I just got back from a midnight opening screening of Speed Racer, as presented in shiny, glorious IMAX form. I’m a big supporter of the IMAX format, but would it kill them to change their little format demo that plays before each IMAX film one per, oh, I don’t know, decade perhaps? But anyway, I digress…

As a childhood fan of Speed Racer, I was quite interested to hear that the Wachowski Brothers were at work on a big screen adaptation. I’ve got the DVD’s. I know the characters. I love the theme song. Yeah, I’m a fanboy. I’m not a raving Speed Racer fanboy, just a moderate one. After hearing of the plans for the big screen version, I started to think to myself that it might just work under the direction of the Wachowski Bros. But would it still be the Speed Racer that I know and love? After seeing the first teasers, I was convinced they could pull it off. Well, I’m here to tell ya, the absolutely pulled it off. If there’s one work I would choose to describe this movie, it would be “fun.” If it were two words, it would be “spectacular fun.” This movie is just what I would have hoped for, the classic Speed Racer with a huge amount of big budget style and sparkle. The ol’ classic animated series was ambitious in intentions, but just couldn’t pull off quite the level of style that I think they would have loved to do. This film makes up for any of those shortcomings. This is one of those wonderfully rare movies where you just don’t want it to end. And that’s not to say that it’s too short, because this puppy actually clocks in at 129 minutes, and it moves (appropriately) fast for almost all of those 129 minutes.

Writing: Not surprisingly, the Wachowski Bros aren’t just the directors, but the writers as well. Everything about this movie puts forth the notion that these guys are major fans of the classic series. This film is littered with characters and references from the old show. They put their own spin on some of it, but it remains VERY faithful to the source material. While nobody is expecting a contender for best adapted screenplay Oscar here, the scripting actually lays a nice framework, covers a lot of story and character development (with some wonderfully fun editing and flashback transitions) and is quite engaging.

Production: Reality is not a word I would put in a list of descriptive terms for this movie. That’s not a criticism. Reality is absolutely not what they are trying to achieve here. This is an attempt as a stylistic, alternate world. While being primarily grounded in the world of live action, much of the more elaborate elements of the film are perfectly happy feeling more animated or comic in nature. The races aren’t meant to be something one would find believable. Once you let yourself go and join this alternate reality the film presents (which doesn’t take long at all, thanks primarily to the flashback structure of the narrative in the first act), the levels of reality are of no concern. You are then free to enjoy the wild, anything-goes production for all its glory. Numerous collaborators from the Matrix franchise are back, including John Gaeta’s fantastic VFX supervision, Owen Paterson’s captivating production design and Zach Staenberg’s (and Roger Barton) marvelously playful editing. One noteworthy change is the replacement of Bill Pope’s stark cinematography from the Matrix franchise to David Tattersall’s eye-popping visual feast. I don’t think I’d be wandering into hyperbole too much to call this the most colorful movie ever made. This movie will be a major high-def home theater demo disc once it hits Blu-Ray. Everything about this movie just glows in spectacular primary colors. It’s not just the colors, either. Everything has a pristine shine to it, and it radiates in high-contrast flair. It takes all of a few seconds time to realize what a colorful treat you are in for, as the studio logos that open the film are redone in kaleidoscopic visuals.

Cast: There’s nothing to complain about in the casting of this one. Emile Hirsch drops comfortably into the do-good title role. He perfectly balances the earnestness of the character with his more grounded emotional qualities. Christina Ricci plays Trixie for all she’s worth. I’m a big fan of Ricci, and she’s great here. She fully embraces the kind of movie they are making, and has a blast with the throw-back nature of her role. She seems to have the most fun playing with the dialog she gets. John Goodman is brilliantly cast as Pops Racer (there are some truly brilliant moments straight out of the animated series that Goodman fits into with 100% perfection). In terms of perfectly casting the role to capture the animated series, I think Goodman is the most spot-on of the cast. Susan Sarandon keeps things grounded in reality as the concerned mother. Matthew Fox does a fine job with the enigmatic Racer X. Roger Allam has an absolute ball chewing up the scenery as much as possible as Royalton. Then young Paulie Litt gets to go to town playing the comedy as Spridle. Incidentally, they include far more Spridle and Chim Chim material than I would have expected. And they honestly play it for the same level of comedy and absurdity as those characters were used for back in the series. Chim Chim gets plenty of laughs throughout the film. It’s totally goofball fun, and it works. The rest of the cast is populated by actors having fun with their respective roles, including such diverse casting choices as Richard Roundtree.

Music: Michael Giacchino has an absolute blast with the score for this film. He plays around with not just the main theme for Speed Racer all throughout the score, in a great many ways, but even many of the other elements of Nobuyoshi Koshibe’s incidental music from the show. Giacchino’s music is lively, big, fun and full of energy. It’s also in the vast majority of the film. From the comic moments to the massive action sequences, Giacchino is playing it all with the commitment and energy that the rest of the cast and crew are going for. It’s a fantastic score. His rendition of the main theme, which plays over the latter part of the end credits, is absolutely fantastic. It’s my favorite performance of the theme to date. The music over the first half of the credits, however, is the one and only complaint I’ll lay against the film. Ick.

All in all, the Wachowski Bros have pulled off a hugely entertaining piece of PG action movie escapism. I loved it.