DOWN (Dining Out With Nerds) report: Speed Racer

Remember the Matrix trilogy? (If you haven’t seen it, have the nearest person spank you immediately, then go rent it and watch.) The amazing visual effects, the blurring-together of reality and fantasy, the explosions, the ground-breaking fight scenes? Ever wonder what it would be like if one day the Wachowski brothers said, “Enough of this philosophical stuff! Let’s make a Saturday morning cartoon!”?

Wonder no more. It’s Speed Racer.

Ignore the semi-lame plot. This movie is all about grabbing you by the eyeballs and taking you on a supersonic ride. It’s gorgeous, stunning, hypnotic. It’s the visual equivalent of trying to drink from a firehose, or listening to the 1812 Overture cranked until your speaker covers are buzzing. The fight scenes are rip-offs of the Matrix but funny (watch for the ninja scene). The races are like the Forbidding Highway chase, but longer. The overwhelming speed and flashing scenery occasionally go all the way to psychedelia... and I was loving it.

The plot was pretty simple: our hero, Speed Racer (that’s his name!) stands up to the greedhead corporate powers, who try to crush him, but his family, girlfriend, and chimp have his back. The movie has passion, greed, integrity, betrayal, penguins, family, lust (sort of), all the usual stuff. Acting is more than adequate for the plot. Susan Sarandon looks good, Christina Ricci is the hottest cartoon character I’ve seen in a long time. Emile Hirsch is earnest and handsome. John Goodman... well, he looks like Mario from Donkey Kong. Really. Even the mustache. I don’t know why.

One of our people thought this movie sucked because the plot was cartoonish. Duh! It is a cartoon! And this is from a guy who rushes out to buy the latest direct-to-DVD zombie movie. What’s the plotline, Kenneth? Now admittedly, sometimes I seem to be the only person in the world who likes a particular film, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow being the most obvious example. But that just shows that sometimes everyone else in the world is wrong. This movie was a rush from start to end. I think it could be a classic.