 I'm a big fan of The Matrix, like the Wachowskis. They've had a lot of misses, but the hits are beyond anything I could comprehend. The Matrix, the original, is one of the best movies ever made, in my opinion. Sequels, they have their flaws, but still incredible movies, in my opinion. After The Matrix, they moved on to what would be a critical and financial flop called Speed Racer. It's a little film that's garnered a pretty large cult status over the years. People like myself knew what this gem was when it hit theaters, because I was there, begrudgingly there with my wife. If you're a fan of Speed Racer and good movies in general, I encourage you to subscribe before I continue this monologue. The marketing for Speed Racer was not good. It was a disaster. I mean, it's from the Wachowskis. They just got done doing a trilogy of these really bizarre cerebral, deep films full of a lot of leather and action and gun food. So then to go from that to a family film that's popping with color, exploding with color and visuals, to then try to make it seem like it's also edgy and dark like The Matrix, it was just absurd. And that's what those trailers tried to do. I thought it looked terrible, and I was a big fan of the directors. So when I convinced my wife we should just go see it on a whim, we had nothing better to do, we were blown away when it was all said and done. It took a while. It took about 10 minutes to adjust to what they were doing, an anime in live action. It was a true love letter to the animated series, which I didn't really care about. And it was clearly a vision that was brought to life from beginning to end without any studio interference, which I think now gets more rare by the day. The fact that the A had full creative control over this movie was a testament to how much money they brought in for Warner Brothers and how much confidence Warner Brothers had in them, well at least at the time. Now I see again Warner Brothers had the audacity to state whatever Lana Wachowski wants to do next she has carte blanche to do it. She said that after the Matrix 4 was filmed and completed. So where is it? Where is it? Where's Speed Racer 2? I want the announcement is what this is all leading up to. If you haven't seen Speed Racer, what makes it so good? You want the elevator pitch? I'll give it to you. How about the fact that it's like Mario Kart on speed? Just kind of a pun because of speed. Anyway this film is like playing baby park on 150 cc. The visuals come at you from every angle yet you can still somehow make out what everything is. They use the layering technique where they can push and pull different elements in and out of frame like speed's car or a mountain landscape and it shifts in and out. It's wild stuff. They even managed a way to do the cool anime lines when someone's talking on a side profile then it switches to someone else. And the car foo is bonkers. I love it. Matthew Fox as Racer X decking the guy in the face and then gleefully laughing as he pops back down. Speed using his little wheel shield thing to block an incoming attack. And this isn't your typical sports movie where you get one or two games and call it a day. No, there's a wide variety of different tracks that Speed races on. We have the Thunderhead Raceway or the lush vibrant Fuji Halexicon. If you're looking for something slightly more dangerous, head on over to the Grand Prix Coliseum where Jack Cannonball Taylor has won previously twice in a row. Lest I forget to mention the Casa Cristo aka the Crucible, the long-distance all-out warfare of a race that features a deadly desert setting, a high mountain pass, a colorful cave where anything goes and some of the most corrupted mobsters, vikings and pirates this side of Royalton Motors. Maybe you're saying to yourself, hey Adam, I've never played Mario Kart. I don't give a crap about that. Why should I care about Speed Race or still? Well, do you like acting? Do you like actors? Because this movie has a buttload of them. I mentioned Matthew Fox's Racerax. He's phenomenal here. He's never felt more in his element. E-Mile Hirsch has Speed. He's got the look. He has the heart. He has the love for the race. He has it in his eyes. You can see it. How about Christina Ricci? She do anything for you? Wednesday Adams? She does a lot for me. I love her. Trixie? Yeah, yes please. I guess we have also Academy Award winner Susan Sarandon as Speed's mom or, I don't know, Academy Award winner John Goodman. Actually, I don't know if John Goodman is one in Academy. I just assume he has won an award for that because he deserves to. The guy's a legend. These two as the parents, I mean they're the heart and soul of the picture. Everyone actually is. This movie is crammed full of heart and soul. For modern family fans, we also have Ariel Winter in this briefly and a flashback for Trixie when she's younger. So just a little, a little fun Easter egg for you. If you haven't seen the movie, there's something to look forward to. To round out the family, we have Rex Racer, the wise older brother. He's got sage advice to give. We have Sprytal. We got Chim Chim the Monkey because I don't think