Word: speeded
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...this virtual virtuosity right from the start, in a flashback that shows young Speed (Nicholas Elia) in maybe third grade, bored with and addled by the test paper in front of him. Its complicated questions blur into "blah blah blah" as the boy loses focus; then he daydreams that it reads, "All drivers to your places, please" - and we see a Formula One-type race as it might be animated by an eight-year-old in the corner pages of a flip book. Later, as Speed reaches manhood and drives in "real" races, the visuals get wildly sophisticated...
...entire film exists in another, nether, Never-land where standard narrative and visual decisions are dismissed as way too confining. The location of the Racers' home seems to be in idyllic suburban America, yet Speed's schoolteacher and classmates speak with English accents. The time, never specified, could be today but is emotionally the '50s or early '60s. Mom and Pops Racer's three sons - Rex, Speed and the youngest, Spritle (Paulie Litt) - are each separated by about 15 years. So just never mind that Goodman 55, Sarandon 61, are more likely to be Spritle's grandparents than his parents...
...Wachowskis, and production designer Owen Paterson (who's been with the brothers since The Matrix, and before that dreamed up the chromatic excesses of The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) don't want to evoke feelings so much as visualize them. When young Speed first meets young Trixie, candy hearts and roses bloom around him, illuminating his innocent ardor. The color scheme of the Racer home evokes Pee-wee's Playhouse in its cartoon cheeriness, and the decor is pure '50s Populuxe. Even the choice of wallpaper - cheery flowers in the kitchen, a tangle of rectangles...
...Matrix, the brothers hid allusions to the Bible, Greek mythology and mathematics. If there's any complex philosophy in Speed Racer, it went over my head (probably at the speed of light). Here, the texture is the text, and it's deliriously dense, with more than 2,000 effects shots, often layered on top of each other. The effect, if you get into it, isn't just a store window of technology. It is, as Mom says of Speed's mastery behind the wheel, "inspiring, and beautiful, and everything art should be." That's what the Wachowskis are aiming...
...skid sideways and fly over other cars on stilts. In a reference to the Ben-Hur chariot race, they brandish hubcap spear hooks to disable their opponent's vehicle. And, since the rallies take place in Virtual World, there's no fretting about the waste of fuel. All of Speed Racer is a holiday not only from the gas tax, but from...