century, and you CAN’T HANDLE IT! We put it up there. On the screen. It makes your penis seem small and so you respond with fear and anger.

LW: I am the aardvark. You must obey the aardvark. OBEY THE AARDVARK!

 

GM: This movie seemed to delve into self-parody in a lot of scenes, including, strangely enough, the fight scenes. As a contrast to the cutting-edge fight scenes in The Matrix trilogy, the fight scenes in Speed Racer were downright cartoony. You piped in Looney Toons-ish sound effects and music. You have one assassin’s pants ripped off revealing polka-dot boxer shorts. And constantly with the fucking kid, Spritle, and his monkey. I mean, it’s almost like you’re daring us to take the movie seriously.

AW: You fuckin’ miss the point man. We got some righteous martial arts in there. Fuckin’ martial arts kick ass man. I’d have martial arts in every fuckin’ movie, man.

LW: “I know kung fu.” Wah! Huh-huh-huh-huh!

 

GM: Okay, well while your brother fights that rubber tree in the corner, maybe you’d want to elaborate a bit on the visual style of the movie. It was very kinetic and stylized. Yet all that stylization drained the race scenes of any suspense. It was like the fight scenes in The Matrix. Once you divorce your action from the laws of reality it ceases to have any real impact. Did that fact occur to you at any point in the making of this movie?

AW: Dude. It looked awesome onscreen. I mean, like, super-banzai awesome.

 

GM: I think I suffered a grand mol seizure during one of the races. Was that the effect you were going for?

AW: Dude. If you ain’t seizin’ we ain’t filmin’!

 

GM: Okay, that doesn’t even make sense. Hey, Larry–I see you lost the fight with the tree—you want to weigh in on any of this? Spit out the tree branch, Larry.

LW: Fuck, man. I am so wasted!

 

GM: Let’s talk actors. How did you persuade Susan Sarandon to appear in this movie? Particularly in such a marginalized role?

AW: Eh. We just said some mean shit about W.

LW: She’s got an awesome rack for an old chick!

 

GM: Speaking of, for guys who created the kick-ass character of Trinity in The Matrix movies, you have absolutely no comparable female characters here. Aside from Trixie the chaste girlfriend, and the supportive mom, all the women are just arm-candy. And, strangely enough, they’re all women of color. It’s like they’re exotic pets or something.

AW: Brown chicks are hot!

LW: No, man. Asian chicks are the best!

AW: No, man. Brown chicks. Like, spicy hot Latinas? And non-urban, unthreatening black chicks? Rock your world, man.

LW: Fuck that! Gimmie some sushi any day! Asian chicks know hot to please their men. They go to special schools for that shit.

 

GM: Okay, quick before any more of my brain cells commit suicide,  what about Spritle? By the end of the movie I wanted to back over him a few times with a back-hoe. Seriously. He was just that freaking annoying. I wanted to sell him to African warlords so they could dope him up and make him a child soldier. How could you guys give him that much screen time?

AW: Is that a question?

 

GM: Yes it’s a goddamn question! About the only character you got right was Trixie, who was played to perfection by Christina Ricci. I especially liked how she said “cool beans.” If I was a rich, reclusive weirdo, I’d make her my personal consort and have her shout “cool beans!” during sex.

AW: Is that a question?

 

GM: Okay, that one wasn’t actually a question. Well, look, the movie’s been a colossal flop. Do you have any concerns about your relationship with Warner Brothers or the various and sundry companies who sunk money into merchandise that’s not going to sell?

AW: We’re fucked.

LW: We are so fucked.

 

So there you have it. Speed Racer is proof positive that maybe not every cartoon/comic/superhero is a natural fit for the big screen. Or at least that if you’re going to try, you may want to tap someone other than a couple of middle-aged comic book geeks to do it.

 

ADDITIONAL NOTE: The year’s only half done, but this is a strong contender for “best bad movie of 2008.”