Ahoy, squirts! Quint here.

Of course I know of SPEED RACER. I knew the song growing up, I knew the iconography. Who didn’t? But I never really followed the cartoon. I’m sure I’ve seen an episode or two, but definitely not recently and when I’d flip by them on TV as a kid I don’t think I stayed to watch.

It just wasn’t my thing. I was never into that kind of animation and wasn’t caught up with cars or racing. Give me mutants, monsters, swords, lightsabers, dogfights, robots and dinosaurs any day over cars.

So when the Wachowskis signed on I was neither excited or upset. I think the first MATRIX is an absolute work of science fiction genius, but didn’t care much for the sequels. No doubt the visual style of the Wachowskis is second to none, but their failings in the sequels had more to do with character work than their visual flair.

So as I entered the theater, off of an amazing run of awesome movies… one I can’t talk about right now, IRON MAN (twice) and PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, I was hoping I’d enjoy the flick.

I did more than enjoy it. I’m amazed at what the Wachowskis have done with this film. It’s a kid’s film through and through, make no mistake. But it’s a kid’s film that succeeded in making me a kid again while watching it. My little brother was with me… he’s 17… not exactly the target audience for the movie, but he said he felt 5 years old again while watching the flick and that’s pretty right on.

The movie is fun and you can tell everybody in the film is having a blast.

The visual style, as witnessed in the trailer, is bizarre. There’s nothing like it. It’s like they figured out how to make celluloid out of melted down Sweet Tarts. You can see the Wachowski fingerprints here and there… in a slow motion shot or in a fight scene… but it’s stylistically about as different from MATRIX as you can get.

The real surprise for me was the incredible heart the film has. The racing is incredible, of course, but the quiet moments were literally a love letter to the family unit. Pops as played by John Goodman, Mom as played by Susan Sarandon, Spritle as played by Paulie Litt, Rex as played by Scott Porter and even Chim-Chim all have their own chemistry that feeds into a loving family.

The film isn’t just a love letter to family, but a valuable lesson on how to treat those that love and support you as well as letting the kids know to look out for those who put on a friendly face when all they want is to use you.

I know I’m going to catch some shit for this, but while I really like INTO THE WILD and think Hirsch is damn good in it, I always thought the adoration for his performance in that was a little over the top. He delivers a good performance, to be sure, but it wasn’t the second coming of Brando that people tried to hype it as when it was released.

I think I prefer his performance in SPEED RACER. It’s a totally different film and he’d never get the same awards attention for a Wachowski kid’s film that he would for a Sean Penn art film, but I think he had a tougher job here. The world is so fucking cartoony and crazy and ADD that if he didn’t ground it with an effortless innocence the family dynamic would not have worked and then we’d be left with hollow spectacle.

I’m sure he shot this movie against a lot of greenscreen and it was probably much more difficult to understand how the Wachowskis were going to edit the footage he shot, so I’m a bit more impressed with what he did here. Crazy, I know. Let the shit-talking begin!

Matthew Fox… this is the first time I’ve seen him ever not be Jack from LOST. He plays Racer X and changes his identity vocally and with body language so I didn’t find myself watching a Lost character in a random movie. He’s very cool in the film and it’s an important step to prove he can go beyond what we know.

Christina Ricci is absolutely adorable as Trixie, Speed’s girlfriend. She has a lot more to do than I thought going in. She’s involved as more than just eye-candy, although I will say I believe there will be a fetishist group that pops up worshipping her and how she looks in this movie.

John Goodman is on fire in this film. He’s so damn good. He’s what could have been a simple one-dimensional character… protective father… but he injects so much personality that when his son is attacked in the middle of the movie and he steps in… the audience was cheering, me along with them.

The movie swept me up. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. The racing is a big part of it. It’s hard to really describe it. It’s a reality with its own gravity and its own rules, but it’s about as far removed from our world as possible. I was actually reminded a lot of TRON during some of these sequences.

Sure, there are color similarities, but the action of an unreal world that somehow enthralls you really had me nostalgic for TRON.

There’s a race in the middle of the movie, a rally, that I consider the best piece of action in the flick. It’s violent, full of cars with horrible gadgets of destruction, and of all the races I think it’s the easiest to follow.

There’s a million bits of information during the track races… lights, crazy winding tracks, dozens and dozens of cars… The rally is a cross country type thing, so you’re able to follow the racing dynamic easier, even if the world is just as stylized. It’s just not as distracting.

There is an ADD quality to this film that will turn some people off and I understand that. It’s an overwhelming experience. I think I’m still processing sequences from the opening race and it’s been 6 hours since I saw it.

There is also a sweetness to this movie that I really grabbed on to and that’s what really impressed me. The action is nuts and cool and spectacular and all, but it was the heart of the film that really hooked me.

This is going to be crack mixed with pixie sticks dissolved in Red Bull for kids. For the adults who can let their inner kid enjoy the flick, it’ll have a similar result. The fact that there’s substance beneath the sugar makes it all the better.

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com