Karnataka   

Long ride to nowhere

Not much on offer: The busy story loops around itself in a pointless fashion

Speed Racer (English)

Cast: Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox, Ji Hoon Jung

Directors: Larry and Andy Wachowski

As the movie opens with impossibly cheerful colours — the yellow cant be more blinding, the orange more flaming, the pink more candy — you heave a sigh of relief that the makers of “The Matrix” trilogy have traded the greys and blacks of the cyber punk world for a brighter palate.

However, after a point (a fairly short period of time), the colours become too much and retinal fatigue sets in. The busy story that loops around itself in the most irritatingly pointless fashion; the hectic screen with bright, saturated colours; the racers frenetically dashing hither and thither, all combine to make you quite sick. And at the end of an excruciating 135 minutes, you feel just like the child that has been left in a candy store — uncomfortably full with empty calories and dangerously queasy.

Based on a well-loved Japanese animation series of the sixties and the seventies, “Speed Racer” tells the story of a boy called Speed Racer who loves to race. His elder brother is the legendary racer Rex who died under mysterious circumstances.

Pops Racer designs race cars while Mom makes delicious pancakes. Speed crosses swords with the evil megalomaniac corporate head honcho Royalton, and now has to save the family business by driving the meanest race of them all, the Crucible. There is the mysterious Racer X and Taejo Togokhan to stir up the mix. Younger brother Spritle and pet chimpanzee supply unfunny comic relief. Watching money being burnt on screen in the name of special effects is faintly tragic.

Equally heart-breaking is to see actors of the calibre of Christina Ricci as girlfriend Trixie and Susan Sarandon as mom Racer being wasted in such pathetically uni-dimensional characters.

Ditto for Korean pop star Rain as Taejo. Apart from the zany production design, the film offers nothing.

MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER

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