Speed Racer

Elements of a plot: analyse of Speed racer.

When I was told that the movie we were about to watch was made by the Wachowski brothers (Matrix, V for vandetta), the team that did V for vandetta, one of my favourite movies, I was expecting graphic, dark and timeless in a way of the movie was taking place in the past and the future. I was expecting amazement, my expectations about the style were there and still I was really disappoined; I was blind and deaf and had forgotten the title and the topic.  Speed Racer. Adaptation of Mach GoGoGo, the japanese animation that made dream millions of kids around the world, comic about cars and race. Comic for boys as we could call it.

With a budget of 120 000 000$, the Wachowski brothers aimed for a wide audience. They tried to bring together kids who grew up and who were still fan of Speed Racer the comic but also an older audience of people fan of cars and races (on this point, it did not really go well, we could even say that the movie went flat) and families and kids that would love the cartoon/animation aspect of the movie. Most of the budget, I reckon, went to the casting and the editing of the movie. As I repeat it all the time, the casting is the most important part of a movie, the actors are the one that convey to the audience what the directors visualised. They are what the audience sees, they are the ones in the foreground.

With a casting like this one, the movie was expected to be a blockbuster. Emile Hirsch (The girl next Door, Into the wild), after being the geek that manages to get the beautiful girl next door/porn star (Elisa Cuthbert) turns into the sympathic Speed Racer and leads the movie. His youth and innocence reflect the corkyness of the caracter the fans of the comic were expecting. Christina Riccie (Penelope, Sleepy Hallow), Susan Sarandon (Thelma & Louise, Stepmom), John Goodman (Roseanne, Beyond the sea) and Matthew Fox (Lost) join the team to complete the cast.

I did not like the movie itself, however, I did appreciated some aspect of the project; the style and the costumes in particular. We can reconized the unique style of the Wachowski brothers I liked in V for Vandetta and Matrix. However, Speed Racer has this sweet cartoon like style that puts the movie into the family movie genre. The movie has this electric and futuristic style which is inspired by the popart of the sixties. The movie looks like an cartoon motion. It hardly looks like the real world and that is what make it timeless, the movie is a manga itself in a way that besides the actors, the animations and the editing is made just like a manga would be. The cuts were sharp and extremelly well done, mixing race and memories, flashback and tensions. The dexterity showed in the editing is what I liked the most in the movie (which is quite sad because I would rather appreciate the movie itself than its technical aspects).

The movie might not have been appreciated by all and especially not by the Wachowski brothers’ fans who may have expected (like me) a dark blockbuster movie, but as an adaptation of a comic targetting children. It is actually the exact replicate of the comic, sweet but still violent, an anime that conveyed simple messages like moral of doing something we love is more important than winning (Racing in the case of Speed Racer).

The movie Speed Racer, being a movie targetting a popular audience is the perfect example that has the five central elements of a plot. (The movie follows rules that are known by all and help the audience to have a better understanding, a family movie aims to be a movie that gives a good moment and not a headache.) 

As the five elements of a plot, we can find the first element being the believable and sympathic caracter in the person of Speed Racer. I would say that I had more sympathy for the little brother and his chimpanzee but the element being about the lead caracter, Speed is the one so called. The next element is, the urgent difficulty. In this race movie, the difficulty is of course to win the race (I would have said solving the family problem with the death of the brother but I am being too psychological for a family movie or maybe too fast forward, we will talk about this issue as part as a next element). The third element is the failure of solving the problem; which I’d say would be the part when Speed looses the first race and has to find another way to access the final one. The crisis, also called the last chance to win would be (of course) the last race but also the the quest after the truth; Racer X is not Speed’s brother and therefore Speed realise the race is about racing and not winning, thing he wanted to do for his brother. The last element of the plot is the successful resolution. Lacking in time, we missed the end but being a movie for children and family, it is easy to believe that there is a happy ending. Speed wins the race, the bad guys are crashed and loose everything they have, especially their proud, Speed, as the hero of the movie learn something from this experience, he has grown. And of course Speed and Trixie kissed. (It is just few of my predictions but I am almost sure that the medium in me will have an amazing career.)

The movie so called familly movie was nominated by the MTV Movie Award and the Teen Choice Award. The movie had the luck to be directed and produced by the team that made the Matrix trilogy and I think that is the only thing that made the movie get the grade of credit.