any family adventure is complete without a monkey in the mix. The critics shit all over this movie. People didn't go out and see it. I have yet to talk to a real life person who's seen Speed Racer who hasn't fallen in love with it. That's the honest to God's truth. Speed Racer is more than just an action adventure film. It's more than your typical rise to fame, rise to stardom adventure. It's more than your typical down on your luck little man taking on Goliath and winning. This isn't that thing. It has all of those features, but it has so much more. And what's really at the center of speed is family. It's remembering your history, remembering your upbringing, remembering those that have fallen before you and have passed on their knowledge to make you the success you are. We see this in the closing of the movie in the final race where Speed is about to blow by the final two contenders and absolutely own this whole thing. This is such an amazing moment in cinema. I just can't praise it enough. Every time I watch it, my eyes well up. I have to wipe away tears. I'm not even shitting you. It's powerful. We get flashbacks to earlier scenes in the movie where the father and the mother talk to Speed about how he takes their breath away as they race. We see him with Rex Racer again. We see him when he's little driving his Criola car around the pages that he's drawn in class because he doesn't give a crap about what they're learning. He just wants to get behind the wheel of a Mach 5. We see him honor his brother Rex when he takes his foot off the gas just enough to secure Rex's overall high score, high lap on that track. The Wachowskis wisely cut to the dad and mom who acknowledge it. They know what he's doing. Even though he's going like a million miles an hour, they could sense he took his foot off just a tiny bit to honor their son. A son who was maligned in the papers, who was treated like the villain because he stood up against the establishment, against the corrupt corporation that's taking over the automobile industry. We see this countlessly throughout the film from different racers who come and go past Speed and the different events he partakes in, just how deep the corruption goes, and how you have to risk everything in order to fight it. Are there silly shenanigans in this? Yeah, of course. There's a kid and a monkey in it after all. They get on a sugar high, they're trashing, the motor industry plays. We have a scene where ninjas try to kill them and the dad's throwing them around because he's a wrestler. It just for all-intensive purposes shouldn't work at all. All these different elements coming together from the over-the-top punchy colors and fake green screen to the insane anime style of moving pictures in and out of focus and out of frame. Why is it so good? How did it work? Well, because there was a clear vision and it just pisses me off that these critics dismissed the movie because they didn't get it. They wanted bullet time, they wanted black shades, they wanted emo angst, and it wasn't here. Outside of a sliver, a tiny portion where Racer X is taking out the mob and it goes into this red view bullet time for about like a split second, and I swear you can hear a little matrix just a little bit of that right there. Just a tip of the hat to what they had previously done. It's all you get. I acknowledge that Speed Racer isn't going to be for everyone, but what I don't like is how people didn't give it a shot. They didn't give it its due, it's respect, and I think it earned it. And I think over time people are starting to wake up to the fact that Speed Racer isn't just a guilty pleasure, but it's a damn good movie. And it deserves a sequel. So with the Matrix 4 coming out, I couldn't be happier. I hope, I wish it all the success in the world, I hope it's great. I hope it really is. And then I want them to look back at Speed Racer and say, you know what? Maybe we give this another shot. Maybe we jump in that car again. Maybe we listen to it, see what it needs, hear what it needs, and fire this engine up one more time for one last ride. If you're a big fan of Speed Racer like I am, let me know in the comments. If you hated the film and think that the critics were spot on, you can also let me know in the comments as well. You're wrong, but I'll allow it. I'll allow it. Subscribe to the channel if you like hearing about movies in a somewhat unconventional way. Like the video if you like Speed Racer. Like the video if you hate Speed Racer too. And hopefully I'll see you next time. If racing's not your thing, there is hand-to-hand combat in this. There's a scene where they fight in a couple of hotel rooms. There's a scene where they fight out in the mountains. They do like zoom-ins where the fists go in by. And then it zooms in again. The guy goes flying backwards. The guy picks up a tommy gun. The dad's throwing people, spinning them in the air. Oh yeah, join me on Patreon at Patreon.com slash Adam Does Movies. You can join for just a dollar or $5 a month or $20 a month depending on what you want to do. They're kicking people. They're punching people. It's a good time. It's a great time.