Entertainment, Movies - Army Times

Going nowhere — fast

If ever a movie could be said to exhibit acute bipolar disorder, it’s “Speed Racer.”

In the latest big-budget affair from Andy and Larry Wachowski of “The Matrix” fame, racing scenes stuffed to bursting with seizure-inducing blasts of color, sound and motion alternate with long, boring, talky scenes in which the camera barely moves.

This whiplash effect is so intense that “Speed Racer,” based on the cheesy ’60s Japanese cartoon that is a sort of iconic touchstone for the animé craze, is the first film I’ve ever seen that gave me a headache.

To be fair, its look is a hot blast of cool, at least at first. The world of the Racer family — Pops (John Goodman), Mom (Susan Sarandon), oldest son Rex (Scott Porter), middle son Speed (Emile Hirsch), his girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci), youngest son Spritle (Paulie Litt) and pet chimp Chim Chim — exists on some other dimensional plane with its own laws of physics.

The opening race sets the tone, as muscle cars — including the Racers’ Mach 5, driven by Rex — slip and slide on a roller-coaster roadway that looks like a tricked-out Hot Wheels track.

Admittedly, it’s a rush, like being dropped inside a giant video game. But the novelty wears off remarkably fast, mainly because the racing scenes not only are highly repetitive, but move so fast that it’s hard to follow what’s going on.

There isn’t much else to fall back on; for a film that’s all about driving fast, the story stops and starts like a balky ’74 Pinto.

It’s a convoluted mash-up about race-fixing and corporate evil, as the proudly independent Racer family is pressured to sign with a huge conglomerate run by the oily Royalton (Roger Allam).

Speed, Trixie and the clan must team up with the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox), whose identity will be a mystery only to the oblivious, to thwart Royalton and rescue their beloved sport from his greedy grip — a screed against corporate fascism that would be a lot easier to take if it wasn’t being bankrolled by media conglomerate Time Warner.

While this will zip right over the heads of young kids, it isn’t nearly enough to keep grown-ups hooked, especially with dialogue that runs the gamut from banal to vapid. The high point, such as it is, is this exchange:

“Was that a ninja?”

“More like a nonja.”

When you’re reduced to tossing incompetent ninjas into the mix to try and spice up your plot, you’re wheezing to the finish line.

It all devolves into an idea with no place to go, which is a Wachowski weakness. Despite its obsessive cult, “The Matrix” was about 1.2 movies’ worth of idea stretched to diminishing effect across three overlong features.

Similarly, this film grinds on for an abusive 129 minutes, with not one, but two climactic races — each so interminable that you could hit the snack bar, use the rest room, walk around the block and still be back in time for the checkered flag.

“Speed Racer” surely will make animé fans swoon. But from the cheap seats, it feels like an overamped hype job likely to dim that mystical Wachowski aura further.